The 1st time I was truly disappointed by McIntosh

Lot's of women doing technical work at McIntosh, was just there and spoke to a few of them, very nice people. it was great to meet the actual people who have built something that is in my home. I sure hope Mc doesn't have to change too much from how they have always done things. I have loved many of the pieces I have owned.
 
You can talk trash on Chinese manufacturing all you want, but I think they're quickly outstripping the rest of the world in small assembly manufacturing prowess.

Quantity manufacturing at a low price is what they are good at. Quality is sub par in CE gear emanating from China across the board. They routinely substitute cheaper, poorer components which result in companies with stellar reliability records getting trashed. Honestly, I don't repair any Chinese HiFi for anyone, it doesn't interest me on my bench, the construction, precision and basic designs are on the whole, rubbish. Where do you start with boards where every component is fake, from ST/Sanken/Toshiba marked transistors to Wima caps and every respectable electrolytic is a counterfeit?

McIntosh is synonymous with American made, just as Accuphase is synonomous with the best Japanese manufacture. It's a long term mistake to dilute and trash that legacy. Audiophiles have very long memories.

I can safely say that I do not own a single piece of serious HiFi that is made in China. With computers, I have no choice, they have to come from China (be it components parts or complete machines).

It makes me sad. There's just something really good about turning around your expensive product and seeing that is was made by your fellow countrymen, earning money, paying taxes and contributing to the country you live in.
 
Quantity manufacturing at a low price is what they are good at. Quality is sub par in CE gear emanating from China across the board. They routinely substitute cheaper, poorer components which result in companies with stellar reliability records getting trashed. Honestly, I don't repair any Chinese HiFi for anyone, it doesn't interest me on my bench, the construction, precision and basic designs are on the whole, rubbish. Where do you start with boards where every component is fake, from ST/Sanken/Toshiba marked transistors to Wima caps and every respectable electrolytic is a counterfeit?

McIntosh is synonymous with American made, just as Accuphase is synonomous with the best Japanese manufacture. It's a long term mistake to dilute and trash that legacy. Audiophiles have very long memories.

I can safely say that I do not own a single piece of serious HiFi that is made in China. With computers, I have no choice, they have to come from China (be it components parts or complete machines).

It makes me sad. There's just something really good about turning around your expensive product and seeing that is was made by your fellow countrymen, earning money, paying taxes and contributing to the country you live in.

I wouldn't trust a Chinese factory without my own reps there to verify quality, and I wouldn't just blindly trust their design work either. But the intricate manufacturing and design for manufacturing going into things like our cell phones and smart watches these days is insane. Look at an iPhone XS and compare it to a Nokia from 20 years back and the difference in both complexity and fit and finish is enormous.

I'm all for domestic manufacture, but I don't have to believe that Chinese manufacture is inherently inferior to want my countrymen to have good jobs. :)
 
Look at an iPhone XS and compare it to a Nokia from 20 years back and the difference in both complexity and fit and finish is enormous.

Ironically however, the 20 year old Nokia probably still works just as well as the day it was made.

(excluding the battery of course)
 
Ironically however, the 20 year old Nokia probably still works just as well as the day it was made.

(excluding the battery of course)

The same can be said of most of my smart phones. The last two or three I've ditched have all been because the battery was on the downhill slide.

Battery tech really is the Achilles heel of modern portable electronics. I'm hoping that the electric car thing drives some innovation there.
 
The same can be said of most of my smart phones. The last two or three I've ditched have all been because the battery was on the downhill slide.

Battery tech really is the Achilles heel of modern portable electronics. I'm hoping that the electric car thing drives some innovation there.
Better than the NMH days tho'.
 
You should have. been around when we started opening early Mcintosh SS amps and pre-amps with Japanese transistors, IC's, caps, etc in the early 70's. The world was coming to an absolute end. The company just couldn't last. We were at death's door. But I have to agree with the new looks of the MC 2152. Give me a pair of 275's any day. Then you don't have to worry about crosstalk and can save thousands of dollars. So a 275 is 8 db or what ever noisier. As longs as you play music at average levels you will never hear the noise.. Use a pair of Klipschorns and stick your head in the midrange horn and you will hear the noise of either amp.
 
