Uh oh---here comes the controversy. I used to have an all Mac system C1000 peamp and Mc 2102 amp with Watt puppy 7s. Added a Hydra and 2 Anaconda pcs and could detect no audible difference other than a slight increase in gain. I kept the Shunyata products in the bullpen because I felt I could not get enough $ back on the used market to justify losing the potential of beneficial use with a future system. Lived very happily with that system for a few years until the Mac 2301s came out. I new I could use the power and the mono configuration and intended to purchase them. But I decided to listen to as many possible systems as I could before I made the purchase. I listened to my system with the 2301s. Then I did the rounds at many dealers with set of music with which I was very familiar listening to high end systems from other manufacturers including the likes of Audio Research, VTL, Mark Levinson, Spectral, MBL, Zanden, VAC, BAT, Pathos, Ayre and countless others. It was then that I realized that, compared to all of the above, McIntosh's signature sound is smooth, rounded and quite musical, but not very transparent, especially throughout the midrange and lower treble regions. I suspect the use of autoformers may have something to do with it, but I am not an engineer so I am just guessing.
Having used the same Shunyata products I kept in the bullpen and newer generation Shunyata products in 2 other systems owned by my audiophile friends and in my current ARC rig, I can easily hear the difference with and without each Shunyata product that I have used. The differences for me are more than subtle, but not "new component" or night and day type changes. But they are there and are worth the price of admission in the above instances.
Another factor attesting to the scrim that Mac puts over the musical presentation is that I could never hear any difference in loading my Dynavector XV1-s at 50 ohms or 1,000 ohms on my C1000. I thought that my ears were perhaps not sensitive enough But I can hear each change from 50 ohms, to 100, to 500 to 1,000 to 47k ohms on my Ref Phono 2.
Then again, with the Mac, I did hear very clearly changes that new speakers or new source wrought and that fooled me into thinking that the Mac was in some way revealing.
I bet the Mac and perhaps the Cardas Golden Cross IC are the main reasons why the poster cannot hear the difference that others can hear from Shunyata.
OK---I'll step away now.
