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

It took reading all the way down the first page of this thread before someone mentioned value (thanks henry53). There can be no doubt that McIntosh products are very well built, last a long time, and for most people, sound just fine. If you don't care about money, by all means buy McIntosh. But if you do care about money and value, McIntosh products are very expensive for what you get. Since I'm always concerned about value, McIntosh products are a non-starter for me, but that in no way means they're bad performing products.

So, umm, lemme guess, 11Stereo is not a McIntosh dealer, but is a dealer for other brands at similar price points to Mac gear. FWIW, I have been using a C220 preamp for over a decade. Yes, I like it’s looks, but I bought it because of its flexible functionality. I did swap out the tubes and got better performance and lowered the noise floor. To my ears, in the context of my system, it sounds fantastic, and has the features I need, like a balance control with great range, and a tape loop. The MM phono section sounds wonderful, and needle drop digital copies of my LPs sound awesome. Overpriced? Not to my ears, although I did by used. YMMV.

@hilde45, peace!

@curiousjim, you said:

"ocdmikey is the same clown who lost out on distributing of Denafrips products and went on YouTube blasting the company and their products. Really appeared to be sour grapes."

Mikey didn’t loose Denafrips. He choose to drop them. His video clearly explains what happened. Denafrips didn’t honor the distribution agreement they had with Mikey. Also, they wanted Mikey to drop all of the other lines he represents and only carry them.

In the video Mikey explained that the way the Chinese company operates, there wasn’t any benefit to an American distributing company, only to the Chinese company. The price an end user pays is over priced due to where it’s manufactured.

Mikey told his side of the story of what happened. He said people can continue to buy the brand if they want. That’s not sour grapes. That’s explaining his decision to drop the brand and move on. If the company didn’t honor it’s agreement and then put unrealistic demands on Mikey as a provision of continuing to represent the brand, who could blame him for dropping them?

Anyone else getting the feeling that this is becoming a nascar argument of Ford vs Chevy? 
sit back and enjoy the music anyway you can. Even if you are in your Ford and passing a Chevy!

Everyone is entitled to like what they like. But it’s better for everybody to keep any hate suppressed. Except for my hate of the OP’s "discuss."

No good can come from it.