It has been a while since we performed this listening test but we wanted to share very good news with you anyway: Stacore works wonderfully with McIntosh! In our desire to test Stacore platforms in as many systems as we can, we arrived one November morning with 3 Stacores at the Gdansk-based audio dealer Antrax Audio. The studio is run by Grzegorz Łopaciuk and the objective was to test our platforms with the legendary audio brand – McIntosh. The first to try with Stacore Advanced was the MCD550 CD player.
The result was immediate and consistent with our previous Stacore experiences: transparency, the sound became more organized, with higher culture, melodic lines buried before in the background became much easier to follow. As we usually do, we let the system owner choose the recordings for the test. Grzegorz was quite surprised to discover new things in his recordings!

Next was MC452 stereo amplifier with Stacore Basic. We kept the source on the Advanced platform to check for a progressive improvement with more Stacores in the chain.
We did not expect much. To be honest, we did not expect anything actually, since it is a solid state amplifier without immediately obvious vibrating elements. To our big surprise
the „Stacore effect” was there too! To a lesser extent than with the source, but in the same direction. E.g. on the vocal tracks the lyrics were more lucid, easier to follow. As a bonus, we enjoyed a great visual match between our Italian slate casings and the McIntosh black finish.

Finally, we did something we always wanted to do: go against one of the strongest audiophile myths/habits that loudspeakers must be firmly grounded. We put a pair of Dynaudio C1 loudspeakers together with their stands on two Stacore Basics.
A big surprise to all the lovers of spikes: The sound became cleaner, as if someone had cleaned a dusty window!
The effect was similar in the magnitude to the decoupling of the amplifier. This was perhaps the most interesting discovery of this test. It opens a way to complete rethinking of the loudspeaker-floor interface. Contrary to the common beliefs,
the sound does seem to benefit from breaking the cabinet-floor vibration path.
We will for sure investigate this topic more, so stay tuned!