Speaker Asylum General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

---

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Speaker Asylum ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

RE: The old McIntosh XR series

Posted by Macncheez (A) on July 26, 2016 at 12:43:27

In Reply to: RE: The old McIntosh XR series posted by eleiko2@verizon.net on July 26, 2016 at 10:50:07:

My experience is very different than what has been written here. The McIntosh XR series was manufactured to be used in conjunction with an equalizer that McIntosh produced. I owned XR5's for 20 years and for the first 5 of those years I didn't use the equalizer. I then found out how good they could sound when the EQ was added. Most people didn't have the associated EQ and have developed an opinion without having all the facts. AA seems to attract the McIntosh haters crowd and that's a shame. Most people would love to own McIntosh they just don't want to pony up for it and I think they compensate by bashing it. I had a pair of Rectilinear III's and AR3a's as well during this timeframe. The speakers were driven by other McIntosh equipment (Mc2125 and C27). There is no doubt that for most music the McIntosh speakers were clearly superior and I could A/B two sets at a time. Wasn't close. Their strengths where in their ability to deliver astonishing SPL's, solid deep bass and they were fun to listen to, never fatiguing. And they never, ever sounded "bright". They were incredible "solid" sounding and never "strained or etched". The AR3's (still have them) were better for Jazz only, but IMHO terrible with rock music. They were also fragile, especially the tweeters. Aside from the AR3's historical significance, I'd take the XR5's any day. The XR7's mentioned in the post were just "grand". Certainly not speakers for everyone, but they don't deserve the bashing in the previous posts. I

Oh and by the way, it's obvious from these pages that McIntosh knew little about speaker design.

http://www.roger-russell.com/lsd1.htm
http://www.roger-russell.com/lsd2.htm

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Schiit Audio

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---