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Forget the 100W rating… it’s more conservative than the styling and I’d be surprised if it isn’t pumping out far more power than its on-paper specs suggest. Maybe less efficient speakers in larger rooms played at clubby PA levels might elicit a response, but in normal domestic use, this may be a useful under-utilised system. This works dynamically and responds automatically if you get too outlandish with the volume control, although in fairness I didn’t feel the need to go animal enough to trigger the Power Guard. It behaves flawlessly, in part thanks to the company’s Power Guard technology, which compares the input signal with the output to prevent clipping. It has heatsinks along the back of the top of the amp, but doesn’t get that hot.
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In use, once configured to the way you like it (or for that matter left in its factory default), the MA5200 is the perfect house guest. By European standards, although our amplifiers are growing larger with each season, this one’s still an above average amp, but it’s manageable and doesn’t have the grabhandle, hernia-creation build of the really big McIntoshes.
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In this way, it perfectly matches the brand’s SACD/CD players and AM/FM tuners. It is, however, slightly smaller than most McIntosh amps. All from something that could match a McIntosh tuner installed 50 years ago. You can even connect up a turntable (MM only). Balanced inputs, a three input DAC and using the MA5200 as a preamp – it’s yours. Multi-way comms for a multi-room system – you got it. You want to rename, pre-set the level, balance, start volume, information display and the rest for each source – not a problem. You want a cinema pass-through setting – it can be done.
#MCINTOSH MC 250 AMP FULL#
To discuss its full range of options would take up dozens of pages suffice it to say that with the bare minimum of button pressing and that two-deck blue LED read-out in the MA5200’s centre, you can make the glass fronted, chrome bumpered McIntosh perform almost anything audio aside from UPnP streaming and grow a front-mount USB. This is a 100W per channel, extremely full function amplifier by most company’s standards (although almost stripped to the bone by McIntosh levels), with hardly any controls on the front panel, a stack of source inputs and a remote control that can make the MA5200 do anything apart from bark when called. The MA5200 might just be the right nutcracker for the job. It’s the polar opposite of the small, minimalist monochrome understatement of UK products, which might explain why in McIntosh’s worldwide domination, Blighty has always been a tough nut to crack. The one word you can use across the board to describe McIntosh Labs products is ‘big’ big sound, big case, big blue VU meters. The solid build, the bold changing yet changeless styling, the glass front and the blue meters… these all define the McIntosh brand as much as the big, powerful sound. The brand is hugely popular in the United States, but also has a strong following across most of the world. You know where you are with a McIntosh Labs product.