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I sadly didn't have access to a price-matched competitor during my audition. I did however have fare above and below in the thrice-priced Octave HP3 + Musical Fidelity M8 700m pre/power combo; and my less than half-priced Denon PMA-2010AE integrated. About the Denon which continues to please for the coin, my notes read: "...paints instruments and voices with a broader brush; less outline specific; spatially more one-dimensional with less depth layering; tonally darker; less resolved particularly on top; less sculpted or in shallower relief." Whilst these isolated points didn't necessarily factor hard, in combination of their sum total the Mcintosh was the clearly more involving, convincing and realistic. Not only on price but also on sound there was thus a clear caste or class difference to the Japanese.

Relative to my pricier fare I might say the same. And obviously the powerful Brit monos had rather more dynamic reserves. Duh. This reconfirmed the endless ladder into the audiophile sky. But I'll add two observations. One, I suspect that certain listeners would favor the overall sonic balance of the Mcintosh even with its reduced illumination of the frequency extremes. This for example included colleague Jörg Dames. Two, I'd not swear an oath that the separates really did more for tacitness. More edge-defined and particular they were but on that special 3D sensation of tone painting the MA5200 played no real second fiddle. Here I'd consider it quite elevated regardless of price. Though I seem to recall that Einstein's The Absolute Tune integrated offered a bit more than either the Mac or my separates, I'd not fall on my sword for it. In short, the MA5200 looks in the very same direction which really impressed.

Thus far I've talked of the deck as a normal integrated. How about its built-in DAC and MM phono? About the two S/PDIF inputs I doubted my own ability to distinguish between 'em. Perhaps coax had marginally more textures and cymbal nuances on Nick Cave's "Mermaids" from his Push the sky away album. Alas this could well have reflected on differences in digital cables, not the Mac. The asynchronous USB input fed from an Aqvox cable seemed to resolve a bit more than the Squeeze Touch's coax input for whatever reason. The relevant question was, how did the Mcintosh compare to outboard solutions?


Well! I juxtaposed 'Mac pure' via the DAC built into Luxman's D-05 SACD spinner with the Fiona Apple debut Tidal and her "The first taste" cut. The Luxman was the overall better more mature and natural player. Individual tones had more body, resolution went up, stage depth unfurled and the bass run of the song was firmer and more insistent. The big 'but'? The scope of sonic gains disappointed relative to the €4'000 surcharge. This revived a classic hifi issue. Beyond a certain level of core competence little improvements cost disproportionately more. It's easy to turn this on its head when wondering what class the McIntosh MA5200 belongs to. It's DAC is no oldie but goodie. It's real good.

I was less impressed with the MM phono module. It's okay and doesn't deserve real complaints but compared to an outboard solution like my SAC Gamma with Shelter 201 cartridge, its limitations weighed rather heavier than the DAC swap. And here the added cost was four times lower! Tonally the MM input duplicated the general MA5200 sound but on dynamics, soundstaging and ability to separate during dense louder passages quite a lot remained under the table.