Gifted - The Ultimate Barn Find - McIntosh 240 and an MX110

Barn Find - McIntosh 240

This summer a friend purchased a new home.  It was quite a nice home, large with a barn in the back yard.  We payed the family a visit one summer day to help them move around a few things and help out as much with the move as possible.

While he was conducting a tour of the barn, I see these old electronic "things" on the shelf up high under bird droppings, nest materials and other types of "dirt".  So we walk over and take a look and find a McIntosh 240 Amplifier and a McIntosh MX110 FM receiver/Preamp.  He asked me what I thought they were worth, and I threw out a number that was about 1/4 of what they would be worth clean and working as I really had no idea how much they were worth.  (He called me later on to let me know what he had found them to be worth, I was quite surprised and embarrassed!)  He offered them to me and I offered him money if he would take it.  He said no and I went about loading them onto my vehicle.  

It took hours to clean each of them.  I removed the tubes one at a time and cleaned around them trying to not rub off the tube identification letters that are imprinted on the chrome of the chassis.  It took a very long time as there was bird poop and all kinds of dirt caked on everything.  The tubes were covered with a mess too.  I would estimate a good 12 hours of cleaning for the 240.

Look at how dirty the controls are.

Top view, very dirty indeed!

 Filthy!

 Look at that contrast from the dirt to the chrome!

 Looking quite a bit cleaner now after hours of work!

Fortunately I have a great friend who agreed to help me restore this amplifier to life.  He did tons of research to find out exactly what we needed to restore it properly.  We replaced just about everything electrically inside that we could.  Most of the tubes needed replacing, it has the original McIntosh tubes still in there, but they all tested bad.  I just happened to have some Russian 6L6GC's that I put in there.  I had to purchase all the pre-amplifier tubes as they all tested bad.

The electronic work was on a cool day in the fall.  We worked on it for around 8 or 9 hours, lunch included, before it was done.  I found that I had neglected to receive or order one of the preamp tubes so we were unable to test it that day. He advised it was likely to have worked without all the components replaced and was very confident that it would work just fine when turned on, if it worked at all. 

About a week later I received the tube that I needed to complete the restoration.  I was a bit on the scared side as I hooked it up to some small speakers I have and a spare preamp to test.  I decided since Brian Wilson mixed one or more of the famous Beach Boys albums on a 240, that I would play Good Vibrations as the first tune played by this amp,  I was pretty stoked as I turned it up and sound came from the speakers.  I let it play for a while watching for smoke and checking for anything going on with a flashlight close in case it blew a fuse.  After about 10 minutes or so I disconnected it from the small speakers and my spare preamp and connected it to the main system, the main speakers and the McIntosh C27 preamp that is the control center for my main system.

I turned on the preamp, then the amp and sound came from my main speakers.  It was pretty glorious.  Unfortunately somewhere along the way I blew out my tweeter on my Paradigm speakers, probably while changing connections while forgetting to turn the volume down.  Whatever it was, that puppy is silent, and they are hard to find - at least so far,  Ah well, first speaker I have blown in over 30 years, so I was overdue for a brain fart resulting in cash outlay.  

I have now probably passed the break in period and the sound is pretty terrific!  I am surprised at how awesome it sounds, and the staging and imaging are pretty impressive!  It gets hot and it is pretty cool looking at the tubes glowing, I run it without the cage on to facilitate cooling, and plus it looks pretty cool!

Due to the overall complexity of the MX110, I will be saving for quite some time to send it out to have it refurbished as there is allot going on there with the FM Tuner and a tube Preamp.  So in a couple years I should have saved enough cabbage and will be reporting on that.

That is pretty much it, listen often, reduce that stress.  Music is a big help!

Peace Out!

Jeff

Heat Generated During LP Playback - Does it matter?

I read something a while back and it had been bouncing around in my head for quite some time.  The subject was heat generated during playback on the record surface and the stylus could damage LP grooves if a record is played more than once a day.  A blog post I read asserted that this person would not ever play an LP a second time within 24 hours.  The theory put forth was that the vinyl was heated by the stylus and the stylus was also hot and it would act as a hot knife through butter, so to speak, if the LP was played back too soon and both surfaces were still hot.   It could cause undo damage to our records and promote premature record wear. 

I have some thoughts on this.  First off, I have verified that the record, indeed is warm after playing.  I have also verified that the stylus is also warm after playing.  My thoughts are this theory may have some credibility.  I have even gone so far as to think that possibly even using the stylus on a second LP, or even a second side may have negative effects on the grooves of a vinyl record. 

