McIntosh

When did McIntosh gear get street cred?

Back when I was still keeping up with audio and audiophilia, Mac was sneered at as "carriage trade" gear for deaf doctors who cared more about looks than sound. The ad slogan for their speakers didn't help anything either -- "Fine audio furniture the whole family can be proud of."

The snobs all knew that Mac made great tuners though. If you couldn't afford a Sequerra or a vintage 10B, the Mac MR78 was the next choice.

But now I see Mac gear getting big feature reviews in audio magazines on both side of the ocean, and the occasional magazine cover pic. CES reports always include a picture of the McIntosh booth. What happened? And when?

 

I guess the big question is, did their gear change, or just attitudes toward it?

 

Well, let's see.....

- You can purchase new Mac tube gear made with transformers made on the same winding jigs they used in the 60s.
- You can still get parts for that 40+ year old tube amp.
- They still make gear with high WAF as they did back in the 60s.
- The old, vintage gear can be still be rebuilt to compete with many amps out there today (the way I tend to go with their stuff)
- They are still in the same town and buildings as they were back then.
- The holding company, D&M Holdings, leaves them alone to build better gear and expand their markets overseas - something they had little of in the 60s.
- Many of those doctors and lawyers I used to sneer at back in the 70s are now dead and I'm freely admiting that I've always lusted after that chrome and black gear with the big, bouncy blue meters. So there!

Now, where did I put that black light and the lava lamp?......got some Mateus Rose?...and pass me that bong, will ya?

Cheers,

David

 

When was this?

 

that reminds me of the interview with Merle Haggard in last months Rolling Stone Magazine where the reporter said that there were "MacIntosh amplifiers"..... like it was a computer!

i hope somebody corrected him on that one

 

Circa 1971-1988...

 

When I interviewed Charlie in issue 22, he said that about six years ago or so, they had divided up a lot of the engineering between the autosound dept and home audio, but then when they moved away from autosound after the ford GT40 program, they started concentrating on bigger amps and refining the sound.

All of the Mac stuff I've had the pleasure of reviewing has been very good, some of it top in class. The MC1.2 KW amps are fantastic. The MCD500 cd player also fantastic.

Most Mac gear though offers good sound, excellent build quality (all made in US down to the boxes that they are shipped in) and high reliability.

If you like the combination of what they offer, it's good stuff.

 

A lot of what happened, is that their competition got a LOT more expensive, while they steadily improved the product.

 

As I understand it, one of the main secrets of McIntosh's early success was the transformers. When I was working at WBAA (Purdue Univ), our main program and monitor amps were the old 50 watt tube models. The chief engineer, as I understand, had replaced his homebrew amps made with Thordarson Tru-Fidelity transformers quite a while back to get the magic of McIntosh's output transformers.

Although almost all the rest of the chain at WBAA, including the modulation transformer, used Thodarson Tru-Fidelity transformers, which were probably the "Jensen" transformers of that era.

 

I don't remember a time when McIntosh gear lacked "street cred".

(I can't believe I actually typed "steet cred". Egad. That's twice. )

 

Oh no! Another McIntosh bashing thread from people who have no idea what they are talking about. :thumbsdn:

 

There is plenty of room for criticism for some of their loudspeakers. I own a pair of their ML10C and they're nicer to look at than listen to. I live down the road from the McIntosh Binghamton NY site. I had them recone the woofers and also purchased replacement tweeters from them. If I hadn't found the pair in a rummage sale for $15, I would consider myself overinvested in them. They just aren't on par with McIntosh amp/preamp gear from that era. I owned a McIntosh transistor amp which I sold and never wanted back. I'm only interested in their tube gear.

The guys at the McIntosh labs gave me a nice set of posters and I have a few copies stored. One of them shows a McIntosh CR10 Remote Control System and the caption reads "A sure sign of an outstanding audio retailer". Another one shows an MC7300 next to a MC275 with a used tag on it" and the caption reads "Why some people would rather own a used McIntosh than a new anything else". Both posters have the following statement positioned under the gear photos: "Made In The USA".

