2. amps-preamps
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How about Mac and Accuphase

I have a Mac 220 preamp and an Accuphase A20 power amp, great synergy with dual concentric Tannoys. I will always have the A20, it has a very sweet sound. If I could afford it, I would replace the Mac preamp with a used Accuphase C2800 or C2810 with phono. Mac makes nice gear, Accuphase is much better built, though. Too bad that the North American Accuphase is so greedy, the prices in Japan are less than half, too bad that the voltage is 100 and that the Asian units are champagne gold.
Has anybody ever imported a Japanese Accuphase and converted the unit to 120V?
damjammer
islandmandan
848 posts
 
With my 12" Tannoys, I use a tranformer-based passive line stage, and an SET 300B amp. I have used several different types of amps, but this is the hands-down winner.

The nice thing is, I bought the amp used for under $800, and had the caps and resistors upgraded, still under $1500, for the best sounding match I've found.

Different approach, lots of ways to skin the audio cat, just something to think about.

Regards,
Dan
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,502 posts
 
Here is a great story if you are an Accuphase fan. An A'gon member here told me this story over e-mail and I figure I'd share it. Some have regarded Accuphase as the Japanese McIntosh.

"Since I had worked in the industry, when my Accuphase P300 failed, I knew the rep and went directly to the TEAC out repair center in LA. An output transistor had failed. They did not just replace the transistor, but also “matched beta’s”. Basically they made sure that all the output transistors were with an extremely tight tolerance of each other in the Accuphase P300.

A few months later a high end McIntosh dealer was having an “amp clinic” with a MacIntosh tech and testing equipment directly from MacIntosh. When they saw my JapanMac they openly said they had tested many, and the specs were not that great.

They set everything up and tested it, fully confident that they were going to show me how bad the P300 was. As the tech continued to run through the tests he became more and more amazed. Not only could he NOT show me how bad it was, but it more than met every single McIntosh spec. When he was finished he said “you have a really good amp there”. I never mentioned that the output transistors had been hand matched. I left them all with “egg on their faces”."
dave_72
1,399 posts
 
Accuphase is great stuff, and yes sadly it is overpriced outside of Asia. Why exactly I don't know. I've been given more than one song and dance on this subject.

Anyway, I would say Accuphase beats McIntosh too. But McIntosh is probably better value for the money as the prices here in the US are not nearly as high as Accuphase is. However, if you want the best build and performance, go with Accuphase. Even if it's the entry level stuff.
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