Why do no audio enthusiasts use McIntosh?

I have been to the dealer in Binghamton you are referring to, I was wondering if I missed something, I guess not. I have a very respectable system(60k+, only 20 years old-me not the system), I have heard lots of gear, and I thought that it(Mc) looked cool and some of it had high prices, but Ed’s last comment makes a lot of sense. I have worked on too many Vette’s and they are one of the worst cars on the road-IMO- though tons of people swear by them, uncanny! They fit into my favorite audio category(I need to come up with some sort of real name for this ‘problem’ a lot of gear has),The it’s like being hit up side the head with a pillow case full of dimes-sound. breathe taking, you can only imagine. ~Tim

I must not of seen the light, I would take a C5!

BTW, a C5 is not a Mac preamp, but a Vette.

I have had alot of Mac equipement ( MC 75, MC2300 , MC 2155, C28 , C11 , MX-117) And let me tell you the Mcintosh is really a tube lover. Even now in their solid state electronics they use output transformer instead of having the transistor driving the speaker directly wich result of some sort of tube sound but limited with the output transformer ( tried the Mc 2300 300W/ch on B&W Matrix 801 and the amp meter was always near the 300 watt output when my little Marantz 250 125W/ch had not problem at all driving the B&W even louder) But when it come to OLD mcintosh tubed stuff they are really special my setup was the folowing : C-11 tube preamp , MC75 tube amp pair driving old JBL L100 century. And let me tell you the their was someting magic in the music, I can't describe what but it was one of the best sound I've heard even now (MY curent system: YBA 2HCDT AMP , YBA 2 preamp , JMLAB mini utopia speaker, all wired in transparent reference. Also keep in mid that Mcintosh are not ment to be played LOUD when you listen to a MC at low volume they are great but when you push them a little bit the sound become fuzzy and all the instrument merge to made a big noise.

I think the name of the problem is "justification." When you dump a pile of money into your dream system it must sound good because you are then past the point of no return and can't go back - you can go forward by "upgrading" (I hate that word because eventually the playing levels out with only miniscule bumps) however, wherein it all starts over. It is easy to fall in this trap but to realize it is the first step. I always thought of people who continually search for the better system as not having spent enough money on it yet! My final two cents....