McIntosh -- good for show, not for sound, says dealer

@roxy54

Thanks so much! I appreciate your reading my comments and thinking they are important.

In my former shop we sold Mc for a while. Jimmy Ryder (yes, Ryder Trucks--the son) had a shop in Miami and he was THEIR guy for many years (Hi-Fi Associates) so we did not get to keep the line since we were north of him about an hour (Boca Raton). In those days, manufacturers gave you a "territory" and even Mc was "fair trade." (You can look that up if you don’t know what it means.)

Anyway, I had a bunch of their newer gear and a bunch of their older gear (trade-ins on Audio Research). We listened to it all. The scope thing was cool until it broke. The tuner was OK--not the best, but OK. The older tube amps were less than transparent (to be kind) when it came to reproducing Lincoln Mayorga Direct-to-Disc albums. I don’t remember the pre-amps, but with SP3-A1’s all the rage at the time, I would guess they were not as accurate as the Audio Research ones were.

Reviews at the time from J. Gordon Holt and Henry Pearson et. al. were all pretty much the same--nice looking, well-built, not very accurate.

Do what you want, believe what you want. I heard what I heard, and that is that.

Sorry if you are not happy when presented with facts like many today. Life’s tough, right?

MAC has been bashed as not being true high end since the days of the Audio Critic’s Peter Aczel and they seem to have weathered the storm. 

richopp,

You didn't present any of those "facts" in your blanket comment which implied that their gear was purchased for looks rather than sound; and the story you tell me now is really ancient history. 

Do you really believe that McIntosh has stood still since that time and not advanced their technologies, just as Audio Research has?