A bevy of tubes

[Deleted User]
[Deleted User] Posts: 7,658
edited July 2012 in 2 Channel Audio
Hello,
I was listening to a very classic set of McIntosh C4 preamps and 50W-2 power amps that I worked on and thought that it was the most amount of tube gear I've ever had in one spot. So I thought I'd share a photo.
Cheers, Ken
DSCN7957.jpg
Post edited by [Deleted User] on
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Comments

  • RuSsMaN
    RuSsMaN Posts: 17,987
    edited July 2012
    Nice to see some Spica still being listened to also!
    Check your lips at the door woman. Shake your hips like battleships. Yeah, all the white girls trip when I sing at Sunday service.
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  • mhardy6647
    mhardy6647 Posts: 33,804
    edited July 2012
    A buxom bevy of lithe and lissome tubes, indeed.

    I don't wanna know what those two elves in red in the center of the photo are doing, do I?
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  • Polkersince85
    Polkersince85 Posts: 2,883
    edited July 2012
    Beautiful. Now we know why the Northeast had power issues.
    >
    >
    >This message has been scanned by the NSA and found to be free of harmful intent.<
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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 7,658
    edited July 2012
    Hey Russ! Yep the TC50 are doing well and have never sounded better. The elves, Mr. H, are my very valuable friends. Whenever a piece of gear is not working right I leave it on the floor at night and in the morning those two guys have repaired it perfectly. I don't know how they do it or where they get the parts and tools, but they work their magic and everything sounds better! I'd be lost without them.
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  • Oldfatdogs
    Oldfatdogs Posts: 1,874
    edited July 2012
    Very nice room full of goodies Ken.
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  • mhardy6647
    mhardy6647 Posts: 33,804
    edited July 2012
    The elves have apparently devised a means to get the magic smoke back into components (resistors, coils, transformers, etc.) from which it has escaped. Electronic science has long known that loss of said magic smoke renders such components nonfunctional.
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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 7,658
    edited July 2012
    Well, that certainly explains the acrid smell in that room when I go in there in the morning. Too much magic smoke, I guess.
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  • onebadchad
    onebadchad Posts: 364
    edited July 2012
    sweet set up
    Hello Kitty am/fm CD player
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  • Dawgfish
    Dawgfish Posts: 2,554
    edited July 2012
    Oh man that is sweet! I would love to hear that set up.
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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 1,225
    edited July 2012
    I've seen that room in person. Ken keeps these seperate so as not to mix with that "Baltimore Basement" air. If that were to happen world's would collide, fire and brimstone, dogs sleeping with cats, you name it ! :cool:
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  • organ
    organ Posts: 4,969
    edited July 2012
    Sweet set up!
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  • schwarcw
    schwarcw Posts: 7,338
    edited July 2012
    Very nice Ken! I'll bet that system sounds great!
    Carl

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  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 7,658
    edited July 2012
    Hello,
    Well, I delivered the preamps and amps to the owner and really miss how they sounded. This is the first McIntosh power amp to use their "bifilar" output transformer which provides ideal coupling. I replaced all of the resistors and capacitors in the audio and power supply and I measured the frequency response and it was down by 2.6dB at 80kHz. The distortion was 0.085% at 1kHz on one and 0.17% on the other with a source distortion of 0.025%. The power supply design results in exposed filter caps that had 210V on their outer cases. Obviously these needed to be insulated, so I had to make some thick paper tubes with wooden end caps that would fit nicely over the caps. Plus I wanted them to look, as much as possible, like the original caps.
    The same owner gave me his Marantz 7C to check out for him, a true milestone component.
    Cheers, Ken
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  • sucks2beme
    sucks2beme Posts: 5,601
    edited July 2012
    This is so refreshing. I was just over at another site where the "sound science" clowns
    were re-writing what sounds good. Seems they find all all hi end audio like McIntosh
    Krell, etc. to be a scam, and tubes sound bad. You need lab coats and two blind guys
    to decide what sounds good. Here we just go with what sounds good!
    "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." --Thomas Jefferson
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