Founded in 1949, McIntosh Laboratory is known for offering distinguished home audio systems designed and manufactured since the company's foundation at its home in Binghamton, NY. The 1960s saw the advent of McIntosh’s famous front-panel illumination, and in the 1970s, McIntosh grew in both product selection and new product categories beyond amplifiers, including tuners using the same glass faceplates and the signature blue amplifier power meters.
Richard Modafferi was a senior engineer at McIntosh Laboratory from 1968 to 1974 and first designed the MR77 tuner, introduced in 1970, soon followed by the MR78, which was launched in 1972. The MR78 featured a new intermediate frequency filter, designed by Modafferi, which he name the Rimo filter, using the first two letters of his first and last name.
In 2022, although global radio stations are mostly streaming over the Internet, McIntosh still believes that a radio tuner is an indispensable source component in his high end audio arsenal, and the MR89's advanced signal quality monitor can display detailed signal, multipath, and noise levels of the incoming radio signals to help fine-tune optimal placement of the AM or FM antenna (a RAA2 AM antenna is included with each unit).
Additionally included are a pair of balanced and unbalanced analog outputs and digital coax and optical outputs to connect the MR89 to any home audio system. The tuner features exclusive McIntosh radio frequency (RF) circuitry that can receive both strong FM signals from nearby stations, avoiding overload or distortion that can plague lesser tuners, while also being able to tune in weaker FM signals with little to no noise.
Among the main MR89 features, McIntosh details the introduction of an upgraded “High Blend” option, softmute to reduce audio output of lower quality stations, highcut function to reduce high frequency and audio content, support for FM Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS - the American equivalent of the Radio Data System (RDS) protocol) allowing to display station and music information, adjustable "Seek" function, and the ability to store 20+ preset stations for both AM/ FM.
For those curious about the "blend" feature, the MR89 manual details the following. "When receiving low quality (weak, noisy, multipath) FM Stereo Broadcasts, background noise can be reduced by blending some of the left and right channel information together, while still maintaining “The Stereo Effect.” The MR89 provides two different blending types to select from, conventional Stereo Blending, or Stereo High Blend. Stereo Blending blends the left and right channel information together uniformly across the audio frequency range as signal quality decreases – blending low and high frequencies the same amount. High Blend blends the high frequency portion of the audio frequency range more aggressively." Fascinating.
A pair of 60dB output meters show the signal level being delivered from the analog outputs of each channel, while the volume is controlled by the preamplifier, integrated amplifier, or other control device. The meters on the MR89 accurately portray the Left and Right channel audio output generated from the received station - depending on the program received, the meters are a good indication of the MR89’s quality stereo separation. AM and FM frequency reception for the MR89 varies by country (a detailed frequency listing is available on the McIntosh website).
Orders for the MR89 can now be placed with Authorized McIntosh Dealers with shipping expected to begin in June 2022 to the United States and Canada, and to the rest of the world shortly thereafter. Suggested retail price is $5,500 USD (plus applicable taxes).
www.mcintoshlabs.com
