Do true audiophiles own Mcintosh gear

I think the original question is insulting. Who are we to judge the equipment someone else likes? If someone likes McIntosh that's their business and fine by me. There's a lot more important things to worry about.

Rja, I agree with you 100%. Cool username, btw.

What is an audiophile anyway? Many times I believe people buy exotic audio to keep up with the "Jones" and forget the real reason, THE MUSIC!

I used to collect vintage Sansui gear. Most of you are probably turning your nose up as we speak. However my old Sansui 9090db was the sweetest, most forgiving (and non fatiguing) receiver that I owned and yet many people would laugh at me.. It sounded great for my ears and I have very sensitive ears (I used to be a studio sessionist). Well the 9090db was given to my son who now enjoys it in his one bedroom flat (whilst in grad school).

Our beloved hobby is in the ear of the beholder..

Furthermore,dealers who bash Mcintosh are probably in business for all the wrong reasons anyway. These snobbish, by appointment only L.A. type snake dealers are more concerned with selling you an over-hyped, OVER-bling, over-rated exotic "blah blah blah" component that they claim sound better because they are hand-made by Bavarian artisan monks retrofitted with caps or resistors developed by NASA. You get my drift. So p--lease, be careful not step in the b*llsh*t.

With that being said, let your ears decide for you not some glossy audio magazine or slick audio dealer. I have listened to many many ARC, Halcro,VTL, Mark Levinson, Mcintosh and Spectral components that were not worth their inflated price of admission.

I did however finally find vintage separates that agreed with my ears and wallet: a mcintosh mc-2155 amp and c-28 preamp. Warm, non-fatiquing, and easy going to my ears. But I bet alot of you out there would turn your nose up at my component choices.. Go figure.

I have owned Mcintosh gear, a C-46, two MC-501 and an MCD-205 which I still have.
Mcintosh is well built, looks good and has a high resale value. It sounds very good to.
I like Mcintosh as much as I like Accuphase. They have been in business quite a long time and most of the time they have produced very good amps.
There are probably some amps out there which sound better than Mcintosh,but not many, and most of those are tubed amps of the SET variety.
You must like tubes to have one of those and high efficient speakers too.
In order to put together such a SET/highEffSpeaker setup you need some knowledge and lots of listening experience to get it right.
You run the risk of getting entangled in an eternal upgrade path and get confused by dealers, reviewer of all sorts and fellow audiogon members.
With Mcintosh you will be able to put together a one brand system, it will look fantastic(you will feel good), it has a considerable weight and will increase you feeling of having got something really tangible for your money (makes you feel good also) and then it will sound very good too and you will be a happy man for a long time.

There is no best amp in this world, everything is relative (Einstein)and all depends of your point of view, on your financial position (you need money for other pleasing hobbies too)and on your capacity to extract happyness from what you have got.
Be absolutely sure that the most expensive amp is NOT the best one.
With McIntosh you can not go wrong, that is for sure.
You can go shopping for something marginally better and end up with something worse.
If you like the mac, get it.
Do not worry what Audiophiles think of it, they are a bunch of masochists and eternally unsattisfied people. IMHO of course.

what is a true audiophile ? the term is ubiquitous on audiogon, but i have yet to hear a definition.

i will venture an opinion in absence of a definition.

true audiophiles can own just about anything, as long as it suits their preference. if one assumes that audiophile equals prefers virtually accurate presentation, i would say mcintosh tends to design tube components which are close to neutral.

my evidence ? i own an mc 275, which i intend to sell later this month and have reviewed an mc 220 preamp.