Focal v Wilson

@edelbby Thanks for the correction about the Mac being solid state. If I understand the specs correctly, it is rated to put out 270 watts at 8 ohms, 4 ohms, 2 ohms, and 1 ohm. My Krell KSA 300S is rated to put out 300 watts at 8 ohms, 600 watts at 4 ohms, 1200 watts at 2 ohms, and 2400 watts at 1 ohm. I'm using it to drive a pair of Thiel CS6 speakers which are one of the few models that have as difficult an impedance curve as the Watt/Puppy.

David Wilson and Jim Thiel were unwilling to make the design tradeoffs that would make their speakers easy to drive. If you go to an audio show you will see Wilsons typically paired with D'Agostino amps or another brand that behaves like my Krell because that is the type of amp they were designed for and voiced with.

Your 7270 is a highly regarded amp and with the right speakers it will sound wonderful. But it was designed to drive speakers with a fairly flat impedance curve and there are hundreds of options to choose from. You don't need high efficiency horn speaker (you have 270 watts to play with) but you do need speakers with a resonably flat impedance.

There are so many excellent speakers available today, both new and used, that it is hard to make a recommendation. If you take note of speakers you think are candidates you should Google the speaker model and the word "review" and look for a review in Stereophile. The reason I mention Stereophile is because they always include the impedance curve in their measurements and they comment on what type of amplifier would be a good match for the speakers.

As a practical matter, either your amp choice drives your speaker choice or your speaker choice drives your amp choice. One way is not better than the other. If you want to stick with that gorgeous McIntosh then you want a speaker of average sensitivity that has a fairly flat impedance curve. Somewhere between 87 dB to 94 dB sensitivity would be good. You would not want an extremely high sensitivity speaker (98 dB to 102dB) that is made for low wattage SET amplifiers because you generally want to run your amp in the range of 10% to 60% of its rated power.

@emergingsoul IMO biamping isn't a good option for speakers with difficult impedance curves because it doen't solve the core problem and the complexity increases dramatically. If you use two brands of amps you have to make sure they have the same gain and that the current output into low impedances of each amp is complimentary. If you want to biamp with D'Agostinos or Gryphons then that will work great but things get pretty expensive in a hurry.

I suggest that, whatever you end up buying, buy cheap cables first. Really cheap. Like $50 tops. Don't buy expensive cables before you are reasonably happy with the rest of the system.

At that point AUDITION any cable you want, so long as you can return it for a full refund. See if it's worth the cost. In YOUR system. IMO, cables are the lowest bang for buck in the chain

+ 1000

I was passed down some old McIntosh gear and while I loved the nostaligic feeling I felt like I was driving a 74 Cadillac with a faulty sway bar, bald tire and a dirty carburetor. The feeling of me being 10 years old wore off in few weeks and I just couldn’t do it anymore.

If your not looking for performance, which is fair enough, I’d go with an easy speaker to drive because that tranny isn’t going to last that long either.

Fun project, please post your results. As said above, don’t worry too much about cables and electricity with the old stuff, the detail just simply isn’t at the same level as newer gear.

@8th-note many thanks for helpful and very educational post!

@bjesien thank you

to all thanks

@edelbby, you have some really great classic and desirable gear, no doubt.

IMO you are out pacing your gear at a similar pace by looking at a once classic "high end" speaker.  I've spent lots of time with the WP8, and it was much better than the 7. The 7 was harsh compered to the 8 to my ears.

I'd advise you to get into a speaker that you like rather than trying to match an era and work backwards by looking at resale comparisons. 

You should find a speaker that you love driven by that McIntosh amp.  Don't buy blind based on the reputation of a speaker without insight into the amp. Does that make sense?  So... maybe look at Sonus Faber, Dynaudio, Devore, Verity Audio, or any other rec's here.  Come on guys...

There's something called synergy and you typically start with a speaker and word in the direction of amp, pre, source, etc. I would never start with an amp and look for a speaker at your stage in the game. Maybe after you have some experience.

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse more.