An Audio Amateur's question about McIntosh Audio

McIntosh amps are good but they don't measure great, even compared to amps that cost MUCH less. You're paying for the look and the name, that's it. 

I've owned 2 Mac amps. A MC402 & MC452. Both are very well built and the 452 was my favorite out of both mainly due it has better detail retrieval.  However,  not enough in my opinion.  I was using Olympica 3 at the time and felt the volume had to be increased quite a bit to get the midrange to open up. I don't know but there was something I could never completely warm up to with these amps. They just lacked subtle details.  Its like i kept waiting and waiting to hear.  Maybe they didn't match that well with that particular Olympica series 🤔.  Afterwards I bought a ARC Ref75SE and the magic appeared. No contest. Just my 2 cents.

When someone can afford the amp/preamp of his dreams, how long could he be satisfied with it ?  Being an audiophile is like being plageg with a desease and the nirvana you think you have reach is very ephemeral. This applies to any brands including McIntosh who's longetivity and resale value is hard to beat.

@squared80 

"McIntosh amps are good but they don't measure great, even compared to amps that cost MUCH less."

McIntosh components are spec'd very conservatively by the manufacturer and when they receive an appropriate independent test bench review they more than exceed their rated specifications and very consistently. Though others will argue that specs don't tell the whole story, less scrupulous manufacturers routinely publish erroneous specs as a marketing ploy.

I love the look at McIntosh, but the Sonics don’t rise above box store offerings to compete with many other high-end audio choices. The sound is underwhelming. I suspect the masses view McIntosh as an upscale luxury product, and most/all who purchase have very limited exposure to demoing other high-end offerings.

I’m a bucket list audiophile who began my journey about 10yrs ago. My strategy was to listen to the very best high-end audio has to offer, then try to replicate the sound within budget. So I demoed at many audio stores and audio shows like AXPONA where I purchased the demo speakers. Although McIntosh may sound great amongst box store competition, it doesn’t sound competitive in both price and sound to modern high-end audio alternatives