Big name being sold on i-net

leftwinger57

I just heard this a few days ago that McIntosh let go or quit 2 top sales people over this marketing decision. McIntosh I thought were sold through certified dealers. Now Crutchfield and Amazon are selling Mac gear. If you had an issue or a repair needed who would you send it to ? Audio Classics maybe the place you would have bought it from in the first place. I don't like this idea and is different than buying from the maker directly and get the support w/ the purchase.

http://www.strata-gee.com/eye-storm-management-shake-hits-mcintosh/

http://www.crutchfield.com/brands/McIntosh/

polkfarmboy

The party is over for local dealers who rely on these products as their bread and butter. Now those indi dealers are going to get slaughtered by the online low overhead retailers who will churn them out for peanuts.

I think the used market for mac gear is going to take a big hit and peoples investments are going to tank.

hochpt21

The last standing B&M hifi store in Madison has his demo rigs full of Mac gear. I hope this doesn't take him out.

[Deleted User]

Hope this doesn't effect Emotiva sales.

Mike Reeter

I've never known Crutchfields to offer or sell anything for less than Suggested Retail Pricing, unless it's a "Demo" or returned item. Same with Audio Advisors.

Can't speak for Amazon, but I doubt they have any Mc gear offered on the "Deal of the Day"

tonyb

polkfarmboy wrote: »

The party is over for local dealers who rely on these products as their bread and butter. Now those indi dealers are going to get slaughtered by the online low overhead retailers who will churn them out for peanuts.

I think the used market for mac gear is going to take a big hit and peoples investments are going to tank.

Investments ? Who buys audio gear as an investment ?

I don't think anyone relies on Mac products alone as their bread and butter. If so, they may be out of business fairly quickly. The signs are all around you, luxury higher ticket items always take a hit in a down economy. Mac is simply trying to get their product into more hands as cheaply as possible. and that may include removing the middle man and their price bumps from the B&M stores.

polkfarmboy

Many people invest money in audio equipment. Many dealers reply on Mcintosh gear as part of their sales.

miner

In today's economy change is constant. As a a company you have to be able to adapt to survive. I don't like this step they are taking but I realize to some this will hurt the B&M stores. B&M stores are quickly disappearing. In Houston, the 4th largest city in the US, I only know of 2 B&M dealers, not counting Best Buy/Magnolia. McIntosh will survive and continue to make great gear.

mhardy6647

Not an issue from my perspective, unless Crutchfield starts selling NOS MC-225 amplifiers. If they do, someone PM me please ;- )

tonyb

polkfarmboy wrote: »

Many people invest money in audio equipment. Many dealers reply on Mcintosh gear as part of their sales.

Not as a dedicated investment, unless your a dealer. Most people I know buy audio gear to ...gasp....listen to. Nobody is going to undercut Mac's retail prices. The brands worth, any brand for that matter, is what people are willing to pay.

Comes down to the simple laws of supply and demand. Mac must be sitting on inventory that's not moving, so instead of lowering prices they chose to make their products more available to the masses. Once you start lowering prices, it's hard to raise them again.

polkfarmboy

Tony I know some guys I have met through ebay that just go for mcintosh gear to buy and sell. Those types of guys are going to suffer as mcintosh has always had an overinflated price tag on the used market. This is partly due to the fact you can only buy from dealers who keep the used prices high. I fear all this is about to change and some people who bought the brand knowing that they could sell it on for what they paid are going to it the panic button and start selling. This is going to drive the prices down even more when the markets buzzing with mac gear.

[Deleted User]

this sounds good to me PFB.

mhardy6647

I suspect McIntosh is simply making a lurching step to join the 21st Century. Only 16 years in, so that's not too bad.

The big breakpoint for Mac will be whether they manage to keep the price/perceived value curve in a place that enables them to continue to offer American made (well, at least American assembled) hardware and still make money. They might -- but then again they might not.

Mac's long been pitched as a high-end audio product, but it's also a hifi brand name -- those two don't typically correlate any more. In other words, there's a hipster-type mindset in audiophile-dom, I think, that says, "if you have heard of it, it isn't nearly 'high-end' enough for me". To that end, Mac's neither fish nor fowl -- priced like truly esoteric hifi hardware (well, at the low-end of that spectrum, but still fairly pricey) but kind of ordinary, if not old-fashioned, in terms of its sonic performance, cosmetics, etc.

