Not struggling. Pushing its limits.

For years nothing challenged my MA9500. Then the Wilson Yvettes arrived. At around 95 dB, for the first time, I felt it working harder than it ever had.

Don't misunderstand me. The synergy was exceptional, and together they produced some of the most amazing musical moments I have ever experienced. Not struggling, a McIntosh doesn't struggle, but pushing its limits.

The physics explains what my ears told me. The Yvette is 86 dB sensitive and the La Scala I auditioned against it is 105, and those 19 dB mean the La Scala reaches the same level with roughly a hundredth of the power. The Yvette wants real current into a 4-ohm load that drops to 3 ohms at around 90 Hz, and it goes down to 20 Hz.

So even one of the best integrated amplifiers ever made has a speaker it was not built for. I questioned myself: was this real, or did I just have another upgrade fever? It was real, and the separates that followed answered it. The speakers finally had the authority behind them that they were designed for.

Greatness in an amplifier is always relative to the speaker it has to drive. Mine met its match in an 86 dB Wilson.