McIntosh MC501 or Audio Research DS450M for Magnepan 1.7

There willl be no problem with regard to input as the ARC owners manual states:

OUTPUT IMPEDANCE:700 ohms Balanced, 350 ohms SE Main (2), 20K ohms minimum load and 2000pF maximum capacitance. Outputs (3): 2 Main, 1 Record (XLR and RCA connectors).

You can use the 10K input on the MAC (rca) or the 20K (XLR) the ARC will output well within range for great synergy...14X for the XLR input and 28X for the RCA. (10,000 amps input (se) divided by 350 (output of pre) is 28, as long as it’s 10 times or greater your good :-) The OP may want to consider RCA’s between the amps but XLR’s will work great as well.

ARC tube pre amp with a SS MAC amp is incredible sounding.

Matt M

Thank you so much fo your kind responses!

kinda like when IBM sold big blue mainframes..

” nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM “... ditto for the big blue meters...

i currently own   just 4 Mcintosh components, so take my comments  with a grain of salt....do you like the sound of those autoformers ?
you do have other choices in brick S house build quality - Bryston was named - so just be sure to check them out....

i agree the DSM-450 not the amp, i gave it 30 minutes driving Vandersteen 7 and it had been on for days.....lots of bang for buck....but.....

I was considering Mcintosh for my Maggie's  called several McI dealers and they said autoformer would not mate well with Maggie's. You would need to have 500 watts or more which I quess is what you are looking at.
Which amp did you end up with and how is it going?

I went with a ARC D200 power amp to drive my Maggie MMGs pairing it with a ARC LS25 mkI. Sounds wonder and very dynamic presentation. I would say look for a ARC D400 with was in its day their best SS amp.