With a Retail price of $3000 this is quite far from being an "all things to all people" product.
The Packard story is indeed a good example of how a brand lost it's way but there are many counter examples of brands ensuring their survival by expanding into new and often surprising product areas. Take Apple, for example. ..Who could have predicted Apple would be enormously successful first with MP3 Players (iPods) then telephones?? There was widespread skepticism preceding both of these products.
Anyway, I understand the concern but I think this product fits the brand, fills a need in a unique and appealing way, and it could help attract new customers. Something I suspect McIntosh desperately needs. After all, fewer and fewer people are willing to spend $15,000 for tube amplifiers and pre-amps.
If McIntosh can survive a failed attempt at Car Audio (with tubes), a $1500 Lightbox, and and $1800 Clock, I don't see the risk in a $3000 all-in-one table unit gives people a way to add more music to their life.
And don't forget they already have the smaller RS100, McAire.
Not the same because McIntosh is a niche prestige product while Apple is, and always was, a mass produced consumer grade product. Two completely different paradigms.
An extreme example would be if Tiffany & Co of NY decided to start selling Walmart-grade products bearing the Tiffany name. While I'm not suggesting that these recent McIntosh offerings are anything quite that drastic, the effect is still a dilution of the brand name and image. While you may get a few extra sales dollars in the short term, what will be the cost -
long term? And when those extra dollars start pouring in the short term, it's like a gateway drug, with the ever increasing pressure to push the envelope ever further - until one day, you wake up to find you've milked a good name for all its worth and the magic is forever gone.
Frank McIntosh himself even took the precaution of branding receivers as "MAC" products (which stood for "McIntosh Audio Company") while separates were full fledged "McIntosh Laboratory" products to make the distinction from what he considered the genuine article from the lesser grade gear. (Before the MAC4100 the "McIntosh" name did not even appear on the front of a McIntosh receiver).
When McIntosh introduced its "budget" brand Stereotech, he even took the extra precaution of giving it a PO Box address just down the street in Conklin, NY just to make the distinction in no uncertain terms that a Stereotech is
not a McIntosh. He understood these marketing concepts well! That said,one can only imagine the reaction of man who considered
receivers "children of a lesser god" - to producing "integrated turntables", let alone bearing the proud McIntosh name.
Maybe it'll all work out - I don't know. But believe me when I tell you it is pure folly to dismiss these concerns and scenarios - especially when considering what the results had been when companies equal in stature to McIntosh had done similar things in the past.
