McIntosh’s bonkers subwoofer stands over six feet tall and weighs as much as a motorcycle

3 weeks ago

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Meet nan caller McIntosh PS2K, a powered subwoofer that looks for illustration nary different subwoofer connected nan planet. That’s because nan PS2K is fundamentally 4 subwoofers, each pinch its ain 500-watt amplifier, packed into a azygous building enclosure. The mixed 2,000-watt behemoth has been priced astatine a jaw-dropping $50,000 which useful retired to $25 per watt. If those sorts of numbers aren’t a deterrent, you’ll beryllium capable to bid a McIntosh PS2K from an authorized McIntosh trader starting successful October.

Do these photos make nan PS2K look big? It’s not an optical illusion. This sub stands 6.5 feet gangly and weighs an tremendous 458 pounds — astir nan aforesaid weight arsenic a Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 motorcycle. The shipping weight of nan portion is double that amount, astatine 932 pounds.

The stars of nan PS2K show are intelligibly nan 4 vertically stacked 13-inch drivers, which make this subwoofer look much for illustration a building speaker than a accepted sub. McIntosh has employed a caller multilayer c fibre for nan cones, which reduces nan elasticity recovered successful nan company’s erstwhile single-layer approach. The cones tin now defy extended excursion recreation and create utmost rigidity that prevents unwanted flexing. The strategy uses McIntosh’s Low Distortion High Performance magnetic circuit design, which importantly reduces distortion while expanding nan driver’s powerfulness handling and efficiency, according to nan company.

McIntosh

The 4 500-watt Class D amplifiers person been calibrated to minimize distortion, and McIntosh says they’ll nutrient clear, tight bass pinch astonishingly debased distortion successful moreover nan astir expansive listening spaces.

In emblematic McIntosh style, nan PS2K includes nan company’s iconic bluish metre connected nan beforehand panel, pinch indicators for some watts and decibels, truthful that you tin corroborate that nan vibrations coursing done your assemblage are being produced wrong nan desired parameters. Too distracting? You tin move nan metre (and nan illuminated McIntosh logo) disconnected pinch switches connected nan rear panel.

Speaking of nan PS2K’s rear panel, it’s festooned pinch adjustments and toggles. You tin dial successful nan sub’s capacity utilizing accepted knobs for level, phase, and low-pass and high-pass filtering, but look person and you’ll spot that McIntosh has besides included parametric filters for frequency, bandwidth, and level for those who want to return moreover greater power complete their bass.

There are besides balanced and unbalanced inputs and outputs for some stereo signals and nan sub’s ain awesome cable. Wait, a subwoofer output — connected a subwoofer? Yep, McIntosh conscionable wants to make judge that if you want to tally a 2nd (or a third, aliases a fourth) $50,000 subwoofer successful your setup, you’ll beryllium capable to do truthful by daisy-chaining each of those units together.

Keeping each of this costly tech from harm are 2 protection technologies. Power Guard monitors nan audio input awesome coming into nan amplifiers and makes almost instant adjustments to forestall clipping. Sentry Monitor is simply a fuse-less short-circuit protection circuit that disengages nan amplifier’s output shape earlier nan existent exceeds safe operating levels and automatically resets erstwhile operating conditions return to normal.

It’s been a engaged twelvemonth for McIntosh. Earlier successful 2023, nan institution released 2 limited-edition Grateful Dead-inspired wireless speakers, a caller type of its classic ML 1 speaker, a modern return connected the amplifier that helped powerfulness nan Woodstock euphony festival into nan history books, and an $8,000 Dolby Atmos AV receiver.

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Simon Cohen

Simon Cohen covers a assortment of user technologies, but has a typical liking successful audio and video products, like…

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