So a 275 is 8 db or what ever noisier. As longs as you play music at average levels you will never hear the noise..
Blasphemy I tell you! :yikes:

Seriously though, I don't have a problem with this statement but there are a few here in AK who might. My ears just aren't that sensitive anymore...
 
The same can be said of most of my smart phones. The last two or three I've ditched have all been because the battery was on the downhill slide.

Battery tech really is the Achilles heel of modern portable electronics. I'm hoping that the electric car thing drives some innovation there.

No need, the auto industry invented planned obsolescence, the cell-phone industry just learned the lesson well.
 
Chinese manufacturing and all of LCC (Low Cost Country, an industry term which includes Eastern-Bloc as well as far-east) can be fine. The difference is usually whether you own the factory. If you're apple, have a manufacturing plant in China and are large enough to make the rules and employ/train the best workers in the area, you can make good quality stuff. If you're McIntosh, and contract manufacturing and stuffing of your PC boards with a factory where you don't have control over training, hiring, Quality Assurance standards and procedures, manufacturing processes and standards, you will likely get crap.

I've been there and done this through much of my career with my designs being outsourced, fighting with the LCC manufacturer over stupid things like "you didn't specify that it couldn't be stored outdoors on the dock for months" (fictional, but not far from many stories I have) while you're out of parts and the only replacements are now on a boat just to be rejected when they arrive or reworked in hopes that they will not fail and cost you a customer (my customers were always large automakers, so losing a customer can be $50million/year or more). We had large buying power but still were constantly surprised with new failures that we would never even have considered even possible.

It's a lot like putting a 5 year old behind the steering wheel of a car. They might be able to steer it and not hit anything for a while, but eventually there'll be a problem because they really don't understand the concept, the design of the product, what the failure modes are, and probably never will. They just look at a print and follow the lines and words without any understanding of why or why not.

I'll try and stay off of my soapbox, and I do hope that Mc will keep their production in the US as well as understand how wrong it goes without any way to predict the weird mis-steps that the LCC manufacturers will make.

Best of luck McIntosh and if it doesn't say Made in USA on it, it is just another LG to me. I also don't buy Fords made in Mexico, Jeep with Italian joint-venture engines, ... but am quite happy with my USA built Mercedes. It's not the nameplate that matters, it's what is behind the nameplate.
 
Unfortunately what some of the manufacturers like McIntosh do not realize is that once a brand is diluted, it never recovers. I bought an Audi Q5 just before that model was transferred to Mexico for assembly.
 
Chinese manufacturing and all of LCC (Low Cost Country, an industry term which includes Eastern-Bloc as well as far-east) can be fine. The difference is usually whether you own the factory. If you're apple, have a manufacturing plant in China and are large enough to make the rules and employ/train the best workers in the area, you can make good quality stuff. If you're McIntosh, and contract manufacturing and stuffing of your PC boards with a factory where you don't have control over training, hiring, Quality Assurance standards and procedures, manufacturing processes and standards, you will likely get crap.

I've been there and done this through much of my career with my designs being outsourced, fighting with the LCC manufacturer over stupid things like "you didn't specify that it couldn't be stored outdoors on the dock for months" (fictional, but not far from many stories I have) while you're out of parts and the only replacements are now on a boat just to be rejected when they arrive or reworked in hopes that they will not fail and cost you a customer (my customers were always large automakers, so losing a customer can be $50million/year or more). We had large buying power but still were constantly surprised with new failures that we would never even have considered even possible.

It's a lot like putting a 5 year old behind the steering wheel of a car. They might be able to steer it and not hit anything for a while, but eventually there'll be a problem because they really don't understand the concept, the design of the product, what the failure modes are, and probably never will. They just look at a print and follow the lines and words without any understanding of why or why not.

I'll try and stay off of my soapbox, and I do hope that Mc will keep their production in the US as well as understand how wrong it goes without any way to predict the weird mis-steps that the LCC manufacturers will make.

Best of luck McIntosh and if it doesn't say Made in USA on it, it is just another LG to me. I also don't buy Fords made in Mexico, Jeep with Italian joint-venture engines, ... but am quite happy with my USA built Mercedes. It's not the nameplate that matters, it's what is behind the nameplate.

I think any time you hand production over to a group of people that don't understand the function part of the three F's you're asking for trouble, regardless of geographical location. Good design and good production happen best when the guys doing design and development are working side by side with the guys who actually have to build the thing. Hard to do that when you're just handing over prints.

