McIntosh -- good for show, not for sound, says dealer

I've owned Jolida, Conrad Johnson, Hegel,  Cary Audio, and now I own a Mac MA5300. I do not regret it at all. I saw a comment about KEF's. I had a pricey pair of KEF Reference speakers that I lived with for a few years. They were pretty good but lacked in transparency. Some of the more recent offerings I thought were much worse (driven by Hegel H80). Lets keep it simple. To each his own.