If anyone has any sophisticated heat measuring devices and can determine the temperature of the vinyl surface and the temperature of the stylus after playback, we may be able to calculate whether this is an actual risk to the longevity of our precious record collections.

For now, I am not playing the same LP side twice within 24 hours.  I am also changing the stylus out on my turntable after each LP.  I am considering in the future playing a single side with each stylus.  I know this is impractical for most people, I am fortunate to have a turntable that allows for switching out and re-balancing of head shells pretty darn easy.

I would be appreciative of any opinions out there, ranging from I am full of shit to full agreement.  I am very careful with my collection and record wear is never welcome in my house!!!  If I am full of shit, I am full of shit erring toward the lofty goal of minimal record wear.


What do you think?


Listening keeps the day just a little bit better.

Jeff

Aftermarket Styli and the current state of affairs for vintage Shure phono cartridges

Aftermarket Styli and the current state of affairs for owners of vintage Shure phono cartridges

Every couple years or so, I usually look around to see what goodies of yesteryear I can use in my system to give it supreme interest to me in my eyes.  This year I decided to look around to see what I could find in replacement styli (phono needles) for my older phono cartridges and maybe pick up a few different phono cartridges in the process.

First off, I am not a paid advertiser nor spokesperson for any of the companies that I am about to mention.  Secondly, I am a hobbyist, not a purist, so my choices for the needles that I rescue and seek out, whether OEM or aftermarket styli for are not necessarily "audiophile grade" phono cartridges.  I am after nostalgia, the feeling of playing something that was the best in its' class at one time.  Not always the pure audiophile experience.

The first cartridge that I decided to see what I could find in the aftermarket stylus world is the V15 RS - arguably a V15, but after doing a ton of research, it seems that this Radio Shack V15 version is a re-branded M97 of that vintage.  A friend of mine has that original M97 with the HE (Hyper-Elliptical) OEM tip on it and it is a very, very nice cart!  I did a bunch of research starting at Shure and looked at their recommendation for the replacement stylus, and sure enough (pardon the pun), the Shure site mentioned that that N97 is the proper replacement stylus for that cartridge.  Upon further investigation, it seems that the aftermarket has a different standard and I was able to find this selection of styli here http://www.turntableneedles.com/Needle-771-DHE-copy-for-Shure-N97HE_p_1419.html . 

I purchased this needle and installed it yesterday.  I started breaking it in with a few records.  The first thing I noticed was it is definitely not built the same way as the original, which I had mounted previously on the V15RS.  The fit was perfect, the way it is supposed to be.  I have read quite a few reviews where the sound just isn't right with the M97 stylus, so I took the chance in thinking that everyone out there complaining was correct.  Was I rewarded, or did I waste money?

When I started playing some really nice pressings of some jazz I really liked the sound!  It is a bit truthful at this point, but I think after a proper break in of 20 or 30 hours of playing it should calm down a bit.  I believe that I have finally found the proper stylus for this cartridge, with a really nice hyper-elliptical tip.  The last time I searched for replacements for the RS, I purchased one that had a elliptical tip as the HE versions at that time were not yet being manufactured, it also did not have the duster attachment  The new aftermarket stylus duster is not spring activated, rather gravity activated, and not as big, but it is there and it protects the stylus, I almost did in the stylus the other day with a too quick hand.  


I did more research and found that a different cartridge, the R47XT, another Radio Shack re branded Shure cartridge was also, indeed a re-named M97.  I found a NIB R47XT with the Original, never played, 5x cartridge, which is a pretty good elliptical cartridge.  So I will be playing this one for a while once I get it and get it mounted and aligned.  I really like finding NIB vintage stuff, sometimes it can be very expensive, but I don't plan to get any more carts for quite some time at this point.  This one was not expensive, coming in at $69, plus shipping for a brand-new cartridge.  I will update this post with how I feel about this cart when it arrives and I have a chance to play it for a while.

