What was old is new again.
McIntosh Laboratories has been in business long enough that they are able to bring new design thinking, materials, and construction methods to products from their extensive back catalog. Example: McIntosh’s first successful loudspeaker, the ML1. The venerable Binghamton, New York, hi-fi company recently released a redesigned “Mk II” version ($12,000/pair, stands included).
In this, McIntosh is not unique; KLH, JBL, Klipsch, and other companies have rethought and reworked vintage products for the current marketplace, employing new approaches and technologies. Think of it as remastering classic hardware.
I asked McIntosh President Charlie Randall how he thought about the process of updating and reissuing classic designs. His response: “We always pick products that have been pivotal in McIntosh’s history, as well as products that are timeless in performance. Obviously, we incorporate new parts and materials to bring the products up to today’s standards. There is a careful balance between protecting the past and playing in the present so as not to diminish the brand.”
Then and now
Ken Kessler’s handsome, thorough book on McIntosh history, McIntosh—For the Love of Music, spells out the details. McIntosh made one earlier attempt to design a speaker, the three-way F100 from 1952,1 but it was not considered a success and was quickly discontinued. After that, the company stuck to electronics until about 1970, when Roger Russell, then McIntosh’s chief acoustical engineer, designed the ML1, a sealed-box, acoustic suspension, four-way loudspeaker featuring a 12" woofer. Russell’s design included companion equalizers that were intended to enhance the bass performance. Russell has described his technical work in detail in his own online history of McIntosh.2
Many but not all of the ML1 loudspeaker’s features are retained in the ML1 Mk II. Like its ancestor, the ML1 Mk II is built into a sealed-cabinet acoustic suspension enclosure. The dimensions are unchanged: 26" high, 15" wide, and 13½ " deep. That’s bigger than a typical bookshelf speaker but much shorter than you’d expect a floorstander to
