McIntosh and Brystons: Fair comparison ?

Forget about same league. They're not even the same design-wise. The Brystons are 'pure' solid-state and excellent sound for the money. McIntosh has stupidly IMO tacked autoformers on after the output stage to very dubious "user-friendly" benefit, and to their sonic detrement as far as I'm concerned. If you want "softer edges", just go for a great tube amp. At least the "soft" in tube amps comes from the nature of the vacuum tube and not from electronic affectation ;--) If you want solid state, get a great SS amp like Bryston, Sanders, Levinson, Pass, Rowland. They all represent better price/performance value and have not been compromised with silly "features" that do nothing but muddy the sound.

If you want the best of both worlds, you should be thinking about one of the following recent (and raved about) hybrids that have tube input stages and ss output stages:
Moscode
Aesthetix Atlas
Thorens 3200

Of course unless it is an OTL design tube amps have autoformers too.

But in tubes, excepting OTL, transformers are a necessary and accepted part of the circuit. It is one of the virtues of SS that they are not required, what they are doing in Mac is a mystery in this day and age. Allegedly in the early days they were put in because Mac didn't have a clue how to design transistors. There may be some truth to this, I was at a Mac clinic in Chicago in the middle 60s when a electrical engineering student from Cal Tech brought in a very good looking home made transistor amp labeled "Fengs Folly". It measured beautifully and the Mac guy ask him"how would you like to work in upstate NY." He was at least half serious. If you want the sound of transformers get tubes, if not get transistors, don't mess with mister in-between.

I have to agree with many of the points raised.

The autotransformer is a cheat, designed to match the speaker load to the load of the amplifier.

This must be done due to the impedance mismatch which occurs when a high output impedance device tubes tries to drive power into a low impedance device speakers.

A modern solid state amplifier can produce enough current to drive an arc welder. If you properly design the power supply of a solid state amplifier you can drive almost anything which is not true of any tube design.

The autotransformer means that the MAC amplifier is not direct coupled, direct coupling means you have your output stage directly connected to the load, the speakers, gaining maximum transparency, by using an autotransformer, you are taking the strain off the output stage, which makes the output stage work much easier to power the load, the down side is lack of transparency.

So if you want a solid state amp that is warm and punchy but lacks the kind of resolution that is possible buy a MAC amp, if you really want to hear what is going on but anything else!

The proponents of MAC amplifiers may like the sound if there is any brightness or hash in their previous systems than they would love the MAC sound.

I have found if a solid state system is really well dialed in you will not have any problems with musicality with a non MAC solid state amp,

the magic formula: good acoustics, good power conditioning, good and synergistic cabling, a tube preamp never hurts, vibration isolation for the sources, shakti stones on your power distribution breaker box, works miracles by the way, and a couple of other good tweeks and you will make solid state amp magic without any required band aids.

Garbage in garbage out. 30 years of professional experience says so!

I have 40 years of experience in audio myself but I sure don't know everything.

Sorry but you lost me with the Shakti Stones Oracle.