Mac was mythical in my early years when I dove into the audio world. Not very exposed in my area growing up,
Just before Christmas in 1961 I was a freshman college student who was back home for the holidays in Chicago with a temporary job of delivering mail - when Christmas cards were still popular - and long before the advent of email and the internet. At that time I had three years experience of being a monaural audio enthusiast, and the world was quickly moving towards stereo audio.
While delivering the mail on Chicago's southwest side one bitterly cold day - the low was -14 that previous night - I walked into into a little barber shop on 55th Street near Kedzie Avenue to warm up a bit. Once inside, I noticed a big pair of "low-boy" floor-standing loudspeakers right in front of the three barber chairs. Between the speakers was a cabinet with big black and chrome audio electronic components. The music was not too loud, but incredibly clear and lifelike to me.
It turned out that The speakers were Bozak - probably infinite baffle B305's, and the electronics were McIntosh - a pair of MC60 vacuum tube power amps, and probably either a C11 or C20 preamp.
I don't remember the tuner or turntable. I lusted after McIntosh for many years after that, but the only Macs I ever owned were a Mac1900 receiver and later, a used MR-74 AM/FM Tuner.
It certainly was, by far, the best stereo I had heard up to that time. But now I see the Macs as a bit too "blingy" for my tastes, and agree that the use of "autoformer" transformers is not a good modern design, adding unnecessary weight and complication to the amps.