Bose Chucks Mac

Best Buy makes most of its profit on cables, accessories, etc. Recent visits show that they are merely staffing to work with gamers, laptops and accessories. In my small town (Traverse City MI) we have a spectacular McIntosh dealer. BB would never be able to advise on or support true HiFI products. Best they leave that to the big boys/girls. 

Best Buy in Albuquerque is terrible IMHO.  Poorly staffed, poor listening room and the selection is geared more towards the home theater folks rather than higher end audio.  They are better suited for TV’s and computers unfortunately.  

I am surprised it took this long.  If McIntosh is going to retain their "elite" marketing structure and performance (which I believe they should) then they are certainly justified in pulling out. I have been into numerous BB locations in several states/markets in the post-Covid months with Magnolia square footage and found them consistently unstaffed, disorganized and when there is a staff member that manages to stroll through, they have no professional reference.  BB locations are all being re-tooled to prevent, or mitigate theft/loss prevention as a top priority.  Magnolia seems to be there only as a conduit to their Geek / Installation arm.  They are rapidly becoming major appliance/ cellphone, iPad & Video dealers.  It is really a shame to see, as they were our last hope for a brick & mortar storefront for mid-range Hifi / audio. It would be unfair to those existing specialty locations to allow Mc to be represented by the current BB "self-serve" configurations.  I am glad to see them (Mc) standing tall, especially since the Bose factor came into play.  Just my own personal observations.

Which is better, a world with MORE or LESS Blue Boxes?

I would buy a cable or connector from Best Buy and maybe a printer. We have a Magnolia room in a store but I have not been in there in many, many years. I don’t think the young people who work there know much about high fidelity. In the other home theater store we have, it’s a mess and again not geared toward high fidelity even though they sell some nice brands???