McIntosh MHA150 Dedicated Headphone Amplifier

Many music lovers enjoy listening to their beloved music with the intimacy that headphones offer. Equally important to the headphones in the personal listening experience is the amplifier that drives them.

A McIntosh Headphone Amplifier delivers the same high quality and highly sought after sound to your ears that all of our audio products are famous for. New life will be brought to your favorite piece of music when you experience it on a McIntosh Headphone Amplifier.

Details:

The MHA150 Headphone Amplifier is a worthy successor to the critically-acclaimed MHA100. The MHA150 contains the same feature set and performance standards but adds our new 2nd generation digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that provides support for DSD and DXD files to give you access to the latest in digital music.

Like the MHA100, the MHA150 continues to take advantage of unique McIntosh technologies to create the best possible personal listening experience regardless of the headphones you use. Our Autoformer technology found in our large mono and stereo amplifiers has been adapted to produce three headphone impedance ranges of 8-40, 40-150 and 150-600 ohms so that every headphone will receive the legendary McIntosh sound quality and performance.

For enjoying DSD and DXD files, the USB input accepts PCM signals up to 32-bit/384kHz and supports DSD64, DSD128 and DSD256 along with DXD 352.8kHz and DXD 384kHz. Our proprietary MCT input has also been added to the MHA150; when paired with the MCT450 SACD/CD Transport​, it offers a secure DSD connection for playback of the high definition audio on SACDs.

For connecting digital devices, an optical and coaxial input are included along with the USB and MCT inputs; two analog inputs are also available. Headphone Crossfeed Director (HXD®) brings added dimension to your music in a natural sounding way but can be turned off depending on your preferences. The MHA150 is smaller than our other amplifiers, giving you additional flexibility to locate it almost anywhere in your space. It’s the same width as the MB50 Streaming Audio Player and the two can be combined to start building a complete system.

The MHA150 is powerful and versatile enough to drive a pair of quality desktop or small bookshelf speakers​ via its 50 watt stereo speaker outputs. Our patented Power Guard® technology is included and will prevent clipping that could damage your headphones or speakers. A 5 step Bass Boost Control allows for further sound customisation. The entire unit is housed in a beautiful polished stainless steel chassis that not only compliments the classic glass front panel, knobs and brushed aluminium end caps, but virtually any room decor.

SPECIFICATION:

HEADPHONE OUTPUT SPECIFICATIONS:

HEADPHONE POWER OUTPUT

• High Selection: 1W
• Normal Selection: 250mW

HEADPHONE OUTPUT IMPEDANCE

• 8-40 Ohms
• 40-150 Ohms
• 150-600 Ohms

ELECTRONIC SPECIFICATIONS:

POWER OUTPUT PER CHANNEL

• 50 Watts

SPEAKER IMPEDANCE

• 8 Ohms

RATED POWER BAND

• 20Hz to 20kHz

TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION

• 0.005%

INTERMODULATION DISTORTION

• 0.005% maximum, if the instantaneous peak power is 100 watts or less per channel with both channels operating for any combination of frequencies from 20Hz to 20kHz

DYNAMIC HEADROOM

• 1.5dB

FREQUENCY RESPONSE +0,-0.5DB

• 20Hz to 20kHz

FREQUENCY RESPONSE, +0, -3DB

• 10Hz to 100kHz

SENSITIVITY (UNBALANCED)

• 300mV

SENSITIVITY (BALANCED)

• 600mV

MAXIMUM INPUT SIGNAL (UNBALANCED)

• 8V

MAXIMUM INPUT SIGNAL (BALANCED)

• 16V

SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO

• 105dB

INPUT IMPEDANCE (BALANCED / UNBALANCED)

• 25K/25K

DAMPING FACTOR

• >150

PREAMPLIFIER OUTPUT

• 3V (8V maximum)

PREAMPLIFIER OUTPUT IMPEDANCE

• 500 Ohms

VOLTAGE GAIN

• 36.5dB

POWER GUARD

• <2% THD with up to 16dB overdrive at 1kHz

DIGITAL AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS:

DIGITAL COAXIAL INPUT SAMPLE RATE

• 16Bit, 24Bit – 32kHz to 192kHz

DIGITAL OPTICAL INPUT SAMPLE RATE

• 16Bit, 24Bit – 32kHz to 192kHz

DIGITAL AES/EDU INPUT SAMPLE RATE

• 16Bit, 24Bit – 32kHz to 192kHz

DIGITAL USB INPUT SAMPLE RATE

• 16Bit, 24Bit, 32Bit – 32kHz to 384kHz

CONNECTIVITY:

HEADPHONE OUTPUT

• 1 (1/4”)

HIGH LEVEL INPUTS UNBALANCED

• 1 Stereo

HIGH LEVEL INPUTS BALANCED

• 1 Stereo

DIGITAL COAXIAL INPUT

• 1

DIGITAL OPTICAL INPUT

• 1

DIGITAL AES/EBU INPUT

• 1

DIGITAL USB INPUT

• 1

PREAMPLIFIER OUTPUT

• 1 Stereo

CONTROL:

TONE CONTROLS

• 5 Step Bass Boost Control: 0 to +12.5dB (in 2.5dB steps) @ 40Hz

POWER CONTROL INPUT

• Yes

POWER CONTROL OUTPUT

• Yes

GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS:

OUTPUT METERS

• Yes

TUBE OR SOLID STATE?

• Solid State

POWER REQUIREMENT

• 120V 50/60Hz, 1.5A

STANDBY POWER REQUIREMENT

• <0.25 Watts

OUTPUT AUTOFORMER

• Yes for Headphones

WEIGHTS & DIMENSIONS:

DIMENSIONS (W X H X D)

• 11-1/2″(29.2cm) x 5-9/16″ (14.1cm) x 18″ (45.7cm)

WEIGHT

• 26.5 lbs (12 kg)

SHIPPING WEIGHT

• 32.5 lbs (14.8 kg)