Why do no audio enthusiasts use McIntosh?

@kosst_amojan


Adding autotransfomers to SS amps sounds “crazy” as George Hifi points out.

Mcintosh made a strategic choice there to craft the sound of their SS amps to be more tube like. Purists hate this but some may like the sound with the added convenience of SS.

Frankly a tube Mcintosh is up there with other great tube amps. Whether you like the sound probably has as much to do with component matching as it does to the individual tubes selected. Most folks would agree that the first thing to do is to replace the Mcintosh stock JJ or Chinese tubes. Perhaps this is a major drawback to what are relatively expensive amplifiers. Or perhaps Mcintosh know or expect that purists will replace tubes anyway and therefore they voice the amp with cheap tubes that are warm and not so transparent. Perhaps they voice their gear for a jazz trio or quartet - the typical casual well heeled audiophile test CD - you know the type of folks who think a really large collection is over 50 albums. Whatever Mcintosh does - it has worked for over 60 years....perhaps their biggest mistake was stopping tube amp production for a while.....

I have been a Mac user for nearly 50 years.

Two things that I do not like about McIntosh, one is the excessive weight of their power amps thanks to autoformers, as I am getting older it is a massive effort to lift these little monsters, and the other is excessive numbers of control knobs on their preamps, I never use tone controls and over time due to non use they become problematic and introduce noise in the system.

Other than that I am staying with Mac.

There are way too many prejudices in High End Audio... i.e. 'Mine is great, yours isn't'... Ignore anyone who says Mac isn't good gear. I had the great fortune to go to the Mac Factory in New York and build a piece. All hand crafted beautifully with care and devotion. It sounds good and looks even better. It is NOT my favorite, but who cares. If I could own anything it would be VAC or Gryphon. But then they cost multiples.
Also, get ten people to agree on the best speaker at any price. Impossible.
So, continue to love whichever product you want.... other than price, it's always your choice.
Best,
Larry

Everyone (well, maybe not everyone, but for the purposes of this comment) had an uncle or dad or somebody in their life who was the old dude with the McIntosh gear who listened to live opera or jazz and nobody else cared about it much. I don't own any McIntosh gear but I use a tube preamp and amp and listen to too much jazz and nobody else around me cares much…I'm now that old dude. 

Words of wisdom and just getting to the crux of the matter Larsky and Wolf. It is always striking to me how pedantic these topics can evolve into. Enjoy the music!