Do true audiophiles own Mcintosh gear

Mcintosh has been making audio amps and speakers since Jesus was in diapers. I heard a very large and very expensive all Mcintosh system in a chalet on Red Mountain in Aspen where Dave Brubeck went to practice way back in the early seventies. The centerpiece was some monster midrange horn. This Mcintosh system is what audiophiles really crave but can never obtain or even hear anywhere. Lol

In the 40 odd years I've been at this I can't recall an instance of a famous company where ownership changed from the original owners where things went well.

I will cite Marantz as an example of Schubert's good point.
With the Superscope purchase profits went up but quality certainly went down.

I own a pair of McIntosh MC 60s,1956 vintage paired up with Zu Def IVs. Sounds pretty good to me.

I find it interesting that many of the competitive brands mentioned here are actually more costly than McIntosh. For years, I've maintained "you can spend more money, but you can't get significantly better than McIntosh" and I still stand by that assertion. The build quality is second to none, the sound quality is entirely comparable to the other "names" and the value is without equal. I auditioned Audio Research, Cary, Classe, Krell, Linn and Mark Levinson before I went Mc, and all of them were quite a bit more expensive. Of them all, only the AR and Classe performed at the same level and were decidedly feature-limited in comparison. The happiest aspect of my purchases has been that I feel absolutely no need to revisit any of them. That one fact has permitted me to concentrate on what is truly the most important aspect of the audiophile hobby: Finding and listening to great music!