McIntosh Speakers ???

[YardCrap 60]

I recently became the owner of new speakers.  I am speaker poor as I believe good sound and different sound starts at the speaker.  It is fun to talk cables, amps and WTF, but in my experience, speakers make the biggest difference, and not a small difference. For most improvements (?) you need a blind test, not so much with speakers .     I have a lot of excellent speakers, Carver, Gallo, Polk, Def Teck, etc.

 

My new toys are McIntosh XRT-28.

 

 

 

I am not saying these would be your choice, but I was willing to pay for the sound they make.

I already have great speakers, so WTF?

 

These are greedy speakers.  They take 1200 watts @4ohms.  I suspect the few reviewers of them lacked the power to make them shine.  Thanks to my buddy Bob, am running them with two SunFire 600X2 amps putting 2400watts to each at 4ohm.  That is important as the woofers need power to perform.  BASS needs power.

 

All of us love the crap we have.

Trying to put that to the side and look at these in a neutral way -- I would say:

 

 

I have never in life heard anything nearly as good.

[SteveFord 1,127]

If they sound as good as they look you've got it made.

[danowood 2,167]

Impressive looking.  WOW power hungry, wonder what the power requirements would have been if they would have been an 8ohm system. They are rich looking for sure.

[B-Man 4,781]

Congrats on the new speakers. I bet they are awesome !!!

 

I've always held McIntosh equipment in high esteem. I lived in Tampa and for many years the largest volume McIntosh dealer in the US was there - Stereo by Maurice.

 

I was exposed to serious quality equipment there in the late 70's thru the mid 80's. Very impressive equipment - solid specs, built to last a lifetime.

 

I once saw a demo there that always stuck with me: They had a signal generator set to 60 hz, connected to a MC2500 amp. They had the output of that amp connected to a VOM and a Kirby upright vacuum cleaner. They turned it all on, set the output voltage to 110VAC and switched the vacuum cleaner on and vacuumed the showroom area, all the while allowing folks to touch the amp (to feel it wasn't too hot) and look at the VOM to see that the output voltage wasn't sagging significantly. Some of these demos would run for 10 - 15 minutes to demostrate the thermal capacity of the amplifier chassis and design.

 

It was a strange demo for audio gear, but it did show the sheer output capacity of the amplifier.

 

If I remember correctly, they had that amp connected to a pair of XR 22s or something along those lines. Unbelievable sound, even if the price tags were equally unbelievable.

 

I was lucky enough to meet Gordon Gow, Julian Hirsch, Frank McIntosh, etc. in that store. Maurice was a financial guy for McIntosh back in the day and it was his store I visited so often in Tampa. They used to sponsor clinics where you could bring in any gear and they would test it and give you a report on the performance of your equipment. They also tuned up McIntosh gear at no charge to the owners.

 

Don't think I'll see anything like that ever again.... 

[Gene C 1,748]

Those are some sweet speakers YardCrap! Had to look the manual over because I was wondering if they ran at 2 ohms as well. Guess not and that's good for you but noticed you can tri amp them? Holy smokes! Those things gotta sound real good, very cool.   

[PDR 1,194]

Ah yes, hoarding audio gear.....your prob the only one here that does that......

 

It weird isnt it.....a guy has more than plenty, but that doesn't stop him from loading up the pick-up when

he finds a deal.

 

Those are fine looking arrays 00, I heard a pair a few years ago in Vancouver, they were cranking and sounding

good......cant remember what was driving them.

They look a lot like my arrays with the double row of drivers flanking the tweets.

Enjoy them!! 

[snow 240]

Congrats on the new speakers they look awesome.

 

 

 

 

REGARDS SNOW 

[TNRabbit 371]

I heard a pair being driven by 2 Mac 1kW monoblocs last year. One word: PHENOMENAL.

[helicopter pilot doug 110]

Very nice Bill!!!  Those speakers look AWESOME!!!  I'll bet they sound awesome too!  All I need to do is win Mega Millions, Power ball, or Lotto Texas, then I can afford a pair of them!!  

[sanford lindstrom 35]

Congrads.

 

I trust they sound better than they look and they look great!!

 

Wish I could hear them.

 

Enjoy!!

[BarryG 2,853]

Very nice addition.  Looks like a great speaker, glad you have the power to drive them.  I bet they sound great when you crank them.

[Ratamahatta 437]

Those look beastly, I bet they sound out of this world too. Did you have to give your first born child for them? lol