I have seen some Interesting comments about Mcintosh lately

Thanks for your explanation bdp. While I never considered most McIntosh gear past the 70's "cutting edge" I really feel quite differently about some of their earlier products of the 50's and 60's. I've listened to some quite incredible Mac systems based on some of these earlier designs. One in particular back in the late 80's had me searching for a nice pair of MC60s which I located and still have to this day although not in regular use. While I DO agree that their early designs are rather conservative there is MUCH that can be done to improve performance. After all, they still have those marvelous unity coupled transformers!

Fine Sounds now owns McIntosh as well as Sonus Faber, Audio Research, Wadia, Sumiko and Fine Sounds Asia. The company started in 2007 when an investment company (Quadrivio) bought Sonus Faber. Mauro Grange became CEO of Sonus Faber in 2009. In 2012 they bought McIntosh. In 2014 Grange and Charlie Randall, President of McIntosh, along with LBO France and Yarpa, bought out Fine Sounds management. Grange is Group CEO and Randall is COO and President of McIntosh. I believe they have moved the headquarters to NY.

In the US, Fine Sounds has partnered with Magnolia to put high end Magnolia stores in selected Best Buys. Time will tell, but this may well sour many independent stores on carrying both Sonus Faber and McIntosh. My local Best Buy/Magnolia has both Sonus Faber and McInosh on display, but they do not know much about it and are not up to task of selling it, except to novice customers. When I went in, they had 4 demo disks that I could listen to and were just thinking they might hook up a computer system to it. They were not sure if the amp they were using was class D or tubes. They knew little about the history of the companies. I told them I had some older Sonus Faber Cremona speakers, driven by a Cary SLP-05 pre-amp and Levinson 432 amp and the salesman said he had not heard of them. I have not been back.

DTC,
In the late 70's/early 80's I worked at some high shops in the DC area, when Yamaha was a mainstay line for many shops like the one I worked at.

Then Yamaha introduced a cheaper line of equipment, sold at department stores and our factory rep came by and gave us a primer on how to sell against that equipment.  We all thought it was the beginning of the end of the "sweet spot" in the product lineup Yamaha dominated, and it was.

Sales people who are on straight commission at these high-end shops have it bad enough to educate their potential customers, oftentimes those customers take that education elsewhere and buy something cheaper, thinking they are getting the same quality.  I remember a customer who took several hours of my time, bought a cheaper system from a low-end competitor, then had the audacity to visit me to see if I could figure out why there was all this hum coming from one of the speakers!

When McIntosh (and some other "exclusive" brands) started selling at Magnolia, I thought it was "deja vu all over again".  I see that McIntosh is no longer at Magnolia, I suspect the business arrangement didn't work out.  But I do see brands like NAD, and B&W, not a good sign for those brands.

Hey, this is a hobby.  Some of you with your strong opinions one way or another sound like you are really angry that someone else doesn't agree with your opinions, my advice would be to "lighten up".  If someone else wants to spend their hard-earned money on things you don't value, who cares?