McIntosh Labs MA352

Many are fascinated by the sonic charms of valve amplifiers, and I am among them. However, a single-ended valve amp pushing out 10 watts may not be up to the task of driving inefficient or ‘difficult’ loudspeakers—and certainly not at high levels in a large room. Enter the McIntosh Labs MA352, one of a growing breed of hybrid amplifiers.

These amps attempt to offer the best of both worlds, often combining a valve preamplifier stage with a transistor power amp.

US company McIntosh has an impeccable pedigree, introducing its 50W-1 valve power amplifier in 1949. That was the year Frank McIntosh and Gordon Gow founded the company in Silver Springs, Maryland. It moved to its current factory in Binghamton, NY, in 1951. The company’s current CEO, Charlie Randall, has been with McIntosh Labs for the longest time. He is one of those super-energised, super-enthusiastic people who keep driving what could be a very brand ever forward.

Huge range

McIntosh manufactures a wide range of products, from phono stages and headphone amps to turntables and DACs. However, it is best known for its amplifiers. The company makes all its amplifiers in-house, from the sheet metalwork for the cases to flow soldering the circuit boards and winding its transformers.

The McIntosh Labs MA352 hybrid integrated amplifier sells for £8,995 ($7,000) and uses a valve preamp and transistor power amp stage. It is an impressively solid piece of kit, weighing in at 30kg, so lift carefully! It has a high-quality chromed stainless-steel chassis. The large, raised section at the rear houses the power amps. You might guess this from the massive heatsinks down the side. This has a glass-fronted display panel that sports two of its signature blue VU power meters and an information display that shows the input selected and the volume setting.

The MA352 has a rotary knob on the far left of the chassis at the front for input selection. There’s a matching one on the far right to switch it on and off and adjust the volume. In between those are the five smaller knobs that control the in-built five-band graphic equaliser. These operate at centre frequencies of 30Hz, 125Hz, 500Hz, 2kHz and 10kHz, with each providing a whopping ±12dB of adjustment. Thankfully, they default to being out of the circuit, and you need to switch them in on purpose using the remote control. I have never felt a need for such things and left them out of the circuit for all my listening. Switch them back on using the remote control for those who wish to play. There is also a headphone jack on the front panel.

Remote power

The remote control alone controls channel balance, mono/stereo, and the capacitive load for the phono stage. Its range of adjustment is between 50pF and 800pF.

The rear panel has four unbalanced RCA line-level inputs, one phono input (MM), and four balanced XLR sockets. Balanced inputs usually offer a worthwhile sonic improvement over unbalanced inputs, which proved the case during my listening tests. There are also preamp and subwoofer output sockets, plus data ports for remote control of other components. One set of gold-plated speaker binding posts is provided.

The valves are mounted towards the front of the chassis. To fend off curious little fingers, they have metal guards that slot in around them. The MA352 preamplifier section uses two 12AX7A and two 12AT7 valves. These are illuminated from underneath. An orange glow signifies that they are in warm-up mode. The valves are ready for action when ‘orange’ turns ‘green’. These will also switch back to orange in the unlikely and frankly mind-boggling event that the amp should start clipping.

Substantial

The MA352’s quoted power output is very substantial: 200 watts into eight ohms and 320 watts into four ohms. I never had cause to doubt that it had more than enough driving power for any speaker you could throw at it.

To listen to what the McIntosh Labs MA352 could do, I connected it up to two different systems, one with an Innuos Statement streamer/Meitner MA3 DAC front end through Russell K. 150 speakers and the other using an Audio Note TT3 turntable with Arm Two/Io1 and S9 transformer and Audio Note CDT-Five CD transport and DAC Five Special DAC, both with Russell K. 120Se speakers. I also had to hand a well-respected, similarly priced, high-power transistor-only amp that would prove a valuable benchmark to assess where this McIntosh indeed sits in the market.

Start with a line

Let’s start with line-level inputs and streaming through the Innuos system. I played ‘Smiles And Smiles to Go’ from Larry Carlton’s superb Alone But Never Alone album to kick off. The drums and percussion had a snappy and dynamic quality that impressed me immediately. At the same time, the bass line was tight and easy to follow, driving the track along forcefully. Carlton’s guitar had good leading-edge detail, allowing me to hear how each note was being played better than the pure-transistor amp. The McIntosh was pacey, fast, tight, and tuneful.

