Paul McGowan’s Post: More Than Enough

Mcintosh is known for squashing dynamics. So you won't see it on the meter. LOL

Guys it’s bad to trash legacy amps lol. Mac amps have sound many love like pass amps too.
I like the sound of SS amps but do use a tube dac so I get a bit of tubby fix

Jeffy said:

Mcintosh is known for squashing dynamics. So you won't see it on the meter. LOL

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I guess the main point was that the power was quite a bit lower than what one might expect...but that is because power to SPL is not a linear relationship and people are often overestimating what they use.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/understanding-mcintosh-meters

Power meters that show true power need to monitor current, voltage and even phase angle at the output. Most power meters on stereo equipment apparently just take a voltage from somewhere in the driver circuitry and make assumptions about the output i.e. 8 ohms.

Power meters are eye candy. Ken Rockwell measured some older equipment with power meters and found that they are only vaguely accurate around 10 watts RMS into 8 ohms, but tend to overestimate by 50 to 100 percent or more when reading peaks.

So, I guess if a power meter bounces high, it's more because it looks cool than has any relevance to actual power output. They can still show, however, that most routine program material remains at very low power i.e. watts to fractions of watt.

I still kind of like them and use them as general guides while listening.

You aren't gonna take away guys' monster amps any more than you're gonna take away their monster trucks. Damn the sound quality, excess rules!

cjfrbw said:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/understanding-mcintosh-meters

You aren't gonna take away guys' monster amps any more than you're gonna take away their monster trucks. Damn the sound quality, excess rules!

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One must learn that there are ways to increase the SQ in high powered SS systems. How I learned to live with and love the Bomb