On the subject of owning expensive audio gear -
Having sampled the joys of KT-88 valves thanks to the Quad II-Forty mono-blocks I’d owned for several years I really wanted to see what they could achieve in a more powerful amplifier. In 2002 I became aware of a great deal of fuss that was being made about McIntosh's return to a long term commitment to a new range of valve products with the introduction of the M2102 stereo 100Wpc power amp and C2200 control amplifier. I'd really only been peripherally aware of the McIntosh brand (as the one supposedly much beloved of doctors and dentists in the US) and did some homework to discover their long tradition and almost unique complete in-house manufacturing capability in New York. The power amp received rave reviews in the US and was also highly praised when made available here in the UK. The MC2102 was visually stunning with its eight KT-88's mounted on a stainless steel chassis and viewable through a clear window in its solid glass front panel with its big blue power meters - so I eagerly sort a demonstration at one of the country's few McIntosh dealers. In the flesh the amplifier was truly imposing, beautifully made and looked like a great piece of engineering.
It produced an equally imposing sound with seemingly limitless amounts of power to call on - I spent a couple of hours enthralled by the sheer scale of its presentation and despite an asking price of £6,500 in early 2003 it sold itself! I also played with the C2200 pre-amp at the same session but the purchase of both would have sent the credit card into meltdown! When the MC2102 arrived I suddenly realised how big it was as the huge wooden packing crate could barely fit through the front door and the amp itself was a two man lift! Once installed it was quite spectacular both visually and aurally. It was completely fuss free and totally silent both mechanically and at the speakers. In fact in practically all respects, apart from giving off a furnace like heat from 8 KT88's it was like a very fine, very powerful solid state amplifier. It was detailed and revealing with faultless bass reach and was completely incapable of being stressed. It was a hugely impressive statement of how valves could match solid state performance. That of course for me was also it’s Achilles' heel - it was just too much like a very good solid state amp, which rather defeated the point really!
I kept it for several years because by no stretch of the imagination could it be called a poor amplifier (indeed in absolute terms it may well have been the best I've ever owned) and it did give me many hours of great music. I'd be reluctant to call it 'sterile’ (perhaps neutral would be fairer) but It just that it wasn't really like a properly euphonic valve amp! Ultimately this view, combined with a niggle regarding the constant failure of the filament bulbs that illuminated that glass front panel and meters and were impossibly difficult to replace, suggested that it would ultimately have to go. Its sheer 42kg bulk also made it somewhat impractical in the domestic environment as no one person could shift it (let alone invert it to get at the retaining screws necessary to release the front panel to begin the lengthy process of replacing frequently failing bulbs!).
Although I couldn't quite afford it at the time I'd enjoyed playing with the features of the C2200 pre-amp when I went to audition the power amp it seemed the natural pairing (indeed the common view rapidly became that this was one of the best pre-amps ever made in the US). So, after a bit more scrimping and saving, later in 2003 I managed to get one for £5,000. The C2200 was a very large (bigger than many integrated amps), full function pre-amp (or control amp as McIntosh refer to it) with lots of knobs, a digital display, VU meters and a welter of remote controllable functions afforded by microprocessor control.
The audio circuitry comprised a four valve line stage and a four valve phono stage with RCA and balanced XLR inputs and outputs (I used the balanced outputs to drive the MC2102, but frankly could discern no difference over the use of single ended links – but probably not surprising over just a couple of metres of cable). The signal path was entirely valve, although there was a curious digitally controlled resistive ladder network that formed the volume control (which you could hear operating as a series of steps if adjusting it whilst playing a single test tone from a CD - very odd). I had problems with this pre-amp from day one when all kinds of buzzes and hums were apparent - obviously caused by the valves being loose in their sockets!
I've never seen anything like this before, but it seemed that the sockets were out of tolerance and would just not grip the valve pins (how did it pass factory test you might well ask?). It had to go back to the distributor to have eight new sockets fitted (actually I don’t know how I was talked into this as at this price I should certainly have demanded a new, replacement unit!). The micro-processor was rather idiosyncratic and would often need a master reset for no apparent reason. The glass front panel was lit with a myriad of filament bulbs (the bane of my life!) lighting both the meters and panel legends. With its old-school sixties styling it looked quite impressive (in a Blackpool illuminations sort of way) when all of the bulbs worked, but they rarely did. Why they chose to fit bulbs to this product is a mystery, high brightness LED were obviously available at the time it was designed. I gave up trying to change them and thankfully a third party modification became available some years later which replaced them with LEDs and transformed the look of the whole thing. Mind you, that kit cost $US 250!
I guess we got off on a bad footing, but I don't know why this product was raved about quite as much as it was. It was overly complex and not entirely reliable in my experience (and despite McIntosh's much heralded quality did not seem particularly well made internally). Depending on what valves you fitted it would sound pretty transparent - but so do many pre-amps at a small fraction of its asking price. I gave this one up when I also got rid of the MC2102 (both sold to a dealer some years later), but it had been an interesting relationship and much had been learned. I was not particularly sorry to see them go. I came to the personal conclusion that a lot of McIntosh equipment is overpriced (a classic example perhaps of ‘paying for the name’). Unfortunately, outside of the mainland US and its service centre, you are entirely at the mercy of local distributors (who may or may not have any ability to repair and maintain such complex equipment). Moral – all that glisters is not necessarily gold.
