Why the hate for mcintosh amps?

I broke-in during the 70's when Mac was making the most durable stuff ever and was actively marketing solid state gear.  Their well-deserved reputation for quality-at-a-price was built on their still very desirable tube products.  IMO that old Mac tranny stuff is still cosmetically cute and will probably last until the big flood, but they sounded like a can of nails when we put them on DQs or Maggies. Hard to deal with that dichotomy. Mac was at least smart enough to re-introduce tubes. The guy I worked for used to love to run 4 ESS Heil III's on a 2105 thru a C28. Miracord changer with a Shure Type IV! "Dark Side of the Moon" had just come out and the owner loved to demo the system at hi volume. When he first played me "Money," I nearly lost my little neo-audiophile hearing! Can of nails!

Better getting ss mac amp and tube preamp?  Or a tube amp with tube preamp.

at least a tube preamp makes sense

So I think 1 problem when someone states they don't like McIntosh amps is that they are listening to a Frankenstein system with a mixture of different preamps, dacs, cd transports, & phono preamps. So they are listening to the amp out of context: Maybe the amp is so good that its telling you that something up stream isn't so good & and you are blaming the amp for doing its job being the last component in the chain before the speakers or maybe the speakers that you are using are not a good match to the amp. For the best results, it is always better to keep the system whole from a single brand because its designed to work together & to have  synergy: Frankenstein systems don't have synergy and lead to frustration and pain & suffering with endless attempts to make the system sound better. This creates an endless cycle of frustration.

@jb1 - I guess 99.9% of audiophiles have Frankenstein systems. Very few manufacturers offer all components (maybe Rega and Linn?) and even they may not have all the components of a CD system.

I do like turntables sold with arms from the same manufacturer with one continuous cable from cartridge (from a third party manufacturer) to phono stage (no separate headshell) . Of course you want to make sure the cartridge is a good match to the tonearm.

To solve the electronics issue as far as amps go, it's simple, just get an integrated amp and rid yourself of all the extra interconnects.

Mac dont provide a linestage preamp.  Big flaw in lineup.