I have heard nothing but great things about the McIntosh MAC 1900. I understood they are NOT cheap!
The MAC 1900 was manufactured by McIntosh Laboratories from 1973 - 1978, and initially had a list price of $799.00, later upped to $949.00. Here is a
link to the receiver's page on the legacy products section of McIntosh's Website.
McIntosh was founded in 1949 by Frank McIntosh and Gordon Gow. According to an article by Bob Ankosko on the
www.soundandvision.com Website, " As the head of sales, Gow pushed for McIntosh to come out with a receiver in the ’60s but “Mr. McIntosh said no,” relates Ken Zelin, historian and director of U.S. sales training at McIntosh. “Receivers involved some degree of compromise, so year after year, he overruled Gordon.”
Finally, the owners came up with a solution they both could live with.
“They would build a receiver in the McIntosh factory but
not call it a McIntosh,” Zelin reveals. “They formed a division called MAC Audio Company to market the receiver. 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. That way people knew not to expect it to be 100% as good as McIntosh separate components.”
As Mr. Shakespeare once said, "What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...," and this receiver
IS sweet!