An Audio Amateur's question about McIntosh Audio

I work part time at a Mac dealership, and have on 2 other stints in my long career in audio, from 1973-5 and from 2013-now.  I have taken the factory indoctrination tour, and sold quite a few.  I have never owned any except vintage tube gear that I recapped and flipped. As a new hire in my first job, I was taught by the store owner that McIntosh was the foundational brand without which the store would not exist...this was during the period that @wbs described...when McIntosh was not being reviewed or discussed in the HiFi mags.  But the target customer was not the typical magazine reader...it was the successful business owner, lawyer, physician, or other professional type who could afford to "own the best".  The other uniquely McIntosh value proposition is their adherence to a uniform design aesthetic across decades of products...so a mixed bag of components always looks like it belongs together.

That’s also why I never wanted any...I like smaller items. 

I've owned my MA352 and MCD85 for about eight years. I bought them from a small McIntosh dealer that's been in business since 1957. They're only open on Saturdays, but they can get anything McIntosh sells delivered quickly. I've seen amplifiers from the early 1960s on their repair bench. Their attitude is simple: if McIntosh built it, they can get the parts and bring it back to life.

As for the sound, I don't have a long list of gear to compare it against. I just know that whenever I audition other systems, I come home appreciating mine even more. Nothing I've heard has made me want to trade it in.

And those green tube lights and blue meters never get old. They’re a welcome reminder that I’m home, settled into my chair, and about to spend an evening listening to music exactly the way I like it.

I’ve read Stereophile articles where it was mentioned the reviewer bought the McIntosh review sample.

Personally, I purchased an MCD600 McIntosh SACD/CD player after comparing it with other well-regarded brands because in my system, to my ears, it sounded better. It also is built extremely well, has an exhaustively comprehensive owners manual, and the nicest, best finished remote control.

I have a McIntosh MA8900 integrated that I will never get rid of.  It does everything I want and does it well.  I get the criticism that it lacks clarity and detail, certain songs can sound a bit too laid back on my system, but generally, I find it to be very musical, with plenty of detail and clarity, and I can listen as long as I like with no fatigue.  I do think that, at least with the more recent Mc products, the lack of detail and clarity claim is a synergy issue.  I heard an MA9500 connected to some Focal Utopia Diablos and they were well on the wrong side of detailed for me.  They lacked low and mid range.  They were detailed to the point of being brittle and overly bright.  After hearing that I get why people like the detail, it was pretty great hearing so many micro details in the music I was listening to, but just not to my musical tastes for my daily listening. Take that for what it’s worth but you can get plenty of detail out of the Mc if you pair it with the right speaker.