Disappointing On Mcintosh......help

Listen to as many systems and speaker sets in various combinations as you can. You first must find a sound that pleases you. Without that, the rest is pointless. FWIW, I prefer to start with speakers. It is an approach that has served me well. 

Using it, for me, in my environment, I put together a mostly Mc system that I would happily compare to systems costing far more. That said, I haven't found a pair of their speakers that work for me. A pair of Magico S3s with a C1000 and MC300 tube power really rocked my world during a demo in Buffalo, though. Then the $$$$$ reality kicked in. Sticking with my old monitors still produces highly enjoyable results. YMMV as others have mentioned. 

Moral of the story is that you have to figure out what you like. Until you do that, all the rest is gas. This is an expensive hobby, and no one has a perfect answer. It's your money so please yourself. 

Listen around and enjoy the process. Buy what you like. Forget the rest. Happy auditions!

Cydrone.....you're exactly correct

I use to own Mcintosh 601 mono blocks and C52 preamp with modify klipsch KLF 30 and RF 7II never impress sold them and  bought Parasound A21+ and P6 preamp it was day night 
the only possible answer is klipsch and parasound has great synergy because it was unreal 

McIntosh has been putting lower quality parts in for some time 
look at the tons of $5 red wima caps ,
they are not even close to being more then average , resistors also 
for a company that charges over $5 k 
for all seperates  nice meters that’s it 
the top hybrid parasound designed 
by bascum king blows it away sonicly
i sold !McIntosh and have worked on 
upgrading products calling modding .
mc looks great but sonicly for the $$ could be much better.

I have a McIntosh MAC6700 receiver and I use the tone controls on it as well as a Schiit Loki to cut the midrange (The McIntosh bass and treble controls seem to do a better job than the Schiit, but they don’t have a midrange control). Every once in a while I listen to it flat and I don’t like it at all - similar to what you describe. But when I tweak it to just how I like it, I couldn’t be happier. I am running it into Klipsch RF7-III’s which are probably a bit brighter than most speakers to start with.

A lot of purists say you shouldn’t adjust the sound from the album/tape/CD/stream because that is how the artist intended it. I say make it how you like - it is your ears and money!

-Geoff