Yes, yes, I know that the Mac look has a deep pedigree, but they recent products tend to strike me as caricatures of "the McIntosh" look.


I mean, ewwww...

They've also seemed to struggle a little with modern technology integration with their products (but that's of course been a challenge for many long-established brands).


http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/ms300-gracenote.682776

I think McIntosh's current ownership (which I THINK is still FineSounds or some descendant thereof: http://www.cepro.com/article/mcintosh_sold_again_in_management_buyout_of_fine_sounds) looks at companies like b&o and says, 'we can increase unit sales by becoming a 'luxury lifestyle product line' and we should probably market ourselves as such, and use the sales and marketing tools generally used by such".

At the least, Crutchfield is an honorable and well-established retailer with an extremely good reputation.

Obviously just my opinions -- other than the MR-67 tuner I own and use nearly daily, the other Mac stuff here is pretty pedestrian sounding equipment (MC-2100, C-28), so, obviously, I am not much of a fanboy.

Still love to have a nice MC-225, though! :- )

EndersShadow

polkfarmboy wrote: »

Tony I know some guys I have met through ebay that just go for mcintosh gear to buy and sell.

Then I'd say those guys are going to suffer for not diversifying their porfolio.... Its just like the stock market. You invest in JUST apple and they take a hit... well you shoulda been a little bit more diverse in your investments....

cnh

McIntosh? Pfft!

Mark's post is on the Mark (pun). Plus, like him, I'm not a fan of their more recent gear. In fact I've never heard a MI SS amp that was anything less than ear piercing. But that's me! Mate them with some B&Ws and get thee to an Audiologist! lol

polkfarmboy

The exclusive mcintosh blue glow will go from this


To this

mhardy6647

polkfarmboy wrote: »

The exclusive mcintosh blue glow will go from this


To this

Heck, they already did that quite a while ago -- ever see the current morph of the MC-275?



In total fairness to McIntosh, the two color LEDs they put below the small signal tubes change color (EDIT: yellow to green) as the P/S output stabilizes -- which is goofy and silly but not quite as goofy and silly as shining different colors up through vacuum tubes "just because".

The seven small tubes are LED illuminated to indicate the amplifiers functional status: upon power up, they sequentially glow amber for a few seconds and then all turn green to signify system readiness (see below). In the rare case of an output tube failure, the small tubes in front of it will turn red to notify you of the problem. Power Control is used to remotely control tube illumination from a McIntosh preamplifier. Contact your local dealer​ to learn more.

http://www.mcintoshlabs.com/us/Products/pages/ProductDetails.aspx?CatId=amplifiers&ProductId=MC275B

PS The current MC275 morph is (still) a very decent sounding amplifier and is (or at least was, last time I looked) still reasonably priced (in terms of the value of 2016 dollars and 2016 economics).

msg

I may be missing something since I only read the articles/reports linked in Lew's OP, but it seems that, at least for now, McIntosh is requiring these online retailers to sell at MSRP? Is there some loophole that would allow these online retailers to skirt this requirement? Or is it that the indie stores are selling at greater markup than MSRP? I do see the problem that the independent shops will be facing in losing exclusivity.

For McIntosh though, I don't understand how increasing sales volume can be bad for the brand, overall, if they're not changing the product quality or build facilities. Granted, if (when?) they start moving production elsewhere to meet demand, or start bringing cheaper mass produced gear to market (are they already doing this with some stuff?), the quality will probably take a hit, and that will mark the dividing line between "new junk" and the "original" gear, and bolster the talk of how the new stuff's not the same as it used to be?

If McIntosh completely dives to substandard product across their product line, then it would seem to me that that the original gear could hold value on the used market, or even increase, since the quality that McIntosh owners enjoy would no longer be available? Look at Technics SL-1200 turntables and what they're fetching - close to original pricing, or more, in some cases, for new old stock.

I've never heard anything McIntosh, but would like to, just for the experience. People I know who own it seem to really enjoy it. Does seem a bit hyped, though. Even some non-audio experienced people have heard of it and bring it up in conversation as if the Holy Grail.

