replace Mcintosh with Luxman

Reading the enthusiasm here, I’ll add to the endorsement of the Luxman over Mcintosh. My single experience with the Mcintosh back in the day was with the MC275 mk4. At first it’s a nice, warm tubey sound, rather pleasant but that’s about it. After trying different gear throughout the years, I realized that the Mcintosh I had was quite colored in its presentation. Perhaps it’s a tube amp or it’s just this particular model, I’m not sure. The sound lacked clarity and detail as the finer nuance in music was somewhat missing and not reproduced by the speakers.

I currently own a mid level Naim pre/power and Luxman L-590AXII integrated, and the Luxman actually outshines the Naim in most aspects of the sound reproduction. The tonality and refinement of the Luxman are very good although it’s just an integrated amp. It’s truly quality. In general, I find the Luxman to have very low coloration as it doesn’t add or take away much from the music or original recording. The finer nuance and detail in the music are all beautifully reproduced by the Luxman. With other amps, you don’t hear much of the refinement.

I don’t have experience with the larger Luxman separates but if this is the quality I’m getting from the integrated, I’m convinced the pre/power will send you to heaven. That’s a bit of an exaggeration there but you can guess I am very pleased with the performance of the Luxman in my system. It’s the first amp that got me off the merry go round of upgrades after all these years.

I did just the opposite. Went from Luxman solid state to McIntosh tubes. way more pleasing to my ears.
I still keep the 505 UxII in the rack for the times when the 2500 pre may go down.

I was considering a McIntosh to drive my Tannoy Gold Reference Sterling speakers that I acquired for an excellent price. Thats was before I spoke to a Luxman dealer who told me that customers who buy McIntosh from him very often bring it back and trade it in for a Luxman. I purchased the Luxman L-507-ux also for an excellent  price. It's worked out very nice for me. 

Being remote in Alaska, I'd consider reliability to be the most important thing.  The most reliable audio vendor in the world is Bryston.  I wouldn't fool around with anything else.  Especially McIntosh.  Not as well made and reliable as you'd think.

The thing is that they definitely sound very good on their own. But whenever I compared them to what else I could get in the market, I always found another brand that offered the same or higher sound and build quality at a much lower price point. I feel that with McIntosh you’re paying a substantial premium for pedigree or pride in ownership, or whatever you want to call it. This is important to a lot of audiophiles, nothing wrong with it

Never owned any Mc. I have auditioned it and talked to their reps at my local dealer who feature it.  Also talked to their support about my Wadia that Mcintosh Group now own.  Most overrated product on the market.