Out of Production Now

[Antonmb]

McIntosh has an incredible array of products. I count 18 amplifiers alone on their website. I don’t know how big McIntosh is, but I think I read somewhere that the total McIntosh Group with ARC, Sonus Faber, MAC, Wadia, and Sumiko was only $70 million at the time of the change to McIntosh Group. Maybe somebody just realized they need to improve their product line management and do some sku rationalization. One of the things they said in the press release when they changed from Fine Sounds to McIntosh Group was that they wanted to “facilitate greater opportunities for global collaborations amongst the product development, marketing, distribution and finance teams of each of the Group’s portfolio of brands.” That sounds to me like rationalization and focusing more on management practices, which is a good thing.

[Mahalo]

"This list is current models this year, that were just discontinued."

Ivan,

Would you please elaborate on this. I'm not following you. Wasn't the MC302 a current model - this year - that was just discontinued a couple of months ago. It came out around the same time as the MC452. The intended companion piece for the MC302 was the C48 and the intended companion piece for the MC452 was the C50. (Per McIntosh). Thus, in part that's where I'm not following your methodology, i.e., the MC452 is included in the original out of production list but not the MC302.

Thank you.

As a sidebar item, I have a bit of a "soft spot" (for lack of a better description), for the MC302 in terms of the following. One of my dealers had offered a C48 & MC302 to me at an attractive price. Evidently the Mac rep was there and the sales person told me that Mac had just approved a sale of their brand new demo units so that the display space could be used for some new Marantz product.

Up to that point I didn't know much about Mac other than it was a storied audio company and that I didn't care for their styling. But the price was right so I started reading up on Mac and the more I learned, the more the company grew on me. And even the styling eventually grew on me. (I was somewhat surprised that I considered the purchase enough to do the research because the sales person demoed the two units for me as part of a larger system. And, when he asked what I thought I said something like "flat and lifeless.")

While I didn't purchase the MC302, I ended up liking Mac enough that I bought an MC275 -- which may go in the grave with me I like it so much. And then I bought a C2200 from Audio Classics.