Mcintosh customer support


Requested Firmware update from Mcintosh for my ageing but still good sounding D150 Dac Mcintosh customer support virtually refused to supply Firmware v 1.02 with me . their answer was,,

( Unfortunately, company policy prohibits me from sending out firmware updates. We used to distribute them openly but they ended up on forums and were installed into incorrect units causing a massive influx in service repairs. At that point the company instituted the policy to no longer distribute them.)

it is so sad that Audio Giant like McIntosh do not care about their customers.

128x128sabih

I agree with both of the above comments and the question. Did they offer to do it for you or have a dealer do it? It sounds like their reason was valid for their protection and the protection of their customers.

Dear Audiophile 1, my experience requesting firmware update from Mcintosh it is not a assessment  it is a fact after exchanging 9 mails with customer support never had straight answer until I asked them is there firmware update for D150 or not ! eventually answer was yes there is but we can not provide you  because of reasons pointed out in my earlier comment  also it is totally irrelevant that update does have a impact on sound they did not offer to do it nor advise me what to do .

contacted Mcintosh dealer who they checked their service guideline firmware update v1.02 is not been provide to them in short really gobsmacked I'm not  one of  those throw all my toys out of my pram but definitely off loading my Mcintosh mono amps & preamp /dac to replace it with another brand who they offer me infinite help and support  when needed,in the past I  own  Krell, ARC, CODA ,PLINIUS , APOGEE products I 've had their technical support team directly contacted me without re directing to their dealers,, Thank you all for your comments.

@sabih, Did you ask your McIntosh retailer if they will install the firmware update for you?  

 

I just read a Mc owner was very pleased with the communications they received when they needed to ask about the balanced inputs on the amp. Seems there’s a disconnect between the software side at Mc and the analog side.

It also sounds as if they did not make their firmware upgrade process more bullet proof and now the end users are suffering for it.

On a bit of a tangent, and I say this as an IT guy, the complexities of software driven appliances is a major reason why I wanted to have a separate DAC and Roon streamer. For any company to put a computer in their devices is a big commitment to maintenance and upgrades, etc. Roon has me covered in that respect.

Things get even worse when I think  about HT receivers and processors.  The difficulty even a major player like Theta Digital had stepping up to HDMI was not lost on me, and it's nearly impossible for me to consider a very good, but boutique audio brand in the HT space.  Exceptions might be JBL re-branded processors.

+1, "It also sounds as if they did not make their firmware upgrade process more bullet proof and now the end users are suffering for it".  

And a very important lesson for McIntosh.