F1nut

That's a bad deal for the hifi shops and quite likely for Mac down the road.

msg

How does that mess up the hifi shops? Mostly because of the exclusivity and use of these types of brands to get customers through the doors?

F1nut

It'll take even more business away from them.

mhardy6647

DSkip wrote: »

They won't be able to discount. It would pretty much destroy their established dealerships due to price matching and trust in Mcintosh respecting and protecting those dealerships.

"Trust" seems to be kind of out of fashion nowadays -- just a minor, thread-hijacking observation.

On topic, Mac might (might!) be willing to put their past at risk to secure a perceived brighter future. Their established B&M model & their customers may be literally dying out, while a much broader present/future market beckons.

I am not offering judgment on the prudence of that idea, just speculating. Companies are throwing their old customers and models under the bus all the time nowadays.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think there are some punk kids I have to go chase off of my lawn ;- )

mhardy6647

Also, I believe that Crutchfield has and will only have access to a selected subset of Mac hardware.
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-ICGqIjHLi0u/brands/McIntosh/

Oh, one other aside -- I'm pretty sure you all know this, but McIntosh has dipped its metaphorical toe in the "downscale" market a couple of times in its history.

First and foremost, because it was long anathema to the company (and or its leadership) to lower itself to put the McIntosh name on a receiver, for some time any and all receivers made by the Binghamton company were clearly labeled MAC, not "McIntosh".



by the time the MAC-4100 came along (mid/late-1970s), though, the McIntosh brand name was included on the fascia.



http://www.roger-russell.com/rcvrs.htm

... and, for a little while, McIntosh was "responsible" (for lack of a better word) for a line of Japanese-made receivers branded "Stereotech".

http://www.roger-russell.com/stech.htm

Dennis Gardner

Lots of ways around MSRP. Open box, returns, floor demo, scratch and dent. All still carry warranty and most makers don't enforce any type of proof of condition or limit these types of sales. This type of direct sales with no sales taxes and the wiping clean of long held territorial sales districts can change the market of upscale items in niche markets like this forever.

Polkie2009

miner wrote: »

In today's economy change is constant. As a a company you have to be able to adapt to survive. I don't like this step they are taking but I realize to some this will hurt the B&M stores. B&M stores are quickly disappearing. In Houston, the 4th largest city in the US, I only know of 2 B&M dealers, not counting Best Buy/Magnolia. McIntosh will survive and continue to make great gear.

I remember back in the day when Home Entertainment carried McIntosh, then Tweeter took over and now all Tweeter stores closed here in Houston. Years ago there were a few nice b&m audio stores like AudioConcepts and B&M Electronics here in Houston that may__ have carried McIntosh gear, can't remember for sure though. But you are spot on miner, the high end audio b&m stores in Htown have collapsed over the past 15 years or so.

warren

Investments ? Who buys audio gear as an investment ?
Right on Tony, I buy audio gear to listen to.. That's the pay off...

Moose68Bash

No data, just a guess:

McIntosh sales have likely been plummeting; the sales VP decided they should go online (mostly to preserve his bonus, probably); somebody with more clout didn't like the decision.

Sayonara, Mr. Sales VP.

McIntosh may be in trouble as a company.

As I said above, "just a guess" -- based on a few years of experience in the corporate world.

polkfarmboy

Thats an intersting angle MB.

WagnerRC

Dennis Gardner wrote: »

Lots of ways around MSRP. Open box, returns, floor demo, scratch and dent. All still carry warranty and most makers don't enforce any type of proof of condition or limit these types of sales. This type of direct sales with no sales taxes and the wiping clean of long held territorial sales districts can change the market of upscale items in niche markets like this forever.

This is a legit claim. I fought the battle. It is a major loophole

[Deleted User]

Great link above. Cary is going this way but trying to carry
‘Cary Retail Reps’ or ‘Cary Brokers’

cfrizz

Times have changed, as have peoples buying preferences. Polk has remained steady because they have changed with the times. If all you are planning on doing is resting on old laurels and your once big name, you might find yourself on the outside looking in.

Just ask Sony how doing that has worked out for them. Their name doesn't carry the same weight that it used to. They have a lot more competition now, with products that are in the same league but not as much money.

High cost audio has always been a niche market, and will remain so.