That high end American is a style of its own. I picked up a Harman Kardon AVR with glass and blue lights and it is high class,looks and feels very classy.... it is also a superb fm reciever and a very clear powerful sound
Never having heard it ,and unlikely to put myself in a position to, why would it not be perceived as good value for the type of person who buys it?.
A Porsche is no better than a skoda fabia, at its task of getting from suburban traffic to centre city, but it scores in the looks and luxury department.
Would it be possible to put together an equivalent new system at 10% the price new?.... I think not,
at 20% , yeath!
At 33% .. there are the Naims so maybe
McIntosh has drawn upon 70 years of home entertainment experience and audio engineering to incorporate wide-ranging technologies such as Apple AirPlay 2 and Bluetooth 5.0
They must have had an Audioquest Cinnamon Crystal Ball to have gained experience about those technologies before they were even invented - impressive.
I'm sure it will find it's market with folks who can't be doing with all that reading reviews and specs/connecting things up/running speaker cables stuff and it probably sounds great, but the hard-nosed cynic in me is left wondering if three and a half grand couldn't be better spent.