Astounding sound… But at what price?
I recently attended a listening demo of McIntosh stereo HiFi gear, which was hooked up to a pair of Sonus faber speakers – the Ferraris of the audio world.
The 50-minute demo comprised of a running slide show and spoken history of the McIntosh company, interspersed with short audio breaks of music selected to show off this high-end system at it’s best. One track: ‘Roll the Dice‘ by Shy FX, whilst not my kind of thing, was utterly gobsmacking. The high-res audio signal that was being streamed to the system via the Tidal service made the Sonus faber speakers send the bass thudding through my chest and turned my legs to jelly. It’s a good job I was sitting down.
At the end of the demo I got to listen a track of my choice. I went for something a bit more ‘me’… ‘Gadaar‘ by Indian bhangra-metal band Bloodywood. This was less impressive, probably because it hadn’t been specifically selected to give the system a good work-out.
The complete showcase system comprised of :
- McIntosh C2800 tube amplifier £12,000
- McIntosh MC462 power amplifier £13,500
- McIntosh DS200 streamer £5,890
- Sonus faber Amati speakers £33,000
- TOTAL: £64,390
Now, my system’s no Amstrad slouch, currently comprising of…
- Denon AVR-X2400H AV receiver £375
- WiiM Pro streamer £149
- Klipsch R-605FA speakers £906
- TOTAL: £1,430
That makes the McIntosh system over 45 times more expensive than my own!
When I got home, I sparked up my kit and played the two tracks mentioned above to see if I hear any difference. Again fed with a hi-res stream, this time from Qobuz. Playing the Shy FX track first, the difference was utterly day-and-night. The bass, although present in good quantity, was nowhere near as window-rattling as I’d heard from the Sonus speakers.
I played the Bloodywood track next and yes, I realise it wasn’t a side-by-side comparison, but I couldn’t discern any real difference between the two systems. This was probably down to a combination of the nature of the music and the mix/production of the said track. However, seeing as I mostly listen to rock/metal 95% of the time I’m pretty happy to stick with what I have, and save me the extra £63k while I’m at it!
Oh, and there were some tasty accessories on display too… How about £2,400 for a six-way power extension or £3,600 for a pair of 3m speaker cables?
Of course, any music lover would like ownership of a system of this calibre, yet it’s cost (equivalent to three new decent family cars) makes it prohibitive to all of us sensible folk, apart the most fanatical audiophiles among us. But we can all dream, can’t we?
*UPDATE 9/6/25:
I re-visited my own music setup after this review. In my Denon amp audio settings for stereo playback I changed the subwoofer option to ‘on’, thereby adding my Klipsch R-121SW subwoofer (cost: around £400) to the stereo mix and – WOW! what a difference! Playing the aforementioned Shy FX track, it became much closer to the sound I had previously heard from the Sonus fabers. Certainly not as tight and definitely a bit ‘woolier’, but I’m sure that’s something I can tweak using crossover and EQ settings over time.
It made me realise that my own fairly modest setup was even better value for money than I thought.
CREDIT:
The demo took place at the Nottingham HiFi Centre. Thanks to them for their hospitality.
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