McIntosh Vintage System

[jdandy]

My McIntosh vintage system is finally all together. The system consists of a McIntosh MA230 integrated amplifier, a McIntosh MR74 tuner, a Denon DVD-2800 CD/DVD player, a pair of JBL 4312A speakers, and a Godar FM antenna. The speakers wires are Wireworld Solstice and the interconnect cables are Tributaries Silver Series.

My mini-rack is a solid wood microwave cart ordered from Amazon. I reassigned it as an audio rack. The rack came unfinished so I used a stain/sealer to match the walnut finish on the JBL's and the McIntosh cabinets. It took three days for the stain/sealer to completely dry (Florida humidity) but today it was finally ready for the gear. After a couple of hours to get the system set up and the cables dressed and hidden, the vintage system is looking fabulous and sounding exceptional.

The vintage system is set up in my 35' Holiday Rambler travel trailer so there isn't a lot of room. My listening chair is directly across from the rack and can definitely be considered a near field listening experience but the JBL's excel in this type of application. Despite the compactness of the system the JBL's manage to throw a decent soundstage that exceeds the width of the setup by a good margin. The MA230 sounds absolutely amazing with the JBL's, as does the MR74 tuner. The Denon DVD-2800 uses a 24bit/96kHz DAC that sounds very good and also decodes HDCD recordings.

To keep things cool I installed two Silenx Ixtrema 60 mm 12 VDC fans perched on the top rear edge of the MA230 chassis, held in place with sticky-back Velcro, and powered with a 6 VDC, 1 amp wall-wart power supply. The 6 VDC power supply on 12 VDC fans operate them at half speed and they are dead silent. I have them pulling air from the amplifiers chassis on each side by each pair of 7591 tubes. This reduces the radiated heat from the power tubes that would otherwise rise through the vent screen on top of the McIntosh cabinet. I can now place my hand on the vent screen and it is only warm to the touch where before it was too hot to leave your hand in place on the vent screen above the power tubes for more than a moment. Ventilation is a good thing. Silent ventilation is a blessing.

I could not be happier with my vintage sound system. It is unique and looks great. After 30 something years of regretting the sale of my original MA230, member GaryProtein heard my lament and gifted me his fathers MA230 that had been stored in Gary's basement for over 30 years. The amp needed some attention and Terry DeWick worked his magic on the MA230 for me. It is now singing like the vibrant audio component it was designed to be. Color me a happy camper.

[Yamaki]

Dan...that is such a clean, beautiful and superbly functional system.

I'm jealous!

[Vintage Pete]

Very nice!!!!!

[EfeTe]

Very nice indeed Dan, and nicely done on the minirack detailing too!

[jwc]

vintage sound rules!

[jwc]

Oh. Terry Dewick rules too. Saw him recently. Moving real slow. He will be missed so bad when he is gone. I don't know where to send my stuff in the future.

He just refurbed my console Magnavox system from the 1940's, McIntosh MC250's and MC100's. The man is unreplaceable (sp).

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by jwc

vintage sound rules!

JC.......I can tell you one thing about this vintage system. If I had no other sound systems, I could easily live with this sound system and be happy. It makes me tap my toes every time I listen to it.

I'm really happy how nice my little rack turned out, too. You can't beat it for $92.96 including tax and shipping, plus the $4.60 for a small can of stain/sealer. Less than a hundred bucks for the complete and finished solid wood rack.

[jwc]

It looks great.

I bet the sound is warm with chuncky midbass and lower mids.

[jdandy]

The age of the gear in this vintage system is as follows:

MA230 integrated amplifier - 50 years old

MR74 tuner - 36 years old

JBL 4312A speakers - 25 years old

Denon DVD-2800 - 13 years old

[chessman]

Dan, it looks great and knowing you I bet it sounds great. Seeing a system like that makes me wonder if I shouldn't simplify to a smaller rig and just enjoy the music.