Mcintosh mc 250 vs 2100 driver#

The tube cage, formerly of fine mesh with solid ends, now has larger perforations and slotted ends, to allow more even ventilation. The chassis, once chrome-plated steel bent to shape (and thus prone to cracks and rust), is now highly polished stainless steel.

Mcintosh mc 250 vs 2100 driver#

In the original and all subsequent versions of the MC275, including this one, a third winding is connected to the plates of the cathode follower driver this was said to extend the ultra-low distortion over a much greater bandwidth, especially into the high frequencies.ДЄlso like the original, the new MC275 uses four KT88 power-output tubes, three 12AX7A input and phase-inverter tubes, and four 12AT7 voltage-amplifier and driver tubes.ДЄll else, though, is different from the original, to varying degrees. This creates almost instantaneous local feedback, which is said to reduce distortion. The two primary strandsВ—one connected through the power supply to the plate and cathode of one of the output tubes, the other connected in the same manner to the other tubeВ—are tightly wound together, turn for turn, for complete magnetic coupling. The MC275's transformers utilize the same 'unity-coupled circuit' that McIntosh invented in 1947. The new wiring is still copper, but it's insulated with a far more durable synthetic material. The wire in the old transformers was made of lacquered copper, which tended to harden and become brittle. Much of that heft comes from the two output transformers, which are, with the exception of one quality, identical to the original's, even to the point of being wound on the same equipment at McIntosh's production facility in Binghamton, New York. Like the MC275 of yore, the current model is rated at 75Wpc (though McIntosh Labs' tech man, Chuck Hinton, says it can actually pump out 90Wpc), and it weighs the same 67 lbs. Looks, of course, can be deceiving or revealing in this case, they're a bit of both. The present version of the MC275 is its fifth incarnation, though it looks strikingly (and, for retro-cool's sake, deliberately) similar. To everyone's surprise, that edition sold well, and McIntosh, gingerly at first, crept back into the tube business. The MC275 briefly returned in 1993, in a limited 'Commemorative' edition to honor the late Gordon Gow, longtime president and chief designer of McIntosh Labs. Introduced in 1961 as the 'powerhouse' of that era's newfangled stereo tube amps ( two 75W amplifiers in one chassis!), the MC275 retained its position as the amplifier to ownВ—challenged only, perhaps, by Marantz and a few othersВ—until 1970, when it fell prey to the widespread wisdom that transistors were king and tubes were dead, and the model was discontinued. It's been a while since I've had a classic amplifier in my system, and McIntosh Laboratory's MC275 is as classic as they come.