At my last job, the biggest mistakes happened on parts coming from build to print shops who thought that certain features or drawing callouts were optional and that as long as the final paint or anodize was shiny we wouldn't notice...

I think the saddest thing about Chrysler Corp is that their joint venture with Fiat has overall *improved* vehicle quality.

Mopar from the 90s and early aughts was teeeeerible. I'll take an Italian motor and joint venture transmission any day over a dead reliable 4.0 joined to the worst gearbox known to man.

Don't get me started on the V6's they were putting in the caravans in the 90s. :rant:
 
I'm wondering if this is more a segregation of equipment into two lines with one being a long term, traditional product line and the second being a short term line which introduces popular, current or emerging technology. There may be some advantages to such that sort of strategy.
 
You can talk trash on Chinese manufacturing all you want, but I think they're quickly outstripping the rest of the world in small assembly manufacturing prowess. If Apple were to being iPhone production to the US, we'd see a huge cost spike not just because the labor is more expensive but because they'd have to pay for all of the training that doesn't exist here for that type of work and for all of the duds coming off the factory floor for the first few months or years.

Tim Cook said it himself in an interview a few months back. China has incredible manufacturing competence when it comes to knocking out huge quantities of very complex parts and assemblies.

We need more folks going to trade schools and learning how to actually build stuff, but that requires a. Trade schools that are more than profit generating schemes and b. a manufacturing economy that's competitive on price with the rest of the world.

The first would be easy with the right set of political circumstances. The latter is much more difficult.
China is also promoting independent inventors by providing funds for open prototyping shops. Places with laser cutters and 3-d printers and CNC machines where young entrepreneurs can work out and build new design.
 
I wouldn't trust a Chinese factory without my own reps there to verify quality, and I wouldn't just blindly trust their design work either. But the intricate manufacturing and design for manufacturing going into things like our cell phones and smart watches these days is insane. Look at an iPhone XS and compare it to a Nokia from 20 years back and the difference in both complexity and fit and finish is enormous.

I'm all for domestic manufacture, but I don't have to believe that Chinese manufacture is inherently inferior to want my countrymen to have good jobs. :)
That and watching for 3rd shift grey-market stuff going out the back door, trashing the company's good name. That is a real problem.
 
China is also promoting independent inventors by providing funds for open prototyping shops. Places with laser cutters and 3-d printers and CNC machines where young entrepreneurs can work out and build new design.
From what I've heard, the only caveat is that any new patents developed become the property of China.
 
There are some things that Chinese manufacturers excel at - otherwise your cell phone wouldn't be made there.
Quite simply, if it wasn't for extremely low wages, even things like can openers and transistor radios would still be made in the US. When I was growing up, the only thing China was good at was making fireworks in Macau. I'm not in finance but It still amazes me that companies like Intel, etc. would build a 10 billion dollar fab plant in China that practically operates with 100 production people and an entire year's production can fit in one 747.
 
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I've been with McIntosh so long and so heavy that my dealer was referring to me as one of his whales for years ,I've never had cause to suffer buyers remorse until I bought the McIntosh LB-100 light box that modernized the old dealer display " Made in USA " light box , unpacking the LB I was excited and impressed with the craftsmanship ,that is until I went to unpack the power cord ,the LB-100 uses an external power supply that's housed in a cheap wall wart with bold letters MADE IN CHINA ,to add insult they use an IEC receptical on the end of the $3 wall wart where we can customize power cords ,I was so angry that I called Brian at McIntosh and asked WTF ,why couldn't they use a McIntosh built internal power supply like my 40 year old vintage R-778 dealer only MADE IN USA light box has ,nodody I know that has the $1,500 LB-100 is happy about McIntosh using a Chinese wall wart .

I ended up buying an extra wall wart for when the LB-100s original wall wart dies as every wall wart I've ever had has died .
 
The same can be said of most of my smart phones. The last two or three I've ditched have all been because the battery was on the downhill slide.

Battery tech really is the Achilles heel of modern portable electronics. I'm hoping that the electric car thing drives some innovation there.


Why not just replace the battery? Though I've heard that there are some phones now whose battery can't be removed. I definitely wouldn't buy one of those if I could help it.

One problem with phone batteries is that the product designers require them to be so thin for the sake of style. That compromises performance.
 
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