SonicFlare has reviewed the McIntosh Laboratory MA-7000 integrated amplifier ($8,000). This is a monstrous 250WPC unit (photo), with huge aluminum handles and blue power meters.
Reviewer Sean Fowler had this to say on its sound:
Straight out of the box, one of the most standout virtues of the MA7000, aside from its power and fine integration of the main frequency bands, is the amount of detail it effortlessly extracts from a recording. Though its rendering of detail is unquestionably revealing in nature, the MA7000 sounds incredibly smooth on the top end and never dips into the grit and grain territory that plagues many other high end “tell it like it is†components.
He compared the MA7000 to his Karan Acoustic KA I-180 integrated ($10,500):
Keeping it simple, for $2500 more than the MA7000, the Karan KA I-180 will give you stronger bass, a more open and organic sounding midrange, superior linearity, and a wider sound-stage.
Read the entire review.
I have a comment about McIntosh Integrated amplifiers. A friend recently told me that the JUMPER which connects Pre to Power section of Mac Integrated amplifiers is of poor or say ordinary quality and this has an impact on the sound. So he advised me to use a good quality interconnect inplace of supplied Jumpers and see the improvement in sound.
I tried 4 different interconnects on my MA-6600 and all of them sounded much better then the Jumper. Namely the ICs were Kimber Hero with Silver bullet plugs,Oyaide, Furutech, and Cardas Golden reference.
All the IC’s sounded better than Jumper but CARDAS Golden Reference was the best and much better then rest of IC’s.
I will therefore request members using various models of McIntosh integrated amplifier to try this and see if they can benefit from this small change of cables.
May be we can get even more improvement from some other cable not tested by me
Santosh
Actually I found the exactly issue that the MA7000 JUMPER sounds… very harsh and lack of bass in most music,, and so I changed it to just a regular monster rca cable and the mid range and bass just came alive! so I am going to try to the MIT shotgun 3.3 later this week and I will let you know how it works, and I believe the Cardas is great as well!
Jackson
I highly recommend the replacement of the MA-7000 jumpers between pre- and main amp. Personally, I used a Kimber KS1036 and the result is so overwhelmingly good that I ask myself: Why does McIntosh do not take advantage from our response. They should ship the MA-7000 with Kimber KS1036 on a regular basis. The ordinary sound bridge lowers McIntosh’s potential.
Check it out!
Sidonie
Hello Sidonie,
I’am interested by your report about the kable KS1036,
I’am gona buy the MA 7000 and wouldlike to do the same,
May you send me photos how to conect it !!
Thanks.
Jerome from France.
MA 7000, when turn volumn to min, the sound of music remain heard on speakers connecting to.
Why?