Onto my favorite find of the last week's cartridge buying bonanza.  I found something at a good price that I have wanted for years.  People are going to say, 'you got the wrong one..."  You may think that at this point, but wait until you see what I found.  I found a V15 II - from the late 1960s.  I know, it's old, the others were better, etc.  Whatever.  When I am finally done with my romance of vinyl playback article, I will explain why specs don't matter to me that much.  Anyway, I have wanted a V15, and I will have more, this is just my first V15, (unless you count the V15RS, which I do not any longer).  So I picked it up on eBay, it has an older aftermarket replacement stylus on it, so I decided that I needed to look around and see what I could find as a replacement for it.  I was very hopeful that I would find some OEM or a decent aftermarket replacement.  What I found will thrill anyone experienced with Shure cartridges overall, and especially those who have the V15 II.  Check this out...

I found a hyper-elliptical stylus for the V15 II, I found it here: http://www.turntableneedles.com/Needle-771-DHE-copy-for-Shure-N97HE_p_1419.html, I am quite excited overall about the find.  At the time the V15 II was out there were a couple options for stylus for it, as far as I can gather.  A conical and an elliptical stylus, and an "improved" elliptical.  This cartridge was, at its' time the champ for tracking at low weight and high-fidelity LP playback.  The later V15s performance would be better, as it should be with forward marches in technology and manufacturing process improvements.  Well, imagine my surprise when an aftermarket manufacturer is making a HE tip for the V15 II!  Holy moly, I took a look at it, read around, zero reviews. I bought one and I cannot wait for it to arrive to test it out.  HE tips IMHO are the best tips that a MM phono cartridge can have, they go deeper into the grooves and run the walls with more contact that sphericals or standard elliptcials due to their shape, (some of the newer technologies may track the grooves better and reveal more, that I am not aware of nor have tried, so my opinion is only based upon real-life, albeit not comprehensive experience).  So, I cannot wait to try this out and will update this post with some of the results.  I do not know how long these styli will be available, but I am going to grab another one or an even better one soon.  The fact that I did not know this model of the V15, never had a hyper-elliptical stylus like the III and subsequent models did.  So, this should be very cool and elevate the standard of playback in this cart to its' ultimate potential. Which should be freaking awesome!   

The state of the art right now may be the SAS replacement styli that are available out there.  I am looking at the SAS for the V15II, M95ED, M91ED - and they are available for about $150 for the least expensive, but as quite a few of you know these are some of the legendary cartridges from Shure.  I was really quite surprised and delighted to see that really good, high quality styli are being made from really good manufactures to enable those of us who are not in constant upgrade mode to rescue our old favorite cartridges and breathe life back into them again.  It will be a while before I am able to afford these more expensive replacements.  The ones I found for the cartridges mentioned above are in the $75 - $90 range, the SAS cartridges are even more expensive than that, starting at around $150 and ranging to hundreds of dollars, but seem to promise the best in performance for our cherished phono cartridges.  When you look at the technology, it appears the technology is more advanced and should provide better performance than the OEM styli.

The moral of this story is don't give up on your old trusted phono cartridges, you can still take heart in your old cartridges. I have been reading all over the place, industry sites, audiophile sites, manufacture sites, blogs, etc. I have found over and over that unless something electrical happens or the cart takes some sort of physical damage, the cartridge body should and may have a somewhat unlimited lifespan. The stylus shank and the cantilever take all of the abuse and those do not last forever. This is all based of course, on the characteristics of the materials that are used in construction, as nothing is forever. So, if you can find replacement styli for your cart, grab one or two. My thought on the subject is do the research, read around and find the very best replacement that you can find and realistically afford. I paid nearly $90 a piece - a price I would never have thought of paying a few years back. At that time I was buying the $15 replacement styli off eBay. Good enough is not quite good enough for me as I listened and was not quite satisfied with the playback, and because of the type of needle, those carts got limited playback and were relegated to playing less than perfect records.  I am most concerned, in regards to vinyl playback as I think of the size and shape of the tip, the overall tracking force that must be used because I am trying overall to limit to the greatest degree possible record wear while extracting the maximum amount of data that the grooves provide.

One more thing that we can feel good about is while I was doing the research, I was reading quite a few blog posts from 2005 - 2009 where people were having great difficulty obtaining decent aftermarket styli for their cartridges.  They were scooping up the few remaining OEM replacements and dealing with the aftermarket offerings of the day, which were not nearly as good as today.  I am glad to see improvements in the replacement stylus market, as continuous improvement and more product offerings will sustain a market that will be beating down a path to your door; that group is the vintage phono stylus owner, just like me. I am very excited about the current state of affairs for owners of older phono cartridges and I hope the trend continues, but for now, I will be stocking up, just in case.


