Listen, despite my last post I truely am not interested in bashing McIntosh. But this is a terrible situation and I hate to see this going on with McIntosh.
I just over this past year, have stepped into the McIntosh camp with my first piece, the c220. I remember hearing their gear back in the late 70s, when I was still just a teenager and I loved their sound. So over the past year I've done some heavy auditioning of their current gear and I love a lot of their models.
I have a big interest in the MCD 201, but this nonsense is definitely causing me to pause and re-think purchasing it.
What I find odd is how anyone could defend this. I mean, we're talking about a McIntosh $3,500 disc player, here.
Not a $29.99 Wal-Mart special rebadged with some brand name like...."Coby" or "Durabrand ......or "Magnavox".
I don't know, maybe my standards and expectations are higher than other people. But I think when I spend $3,500 friggin' dollars on a McIntosh disc player, I will expect the thing to work flawlessly for at least 7-10 years. I expect near perfection in terms of quality control, design and customer service. I expect the manufactor to hold itself responsible and show some integrity regarding any problems with a component; by finding a definitive solution to the problems.
Yes, it's good to hear that McIntosh (and it's dealers) are working with customers to replace/exchange or repair the defective units. But is that really such an outstanding act of resposibility? Oh, they're honoring the warranty. Geeee....thanks for that huge favor.
I mean, while they are doing that, they are not getting to the real root of the problem and correcting it at it's source. They're basically trouble-shooting, applying band-aids and today, it's still a crapshoot if one gets a quiet, working, reliable player. You call that high quality?
I went through a very similar problem with the Denon DVD-2800 back in 2000-2001. What a trainwreck of a component. And with a pre amp, two years ago.
It is a huge inconvienace to routinely hook up, find it defective, then disconnect the unit, box the unit and return it to the dealer; several times. It is time consuming, frustrating and generally a big pain in the butt. And at $3,500 I expect reliability, high quality and assurance!!
Again, my standards must be unrealistically too high.
I guess I just don't understand how some consumers can be so tolerant of such nonsense. We all know every manufactor will have a small isolated problem, every now and then. But units being defective, noisy and generally unreliable.......at such a common degree?
How can we as comsumers let a company such as McIntosh off the hook, when they advertise and pontificate about their "high-quality and reliability"? Thier whole brand name and reputation is based on high qulaity, reliability and customer satisfaction! That's what we pay for!
And let me tell you something, customer satisfaction does not lie in defective units that even after multiple exchanges/returns/repairs still suffer from the same defects.
Otherwise, may as well go to Wal-mart and buy one of those ...."Coby" ........"Durabrand ......or "Magnavox" pieces of garbage!
