Sam loves the McIntosh MCD205. Do You?

I have had nothing but grief with the goddamn MCD205. I've had three of them in the last 7 weeks and they've been nothing but trouble. The first and third simply refused to play certain discs. The second ate four of my discs and refused to give them back. I'm still waiting to get them back from the McIntosh folks.The disc change mechanism is noisy and slow, and changing out discs is a frustrating and time consuming process.

I'm writng this on Xmas eve, having waited 3 weeks to get my "holiday" player returned to me, and within 24 hours of its return its once again refusing to play certain of my discs (which play in all my other players). I love the sound, when it works. Given my experience with its reliability, however, I'd say this product was a piece of shit.

Just spoke with McIntosh Service Manager. Apparently there are two problems with this unit. One is a tracking (hardware) problem. The other is a software problem that makes random play truly random (sometimes it plays and sometimes it doesn't), causing the machine to switch to a new CD, fail to start play on the selected disc, and then switch again. They're exchanging the unit.

This'll be the fourth MCD205 I've had in 2 months. Kudos to the service dept., but as far as I'm concerned the jury's still out on the quality of this CD player.

I wanted to build my whole system around a MC 2102 tube amp and I really liked the idea of using McIntosh for everything. It is designed to work best with the one remote.

I just couldn't talk myself into it. I almost bought Tannoy speakers, but finally opted for Kef Referance. My Cd player is Audio Aero. I think that McIntosh makes terrific amps and tuners, but the other stuff just doesn't excite me.

I've had an MCD205 for 9 months now and been very happy with it. The first one I got had a few tracking issues, but the second has worked great for the most part. There have been 1-2 dirty disks that skipped where they didn't in some others, but as long as the disks are in good shape the sound is fantastic. I'm running it with an Audio Magic Illusion Power cable and Illusion interconnect into a Rogue 66 LSR and Rogue 88 amp, then MartinLogans. I also have a Denon DVD2900 for SACD/DVD-A that I run in 2 channel mode, and I've found that the Mac sounds as good in redbook as the SACD and DVD-A do in the Denon, which I think speaks volumes about the quality of the player. If SACD and DVD-A take off, I think I'll try for a Teac Esoteric, but I still prefer vinyl to everything. However, I like the convenience of a changer for CD playback and I think the MCD205 is as good as it gets.