Mac gear "Slow" or others "Fast"

if you have an accomadating dealer, he'll let you take gear home to audition for at least overnight. an extended listening session might give you a better sense of which sound YOU prefer. a good test is whether you end up listening for hours or if you get fatigued and lose interest. the super-detailed ('etched'?) sound can have a certain "wow" factor but may not be your cup of tea over the long run... it sounds like you're unsure of what it is YOU like and you'll be better able to determine this if you can audition the equipment at home, with YOUR room acoustics, and YOUR other components. hi-fi showroom demos are only useful up to a point!

i have owned both mac and classe gear and i wouldn't call mac gear slow. i would think it would depend on the amp and speaker combination. i have heard the larger macintosh monoblocks (1000's), the mc352 and mc500 driving the larger snell and krell speakers and they were not slow. i used to own the mcintosh mc202 amp and the ma6500 integrated. when using these pieces with my totem mani 2's, they didn't do the speakers justice. when i demo'd the mcintosh mc352 amp with the mani's, it was night and day difference. the 352's had the power to drive the mani's. i used to own classe gear (ca200, cp 47.5, cdp 1.5) and i would say that the classe gear that i have heard/owned sounds very similar to the mcintosh gear i have heard/owned.
i agree with nickt above, it is all about personal taste.

linearity is mac's signature. they favor no frequency. the result is a very neutral presentation. their tube amps are the same. of all the solid state gear in the marketplace they are more suited to long term listening than auditions. if the recording has it, they reproduce it. they add nothing.

Two words: system synergy. So many people don't realize it and your post makes it sound like you don't either. I can take the best amp in the world and make it sound fast, slow, mushy, analytical, bad or good simply by changing what it is hooked up to. IMO, the speakers play the largest role in deciding what amp to get but don't overlook the source, preamp, room and personal tastes which also need to be factored in.

Your only option is to experiment. I have owned Classe and McIntosh and find them more similar than different. My McIntoshes have the most natural pace and rhythm I have ever experienced and I attribute it all to my care in component matching - and not to the amps themselves. Good luck! Arthur

They all sound the same if operating within their design limitations. I suggest a variation on double blind testing that calls for putting your head in a gunnysack with two holes of the exact same (notice the American redundancy) size for the ears. Listen to any amp, side by side, with whatever music you want for whatever period you want and then go to a mirror and try to say to yourself out loud the all have a "house sound".