McIntosh has released two new integrated amplifiers, the MA9500 and the MA8950.

The MA9500 offers 300W per channel of power, delivered via a pair of Autoformers. It replaces the award-winning MA9000 and adds additional performance enhancements to an already outstanding stereo integrated amplifier.

Filter capacity in the MA9500 has been doubled compared to the MA9000 which has produced a significant increase in dynamic headroom from 1.8dB to 2.8dB, giving the MA9500 greater ability to reproduce musical peaks with less distortion.

Other McIntosh features included in the MA9500 are:

• Power Guard that continuously monitors input and output signals and can dynamically adjust input levels to ensure maximum output while avoiding harsh sounding distortion and clipping that could damage your speakers
• Their fuse-less short-circuit protection technology Sentry Monitor that disengages the output stage before the current can exceed safe operating levels and then resets automatically when operating conditions return to normal
• Home Theatre PassThru that allows for seamless integration into a home theatre system
• A discrete, eight-band tone control that allows for advanced manual analogue adjustment of ±12dB in 2dB increments of your favourite recordings at frequencies of 25Hz, 50Hz, 100Hz, 200Hz, 400Hz, 1kHz, 2.5kHz, and 10kHz
• Power Control to send power on/off signals to connected McIntosh components for easy system power up and shutdown

The McIntosh MA8950 Integrated Amplifier offers 200W per channel and combines McIntosh’s amplification expertise and preamplifier technologies into one comprehensive stereo sound system component. It replaces the award-winning MA8900 and adds additional performance enhancements to an already outstanding stereo integrated amplifier.

Dynamic headroom has increased from 2.0dB to 3.1dB in the MA8950 as a result of its filter capacity being doubled. This gives the MA8950 even greater ability to reproduce musical peaks with less distortion. The increased filter capacity will also help deliver more amazing bass playback, low end performance, and overall bass control.

The MA8950 comes standard with the DA2 Digital Audio Module instead of the DA1 Digital Audio Module that came in the MA8900. The DA2 offers a quad-balanced, 8 channel, 32 bit DAC with seven digital inputs: two coaxial, two optical, one USB, one MCT, and one audio-only HDMI Audio Return Channel (ARC)1 connection.

TVs with a compatible HDMI (ARC) output can be connected to the MA8950 to enjoy your TV’s sound like never before through your home music system. Popular multi-channel audio formats from Dolby and DTS are supported and will be expertly converted to two-channel audio for proper playback.

The MA8950 remote can control the TV’s power and volume when CEC communication is enabled in both the amplifier and the TV. The DA2 also features increased DSD playback support of up to DSD512 via the USB input.