McIntosh Tone Audio

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INTERVIEW © 2009 Printed with permission from TONEAudio. Many people make the comparison between McIntosh and Harley Davidson as being similar icons of American consumer goods, but a stroll down any of the aisles at Harley Davidson reveals cartons of parts from Japan, China and elsewhere. Not so at McIntosh -“ they bend the chassis from raw steel and cut front panels from bulk sheets of glass. Even the circuit boards are stuffed at McIntosh, some using their own surface mounting machines and others by hand. Precious little gets jobbed out. Chuck Hinton, McIntoshs head of techni - cal support, was kind enough to take the bet - ter part of a day to show me everything in the McIntosh plant and allowed me to peek in all the nooks and crannies. And yes, those nice ladies that you saw in the early McIntosh ads are still there, winding transformers, building amplifiers and performing final tests. Value is one of the biggest questions raised when investing in a good music system and McIntosh components retain the highest resale value of any other brand on the used market. Many of their vintage components are highly coveted, just like vintage sports cars. You only need to spend a few minutes inside the McIntosh factory to see why. At the end of my visit, company CEO Charlie Randall took some time to answer my questions about McIntoshs past, pres - ent and future. Heres what he had to share with us.

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INTERVIEW TA: The photos in the Ken Kessler book really dont do justice to just how extensive the facility is! CR: Yes, theres a lot of square footage out there, close to 60 thousand square feet. I was impressed by how nearly every molecule of McIntosh is built right here. We try to do it all, and make an effort to have any machining of small parts that we cant handle done nearby as well. We even get the cardboard shipping cartons from a company right down the street. It must be pretty handy to have engineering right next door? Thats a fairly recent development, sometime in 2001. Its a big benefit for them to see whats going on with the product. Just like that cartoon about what the customer wanted... (laughs) Exactly And thats a big part of the value in McIntosh... Certainly. If we had to farm out casework, etc. etc, our products would cost consider - ably more. Doing it all in house allows us to keep a tight rein on costs, and it keeps more people employed. Our employees have fairly stable jobs in this economy. How do you feel McIntosh is holding up in this wacky economy? Were feeling the pinch, but this isnt our first recession. Some markets are doing better than others, but we keep our workforce small. We pay a fair amount of overtime when we are really busy, but when we arent, theres still enough work to keep everyone busy. That way I dont have to deal with a hire and layoff cycle. © 2009 Printed with permission from TONEAudio. (c o n t i n u e d)