Next came the MAC-1700, which was all solid-state except for a tube FM tuner. “The MAC-1500 combined some transistors and many tubes,” Zelin says. It was replaced by the MAC-1700 receiver a couple years later, which upped power output to 40 watts and filled the receiver slot until the MAC-1900 came along. That hard-fought honor was reserved for the 30-watts-per-channel MAC-1500 that sold for $499 in 1965. The MAC-1900 was introduced in the early ’70s and remained in the company’s line through 1978 but it wasn’t the company’s first receiver. That way people knew not to expect it to be 100% as good as McIntosh separate components.”
#MCINTOSH MC 250 REVIEW MAC#
It was built in the McIntosh Lab factory and sold through McIntosh Lab dealers but if you look at the receiver and its manual, both say MAC instead of McIntosh. “They formed a division called MAC Audio Company to market the receiver.
“They would build a receiver in the McIntosh factory but not call it a McIntosh,” Zelin reveals. “Receivers involved some degree of compromise, so year after year, he overruled Gordon.”įinally, the owners came up with a solution they both could live with. McIntosh said no,” relates Ken Zelin, historian and director of U.S. Though the legendary brand is best known for separates - especially power amplifiers, the first of which were introduced way back in 1949 - VP/co-founder Gordon Gow knew a growing market when he saw one but had trouble convincing his partner Frank McIntosh to make the move.Īs the head of sales, Gow pushed for McIntosh to come out with a receiver in the ’60s but “Mr. The “marriage of audio and video” would come much later and over a period of many years gradually expand the capabilities of the receiver into what we know today as the A/V receiver, a super sophisticated control center that would have been unimaginable to a kid sitting in his room or college dorm listening to Dark Side of the Moon in 1973.Ī number of big-name brands dominated the scene - Pioneer, Kenwood, Fisher, Onkyo, Sansui to name a few and the likes of Marantz and Harman Kardon at the higher end of the scale.
Simple by today’s standards, the receiver of 40 years ago combined two channels of solid-state power (Class AB amplifiers with outputs for additional speakers), a preamp section with switching for a turntable and tape deck or two, and an AM/FM tuner in an impressive looking component, often with wood (or faux wood) side panels and a gleaming silver or gold faceplate featuring a prominent tuner display and a row of knobs, switches, and buttons. At the heart of every “stereo” was an indispensable predecessor to the modern day AVR - the receiver. Mainstream audio came into its own in the 1960s-70s.
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