McIntosh

When I purchased my Musical Fidelity M6si this past December I auditioned it along with Krell Vanguard and the McIntosh MA6700. While I liked that the MA6700 has more inputs, I honestly wouldn't make use of all of them and found the inputs on the M6si adequate for my purposes. Upon listening (same material and speakers GET T2s), for whatever reason to me the Krell came in third, but admittedly auditioning in an audio store can yield less than exactly perfect results. I was hard pressed to discern any difference in sound quality between the MAC and MF. It boiled down to dollars and the MAC was slightly more than twice the price of the MF. To me the MF was and remains a far better value, but if cost weren't a consideration I probably would have taken the MAC. 

On a different note (no pun intended), deceased now for 25 some odd years is an old friend of mine - Eddie Layton. He was the organist for the NY Yankees and a musician in his own right. His audio equipment consisted of nothing but McIntosh - and within McIntosh whatever was their top-of-the-line at the time he had to have it :)

There was a time when I would have loved to have owned a great piece or two of McIntosh gear; I am a sucker for those glowing meters. Even more than McIntosh, I lust the look and build of Accuphase components. And tomorrow, my Accuphase E-470 gets delivered! A dream come true. I've heard people say that Accuphase is the Japanese McIntosh. I, for one, would much rather have a well executed FULL function integrated amp or preamp than a 'minimalist' design and that's another reason why I have always admired McIntosh.

I always thought the McIntosh reputation was with their tube amps, the MC 60 and later MC 275.

The McIntosh Autoformers have been discussed ad nauseam in many audiofile sites. Whomever says it does not make sense should first educate themselves on why their designers chose this design option before making comments. If they didn’t make sense, I have no doubt that McIntosh could easily do what most everyone else does and get rid of all the (unnecessary) complexity and weight and make more money all at the same time.