[MacedonianHero]

  It has DAC section and a speaker output. But I'd rather have full balanced output for that price.

It's primarily a headphone amp and those power ratings ain't gonna cut it (especially at that price). They have a plethora of speaker amps to choose, I'm not sure why it seems that the headphone amp of this headphone amplifier took a back seat?

 

[wnmnkh]

It's primarily a headphone amp and those power ratings ain't gonna cut it (especially at that price). They have a plethora of speaker amps to choose, I'm not sure why it seems that the headphone amp of this headphone amplifier took a back seat?

 
Probably the fact that Mcintosh has never made a headphone amplifier before.
 
My uneducated guess is, from their point of view, committing fully on headphones is still risky for selling the product. They figured if they'd sell a product which only can drive headphones, not many people are going to buy it. So they put DACs and speaker amplification section to make the product more versatile and valuable.
 
Versatile and valuable only in their eyes though. For my eyes (and I bet pretty much a lot of people here), they are vastly overpriced jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none product which lineup position is very vague. I mean they have their own D100. So we are buying D100 with extra speaker output? See, it's a very confusing product.
 
If it were a balanced headphone amplifier with powerful output with slightly cheaper price (say 3.5K~4K), far more people would had interested Mcintosh's new offering.

 

[MacedonianHero]

   
Probably the fact that Mcintosh has never made a headphone amplifier before.
 
My uneducated guess is, from their point of view, committing fully on headphones is still risky for selling the product. They figured if they'd sell a product which only can drive headphones, not many people are going to buy it. So they put DACs and speaker amplification section to make the product more versatile and valuable.
 
Versatile and valuable only in their eyes though. For my eyes (and I bet pretty much a lot of people here), they are vastly overpriced jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none product which lineup position is very vague. I mean they have their own D100. So we are buying D100 with extra speaker output? See, it's a very confusing product.
 
If it were a balanced headphone amplifier with powerful output with slightly cheaper price (say 3.5K~4K), far more people would had interested Mcintosh's new offering.

 
Kinda disappointing. 

 

[IceClass]

   
Kinda disappointing. 

 
Yup.
 

 

[Stil]

The power ratings are indeed strange.  Do they list the 1 Watt at which impedence rating?  I mean if it's 1 watt at 600 ohms, that's 15 watts at 40 ohm.  Their specs just aren't specific enough, it seems.  We will probably have to wait and see how it measures.  I mean, it's 2k more expensive than the D100 which already has a dedicated headphone section, you would hope that they put some of that extra cash into the amplification, especially since the two autoformers are purely for the headphone amp section.  

 

[snejk]

  Do they list the 1 Watt at which impedence rating? 

This^
 
Edit: Just sent a question to mcintosh about this. 

 

[bmichels]

  This^
 
Edit: Just sent a question to mcintosh about this. 

 
If they answer to you; can you also ask if the DAC inside the  MHA 100 is the McIntosh D100's DAC ??

 

[1adam12]

  This^
 
Edit: Just sent a question to mcintosh about this. 

 
Please let us know what they say. It's a great question.

 

[Jodet]

   
Yup.
 

 
I'm sick of 'all in one' units.   Keep your DAC out of my headphone amp, I already have a DAC (who doesn't?). 
 
If this was just a headphone amp I'd have been interested.    This?   No.  

 

[shuttleboi]

   
Please let us know what they say. It's a great question.

 
Good luck getting any reply out of Mcintosh, because they are well known for being an extremely secretive company. I'm even surprised the price for the MHA100 has been so widely circulated; with Mcintosh gear, you can only get the price by visiting a physical store and asking a salesperson. I've been to other audio forums where people have been chastised because they mentioned prices in their posts. Additionally, the DAC information is also hard to extract from that company. For example, the DAC used in many for their integrated amps are listed as "24-bit, 192kHz", but there is never any mention of the DAC implementation. Forum members have to dig really hard to find out it's an ESS Sabre DAC or something, and you often get conflicting reports on exactly which DAC chip.

 

[CosmicHolyGhost]

When will this be released?
 
I am currently driving my HE-6 using Leben CS300SX with 8ohm speaker impedance... I presume I need to use 10ohm resistors as well if I use this for HE-6.
 
I am hoping this will have good synergy for HD800 using the headphone out as well.....

 

[guerillaw]

  The power ratings are indeed strange.  Do they list the 1 Watt at which impedence rating?  I mean if it's 1 watt at 600 ohms, that's 15 watts at 40 ohm.  Their specs just aren't specific enough, it seems.  We will probably have to wait and see how it measures.  I mean, it's 2k more expensive than the D100 which already has a dedicated headphone section, you would hope that they put some of that extra cash into the amplification, especially since the two autoformers are purely for the headphone amp section.  

 
 
The Mcintosh answer to this would likely be that the auto former keeps the output relatively the same despite changes in impedance.  The selling point would be that the headphone out, jus tike their speaker amps, put out a constant high voltage high watt output regardless of the impedance of the output. Of course, only real world listening will inform us if this is A. True or B. Worth the price. 
 
I look forward to said impressions since I am big fan of the Mcintosh sound on speakers and if they can deliver that sound consistently regardless of which phone I plug in that would be intriguing. 

 

[Joshua277456]

  Looks good but 4500$ ? LOL
I little bit overpriced if you use it only as a headphone amp.

 
Idk
 
It's very versatile, stylish, some-what powerful...
 
I would like to see more than 50 RMS watts for passive speakers. And only up to 1 watt RMS for phones.
 
 
 
The Schiit Mjolnir is as follows and is only ~750USD

Maximum Power, 32 ohms: 8.0W RMS per channel
Maximum Power, 50 ohms: 5.0W RMS per channel
Maximum Power, 300 ohms: 850mW RMS per channel
Maximum Power, 600 ohms: 425mW RMS per channel

 

[Joshua277456]

   
 
The Mcintosh answer to this would likely be that the auto former keeps the output relatively the same despite changes in impedance.  The selling point would be that the headphone out, jus tike their speaker amps, put out a constant high voltage high watt output regardless of the impedance of the output. Of course, only real world listening will inform us if this is A. True or B. Worth the price. 
 
I look forward to said impressions since I am big fan of the Mcintosh sound on speakers and if they can deliver that sound consistently regardless of which phone I plug in that would be intriguing. 

So it would only be 1.0 max. RMS watts for both, let's say, 50 ohms and 600 ohms impedance cans.
 
That doesn't seem right. For that price I would expect to see realistically 10+ RMS watts for ~50 ohms impedance cans and at least 1.0 RMS watts for 600 ohms impedance cans.
 
I bet for ~3000USD you could get a balanced/unbalanced headphone amp & passive speaker amp, with a balanced/unbalanced DAC that is at least twice as powerful as the McIntosh unit.
 
Just seems overpriced for 4500USD

 

[1adam12]

That Schiit Ragnarok is looking pretty good at $1500.