Still streaming, I tried the superbly emotive and moody ‘Racing in the Streets’ from Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. The piano on the intro had grace, while Springsteen’s vocals were packed with emotion. The body and presence were tight and explosive, and when the bass line came in, it had weight, power, and movement. I felt that the pure transistor amp did not have the emotion and impact of the McIntosh.

Songbird

Next, I played another emotion-packed song, the sublime ‘Songbird’, performed by Christine McVie on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. I remember watching the BBC documentary on the making of this legendary album and Lindsay Buckingham describing how it was just McVie on stage in a church with only the recording crew in attendance. He recalled how there wasn’t a dry eye in the house at the end of it! 

I am pleased to say that the McIntosh Labs MA352 did not let Christine McVie down and conveyed the emotional impact of the performance well. It captured the nuances of her vocals and the piano’s body and gave a good impression of the recording venue. 

Switching to the CD source and playing ‘Never Too Far to Fall’ from George Benson’s In Your Eyes album, the McIntosh acquitted itself creditably. It conveyed the track’s layers of vocals and rhythmic impetus well and kept all of the instrumental layers nicely separated.

Groovin’

I then played the title track from one of my favourite Peter White albums, Groovin’, which is White’s cover of the old Johnny Nash classic, ‘I Can See Clearly Now’. On this, McIntosh handled White’s guitar well, capturing its character and the nuances of his play. The reggae-style bass line moved along nicely, with reasonable control and tunefulness. It was also good to hear things like the accordion not getting lost.

‘Sunny Side of the Street’ from Ben Sidran’s Enivré d’Amour was next. I know this track well and can tell you that the McIntosh did not disgrace itself here, with a tight and weighty bass line, great openness and articulation on vocals and a good ‘walk’ to the rhythm. Sidran’s vocals never appeared to shout, and on balance, I enjoyed what the McIntosh Labs MA352 did with the track.

Since a phono input is provided, it would have been remiss of me not to try it. So I used another track from Larry Carlton, his cover of the classic ‘Minute by Minute’ initially released by The Doobie Brothers. Here, McIntosh conveyed the ebb and flow and weight and precision of the bass line well, as well as the skill of Carlton’s guitar play and the nuances of his technique. The MA352 also, I felt, provided an accurate representation of the qualitative differences between the streaming, CD and vinyl sources.

I quickly hooked up some Focal Clear headphones for a brief listen and can report that the MA352 did a very decent job and drove the Focals well. OK, so if you spend several hundred pounds on a separate, dedicated headphone amp, you will doubtless gain an improvement. Still, the McIntosh turned in a perfectly acceptable performance straight out of the box.

Enjoyable

I enjoyed my time with the McIntosh Labs MA352 very much. It turned in a well-balanced, musical, dynamic, and detailed performance. And it did so without any objectionable flaws or defects, letting the side down. 

I have listened to a few hybrid integrated amplifiers recently. Undoubtedly, they have generally proved to be an improvement over those comparably-priced entirely transistor competitors I have put them alongside. 

The McIntosh retains a valve design’s sweetness, seductiveness, and emotive impact. That’s backed up by a transistor power stage’s heft and driving power. At this price, you’d be crazy not to put it on your shortlist. 

We want to thank McIntosh retailer Home Media in Maidstone, Kent, for their assistance during this review.

Technical specifications

• Type: Hybrid valve/solid-state integrated amplifier 
• Power output: 200 watts into 8 ohms, 320 watts into 4 ohms
• Valve complement: 2 x 12AX7A, 2 x 12AT7
• Inputs: 4 x unbalanced RCA line level, 1 x RCA phono (MM), 2 x balanced XLR line level
• Frequency response: 10Hz-100kHz +0/-3dB
• Total harmonic distortion: 0.03% from 250mW to rated power
• Signal-to-noise ratio Line: 93dB below rated output. Phono: 82dB below 5mV input
• Input impedance: Line level 20k ohms, phono 47k ohms
• Headphone impedance: 100 to 600 ohms
• Dimensions (HxWxD): 251mm x 445mm x 521mm
• Weight: 29.9kg
• Price: £8,995, $7,000 

Manufacturer

McIntosh Labs

www.mcintoshlabs.com

UK distributor

Fine Sounds UK

finesounds.uk

+44(0)1592 744710

More from McIntosh Labs

Back to Reviews