Is McIntosh a stepping stone into HI/FI?

Absolutely not. Just another flavor in the ice cream shop. And a good one at that.

When the straight wire/minimalist designs--spearheaded by the original Mark Levinson preamps and meterless amps--came into fashion, McIntosh with its old school face of knobs for bass, treble, mono, stereo reverse, and balance, and SS power amps with big blue meters and output transformers, quickly fell out of fashion, and for a long time took on an old school, "this is your dad's stereo" reputation. But I've gotta say, I've never heard a bad-sounding McIntosh and some of their amps are some of the best I've ever heard. I have had a pair of Mirage M5si floorstanding speakers I bought in late 1996. In the audition I found a Sunfire amp wanting so then tried a big-ass McIntosh. I never could come up with the scratch for an amp like that, but 15 years later, the way that that Mac pushed Holly Cole's "Temptation" album through those speakers haunts me still.

Great stuff. I own one MC275 and I just keep putting record after record on, and before you know it half the day has gone. I have never listened to my records and music so much.

07-01-11: Tzh21y
Great stuff. I own one MC275 and I just keep putting record after record on, and before you know it half the day has gone. I have never listened to my records and music so much.

To quote Napoleon Dynamite, "Luck-eee!"

How long have you been spinning vinyl through this rig? I read the test report on the current reissue MC275 and I"m amazed at how competitive that amp still is, even by the measured numbers, such as a power bandwidth that doesn't hit -3dB until nearly 100 KHz. And it has the square wave (rise time) response to go with it. Clean, fast, *and* tubular midrange--what more could one want?

I think MAC gear is first rate, and especially so regarding intangibles, like
service, pride-of-ownership, and owning a piece of an american audio icon -
like owning a Harley. As previously mentioned "old school"
styling may have hurt for a while among the audiophile crowd, and maybe
the fact that while excellent gear, it was also owned by many folks that were
not necessarily audiophiles at the core - they have some money, want a
good system, and they know the brand - where as that simply does not
happen with other hi-end brands to the same extent. That says something
about MAC demographic reach, but very little about the quality of the gear,
which is IMHO, very good gear indeed in terms of build and sound.