To my knowledge, McIntosh has only one certified retailer in my area of upstate New York as they now have strict sales quotas for retailers to maintain in order to offer McIntosh gear. Audio Classics in Vestal NY, has the exclusive rights to sell their gear around these parts. I bought a used MA230 from Stellar Stereo in Ithaca NY, for $179 back in the 80's. I watched one sell for $880 on ebay this week. Even at that price I think it was a good deal. Change out the electrolytics on one of these and wire up a set of Klipsch speakers. Let the music speak for itself.

 

I considered the possibility that the original poster was trying to stir the pot since he started a thread with what many would consider an unpopular opinion, but maybe not. Let's see if he comes back to this thread.

 

My first exposure to McIntosh gear was when I was a kid, late 1960s.
A friend's father had some in their living room. It was off limits to us kids. That was the time when transistor gear was replacing the "old antiquated tube gear". Of course we thought the newer gear was our generations answer to our parents gear.

Fast forward to today, tubes are still viable and pricing is now within reach for some of us 'grown up kids'. McIntosh is, for the most part, well engineered and built gear. It holds it value and it lasts. What more could you ask for?
And it's still built here.

I love my MC275 and I am considering a McIntosh control amp.

By the way, my friend's father wasn't a doctor... He wrote advertising jingles, in other words, he was a musician.

 

I read the same article and I was stunned by the ignorance of the writer.

 

A friend of our family has a Mac pre-amp/amp. Not sure what models. He bought them new in 1969 (along with a '69 Chevelle SS396) when he got his union job working for a beer distributor. I remember when I was really young (7 or 8) and he had them set up in his attic in the "freak room" that was all tapestried, pillowed and lava lamped/black lighted out. We were unauthorized to enter the room, but being a curious lad, I couldn't resist. I recall the MacIntosh sitting on an altar-like table, surrounded by melted candles and incense, the engine of the psychedelic events that occurred in that room. When I got older, I'd always get him to play something for me through it when I visited it, and he'd tell me all about the history of it.

So needless to say, I've always seen their products as very high end, American-made equipment, something to work towards in my audiophile journey.

 

As long as Mac has been in business, surely, there was a period when other companies produced better products...

 

The first 'audiophile' amp I ever heard way back in the 80s was a pair of McIntosh MC-60s driving a pair of Magnepan MG-1s. After that it was a (heavily modified) McIntosh 240 driving Quad ESL-63s. It was this MC240/Quad combo that got me into hi-fi. btw - this same friend no longer runs McIntosh gear - to his ears he had better results with a pair of Eico HF-60s but again he is a big fan of the EL34 'sound'.

The only Mac gear I own is a vintage McIntosh 250 solid-stater that gets use in my second system. It is reliable, sounds a bit like a tube amp and looks great sitting on my bookshelf. In the future I'll probably be replacing this with a Mac receiver as right now the current system is a bit complicated for family use - Dynaco PAS-3X preamp, Dynaco AF-6 tuner and McIntosh 250 amplifier.

I think some of the nay-saying of Mac gear comes from the days when they didn't give review samples out to some of the magazines. That policy has obviously changed and has been a boon to their sales and popularity.

 

Really? Got documentation on that? Can anyone produce a single female subject that actually likes the appearance of McIntosh gear?

Even I don't like the look.

I'd be extremely pleased to own McIntosh components, but would go out of my way to obscure those supersized blue meters.

They got 'em on the turntable, fercryinoutloud.

 

Then you are obviously not a Mac customer. I think only Harley Davidson has bigger brand loyalty than McIntosh and on your side of the pond, probably Naim.

So you either dig it or you don't. Personally, I love the big blue meters on the MC1.2kw's!

 

McIntosh certainly has a signature look. It's not my favorite, but it's nice and unmistakeable.

 

I love the look in the wood cabinets. Whole new ballgame.

 

I've got an MX 112 and MC 2105 in the cabinets, and my wife actually likes the looks of them. She does not however like 100 watts per channel.

 

she wants more power?