Jim, congratulations on you decision to go with McIntosh. As you know it is an old company. Mac doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. Improvements are incremental and as a consequence you get decades of improvements built into every McIntosh. For example I think Mac switching and the Mac volume control are among the very best. Both were developed decades ago. Mac preamps used to use FET switching. You can pay tens of thousands of dollars more and not have better switches or volume control. Recently Mac has upgraded all their SS power amps so that all SS amps now have the improved output transistors and stronger power supplies. Mac is far from perfect but having said that I think Mac equipment is a tremendous value. I wouldn't trade in my 1.2 KW's for any comparably sized amp on the market with exception of the new 1.25.
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