Originally posted by AcuraFanatic™
I'd have to disagree with the "most beloved of all, McIntosh." They're products are the definition of overpriced. I have listened to many a product they have offered, all of which can be had with another manufacter at a substantially lower price. You're paying for the name. :down:
I agree that Sony sucks.
Are we talking about the same McIntosh? I mean McIntosh Labs of Binghamton, New York. Every piece is hand built, down to the windings of the transformers. The absolute best system I have ever heard was a McIntosh C2200 tube preamp running 500 ohm balanced outputs to an MC 2102 tube power amp. Of course, the system was powering a set of B&W Nautilus 802 towers. Presence, image, and the purest of clean crisp sound the likes of which nothing can compare. I tried both a Wagner symphony and the Beatles
Rubber Soul. Once in your life, if you really like good audio, you should listen to a setup like that. I just shook my head after comming home to my lowly Pinnacles, Adcom, and AudioSource :chuckles: .
One of the perks of what I do is I can attend private demos of the most high end equipment there is. That system was $21,000 (8 grand for the pre-amp, 5k for the power amp, and 4k per speaker).