Great posts. I have read nearly every one of them.
Those McIntoshes are beautiful beasts. I am a McIntosh tube fan myself but of the less-costly vintage variety: A 1962 McIntosh MC240. I totally rebuilt it myself (I am an EE) and it was really cool to see how much I could change the sound with this cap and that resistor, etc. But it wasn't enough power for my JM Lab Electra 926 so I decided to biamp, rather unconventionally, with some Kora hybrid monoblocks on the bass. Running the 240 in "twin amp" mode rather than stereo and goosing up the gain to match the Koras totally transformed the amp into the most transparent and beautiful sounding amp I have ever laid ears on. It was a little dull and distant in stereo mode but in twin amp it does much better even when running full range. Perhaps that is similar to what you found when running your 2102s in parallel?
In any case, great choice of components. I have a C42 which is the same as the C46 except with bulb lighting and a busier front panel. I want to get a C46 for the fiber optic lighting but I think I will wait and get a C200 or something. Although I love the EQ. Some recordings just can't live without it.
If you measure your in-room response, I bet you will find that your treble starts to roll off around 8k. All the stereos I have setup for various people have been this way, including my own (and is the way it should be according to John Atkinson). So the 4k control is just about right since it easily affects from 1k to 8k. This isn't to say that 10k wouldn't work but my guess is that it would hurt transparency instead of making bright recordings bearable. This is based on all my frequency response experiments.
Anyway, great system, I would love to hear it. Too bad you are on the other side of the world! :)
Arthur
