McIntosh MC 275 - what generation is better

Hello ottablu, yes I spent a year with MkVI but decided to part with it. I used it with Mac C22 preamp and Focal Electra 1028BEs. It does have tremendous bass which is one of the most important issues for those who want to use tubes and listening mostly to blues or hard rock. Still it lacked dynamic, or speed, or punch - whatever one calls it - of SS amps. It was so obvious when I hooked up the SS amp to my system that I decided to stay with the letter. So for now this combination of SS power amp and Mac C22 makes me happy. C22 tubes gives me the softness and liquidity of the tube sound while SS amp gives me the punch. But I think that if your listening preferences lies mostly in chamber music or vocal probably you will be totally satisfied with Mac 275 MkVI But you know - you'll never find out how it sounds unless you try all this combinations yourself. It's time consuming, it's expensive sometimes, but it worth it!

If it were me I would make sure I audition the MC275s in my system before swapping out the Pass amplifier. You don't need as much power for the bass since its powered and the higher frequency is where the  MLs will need serious power.

Hello Vad58, just curious if you ever got the mc 275 vi? I have never heard tubes in person but love what they got to offer sound wise except the heat of course. I have an opportunity to buy a pair of mc275 vi and run them in mono set up. I currently own Pass Labs 250.8  and I love the sound they create in my set up with  Martin Logans Summit X and I was told tubes will get me even better sound. 

Thanx again!

"Bass improved and how"

Inside the MK VI, there have been many subtle changes in circuits and component values, while McIntosh also says that its much-vaunted output transformer-winding techniques have been further improved to give greater bandwidth. This in turn has allowed the negative feedback to be taken directly from the speaker winding, giving a higher damping factor and a claimed improvement in deep BASS definition.

Thanx a lot for such a detailed answer. Most of all i'm interested in Marc VI "improved bass" according to ads. Is it really improved? How?

From Pearl Audio Website, they stated these differences:

Here are some new things on the current MKVI:

• High Speed Sentry Monitor circuit will shut the amp off if speaker wires are shorted or there is a gross impedance mismatch to the connected loudspeakers.

• High Speed Sentry Monitor Circuit will indicate a failed output tube by illuminating the three small tubes Red in front of the defective pair of output tubes, greatly simplifying maintenance.

• Small tube illumination for amplifier operational status indication. The three modes are sequential: Amber on warm up, Green when amp is ready for operation, and Red if an output tube fails.

• A stereo power control cable combined with a McIntosh preamplifier allows for the small tube illumination to be turned on or off using the meter light control trim function in the preamplifier.

• Power control input and output allows one button on-off operation from the preamplifier when used in an all McIntosh system.

• High Power Mono operation, MC275 has been designed for 150 watt mono use and comes with the jumper strap to connect the two channels together for mono parallel operation into 2, 4 or 8 ohms.

• Auto Off switch allows control of the new Power Save Circuitry which will switch the amplifier to Standby Mode approximately 30 minutes after there has been an absence of an audio signal.

• New Style Patented McIntosh speaker binding posts produce the very best connection with all speaker wire types and terminations.

• Higher Audio Performance Achieved. There were many subtle changes in circuits, and component values that were relatively unnoticeable by themselves, but totaled up to significantly improved performance.

However what generation is better, knowing that a lot of MK V owners are extremely happy with theirs, I guess sound wise there's not much difference between them. I have 2 MC275V and upgraded to 2 MC601 instead. I just compared them last night. They both sound amazing in different way.