In the beginning there was McIntosh..................
Way back in the late 1970's when I was a young man growing up in a working class neighborhood I ventured into a HI-FI shop located in another and more affluent part of the city. My friends, all factory rats had warned me to stay clear of that place, they said that place was overpriced and expensive and laughed at the thought. They knew someone who had walked in there once, not themselves of course, but they knew the score. These friends all got their stereo equipment at the home appliance chain stores which advertised heavily, and so should I because that's where the "good deals" were.
Well, being the curious cat, I pulled up in my mostly bondo 1966 Mustang and walked into the forbidden Hi-Fi store (my parents would have killed me had they known). It was dark, full of small rooms with men talking to other men in faint whispers at the other end of the store while leering in doorways. This made me sort of nervous but I walked straight in towards the back, which happened to be the shelf for the used equipment.
There on the shelf was this odd heavy looking black glass faced object. A sales person suddenly emerged from the dark and asked a question as I was peering into the object's face to determine the shiny black material which I was too afraid to touch. I think he said; can I help you? I turned to him and asked; what is this? That's a McInosh tuner he said. No, no I mean this shiny black material used on the face. It's glass he said. Glass? But it's not clear, how can it be glass? I started to smiled when the spark of learning something new sparked under my thick skull and long hair, I've seen black acrylic, could this be similar?
The sales man went on to say it is a tuner.
You mean it's a receiver of some sort? I said with a raised eye brow and thinking I was smart.
Well you can see where this was going folks, I think the salesman quickly made for the door as a crack of light followed by a silhouette of a man appeared at the entry.
Hence my first exposure to a McIntosh ended without a sound made.
Somehow I have an early childhood memory of a HH Scott tuner with back lighted dials, but I have no idea where it comes from.
What was your first exposure to a McIntosh product?
Way back in the late 1970's when I was a young man growing up in a working class neighborhood I ventured into a HI-FI shop located in another and more affluent part of the city. My friends, all factory rats had warned me to stay clear of that place, they said that place was overpriced and expensive and laughed at the thought. They knew someone who had walked in there once, not themselves of course, but they knew the score. These friends all got their stereo equipment at the home appliance chain stores which advertised heavily, and so should I because that's where the "good deals" were.
Well, being the curious cat, I pulled up in my mostly bondo 1966 Mustang and walked into the forbidden Hi-Fi store (my parents would have killed me had they known). It was dark, full of small rooms with men talking to other men in faint whispers at the other end of the store while leering in doorways. This made me sort of nervous but I walked straight in towards the back, which happened to be the shelf for the used equipment.
There on the shelf was this odd heavy looking black glass faced object. A sales person suddenly emerged from the dark and asked a question as I was peering into the object's face to determine the shiny black material which I was too afraid to touch. I think he said; can I help you? I turned to him and asked; what is this? That's a McInosh tuner he said. No, no I mean this shiny black material used on the face. It's glass he said. Glass? But it's not clear, how can it be glass? I started to smiled when the spark of learning something new sparked under my thick skull and long hair, I've seen black acrylic, could this be similar?
The sales man went on to say it is a tuner.
You mean it's a receiver of some sort? I said with a raised eye brow and thinking I was smart.
Well you can see where this was going folks, I think the salesman quickly made for the door as a crack of light followed by a silhouette of a man appeared at the entry.
Hence my first exposure to a McIntosh ended without a sound made.
Somehow I have an early childhood memory of a HH Scott tuner with back lighted dials, but I have no idea where it comes from.
What was your first exposure to a McIntosh product?