McIntosh -- good for show, not for sound, says dealer

It isn’t a requirement to love Mac, or ANY brand / product.

That seems eminently defensible. Very, very safe thing to claim.

It would be pretty damn boring if we all had the same gear, same tastes etc..

This, too, is very, very true. Almost tautologically true. 

WoW this thread is like "ctrl-alt-delete" for my post.

Come to think of it a LOT of my post are being disappeared

I gotta find a new place to hang my hat.. 

Canada? You guys got any room up there? I'll bring my own money and job how's that? I can learn to understand French, speaking it, I don't think so.. You guys got a "Statue of Liberty" somewhere? I love maple syrup. Moose not so much..

I like Canadian and Australian actors too.. I want to start a Vanilla and Truffle Trade and call it the "Something".

They got the corner on Canadian Bacon too. I wonder why?
Canadian Bacon, Truffle, Vanilla and Canadian Goose eggs, (they got the corner on that one too.) Come to think of it Canada sounds pretty good except for the snow.

Maybe I could hunt up Master M and we could go on Tour.

"Embedding you System" I'll bring pictures of the Rabbit and Dog..

Say they got crawdads up there?

I'll bring my Mcintosh gear with me (on TOPIC)

Now why would they "ctrl-alt-delete" this post. :-)

Regards (respectful)

When I decided to splurge and buy my final preamp and get all the features I wanted I made a mental list.
home theater bypass function

built in good quality DAC

a topnotch phono stage

balanced output

ability to rename inputs and disable unused inputs

input name display clearly visible from across the room (hate little led dots under tiny labels)

tone and balance controls

The two least expensive preamps I found that I could order that had all that were the Anthem STR and the Mcintosh C49.  The Anthem was $4200 and the Mac was $5000.  I ended up buying the one made in America with a sterling reputation for service.  In addition to all the above, it has two separately switched and buffered outputs, a fixed record out, 3 12v triggers, 2 of which can be programmed to come on with an input or inputs,  a 12v input from an AVR or AV processor that automatically puts it in HT passthrough.  It helps that it looks great.

$5000 doesn’t seem like a bargain and you can certainly get things that sound  as good for less money.  However, nothing I could find has all those features for significantly less.

I’ll let Mike Campbell speak for me on this.  

After watching this thread go back and forth, and the OP taking both sides as "the messenger", I'd like to ask the Op to explain this statement from the original post that is his own:

"More unvarnished truth from YouTube" - hilde45
Definition from Dictionary.com: Unvarnished - Plain, Clear, Straightforward. 

So, is OCD Mikey's opinion the truth or not? You did call him out later, but to me it appears that you agreed with him early on or at least just wanted to start another McIntosh bash thread for self serving purposes. Prove me wrong and go on the record with your position and why stating McIntosh specific gear and experience. If I missed it in the thread, my apologies. I believe this thread has demonstrated that McIntosh owners are tired of being bashed with generic blanket statements and have made their position known. So, Op, what is yours?