Peace out, listen more, relax,


Jeff

Time for a little LP organization

I have been thinking over the past couple years that I need to go through my record collection and figure out what I have.  I need to determine what needs to be replaced, what I no longer like, need or want and clean it out.

The time is today when I start listening to most every single record in my collection without a quality rating first off.  I will determine the quality and if I am going to keep it by listening to the record in its' entirety, both sides.  I will then rate it and determine if I want to keep it, or rip a good song or two and sell it on Discogs, give it to Salvation Army or offer it up to friends that I know that still have turntables.  If it has a high quality rating and I like the record, it will stay.  Seems pretty simple!

I have started with the Oldies box.  These are the records that I have in my collection the longest.  I started collecting albums when I was about 16, and at the time I liked oldies, British invasion and psychedelic songs of the 1960s.  That is what a good portion of my collection consisted of when I was a kid.  I have listened to two LPs this morning, Paul Revere and the Raiders - Just Like Us, and Van Morrison - Moondance.  Both great albums, however I find that the 'Raiders LP is in terrible condition, so this copy will go to the thrift store and I will be searching for a new, clean version in either Stereo or Mono. This copy was stereo, but I think the mono records of the early 1960s were what the records were mixed to and re-channeled and re-mixed to become stereo.

I have tons of records in my collection.  I have three oldies boxes with approximately 70 records in each.  To make it easier to determine what I have done and what records I have looked at I am taking notes on my listening, dating and scoring the condition of the record.  If the record is in bad shape, I have a section of my notebook dedicated to records that I need to re-purchase and the LP will be put aside in a special bin. When I originally purchased most of these records, I used a visual grading method, which did not always result in clean sounding records.  This process of listening to most of my records will take quite a long time to accomplish, possibly a couple years.   I have decided there are certain records that I have already rated for quality that are must-keep records, so I may not listen to those except for pleasure listening during this project.

I have decided that certain types of records are out of scope for this project. First, box sets are not going to be included, nor will my 78-RPM collection.  Most of my box-sets are in excellent condition, most appear to have been played once and put on a shelf for the next 20 years.  Also not up for consideration will be my historic, comedy, patriotic and old-time-radio LP collections.  My daughter's records, my Disney records, anything unusual or sealed will remain in the collection too. 

I have been cleaning up and digitizing my CD collection for quite some time now and have sold off quite a few of the ones that I no longer listen to.  I have digitized the rest and have quite a musical library.  I have stored the original CDs in appropriate CD storage boxes that I have acquired at Bags Unlimited. 

I do not collect for the value of the records.  There are quite a few in my collection with messed up sleeves and that is fine with me.  Just as long as there is a nice, clean record in there somewhere.  Collectors would think I am nuts for how my collection is full of these awesome LPs in crappy sleeves.  I have to like a record to keep it, which is why it is time to go through the collection and weed-out those records that I have purchased as an experiment, or to try and find something different out there.  I have dozens of those in my collection; therefore it is time to take a listen and see if I really need to keep all my albums.  I expect to find that I have kept quite a few records that are OK, but I am not crazy about, these will be gone. 

Bottom line is I want a collection of hardly anything in it that is in any but excellent condition and sounds great when played.  Since I have started collecting records as an adult, and over the last 10 years or so I have gravitated toward the VG+, NM-, NM and sealed records for my collection of LPs.  As for 78s I try to acquire Es, which are in excellent condition.  If I like the record, and the quality is poor, I will add to my list the title and watch for it whenever I am scouting for records.  If I find a VG+ or NM copy I will re-acquire it, clean it and add it back into my collection.  I will also be looking for first pressings to replace even my quality records.

I also expect to be getting rid of approximately ten percent of my collection through the changing of my tastes over the years.  There are quite a few albums that I have passed by over and over in the box and may have not played since I was a kid.  Those will be gone!  This seems like quite a bit of work to undertake, and it is.  I expect to enjoy the process quite a bit.  I am sure I will find LPs that I can no longer tolerate in my collection too.  This will take a long time but if I am consistent I should be able to get rid of a couple hundred LPs.  Probably replace a hundred or so in the process as well.

I hope you can get some listening time in and remember to enjoy the music, not just collect the records, which is what I want to remedy.

Peace Out and keep listening,

Jeff

An awesome decision by my parents, ca 1979

A very long time ago my parents made a very wise decision. Instead of purchasing a car when I had just received my drivers license, they bought me a stereo instead. During that time those all-in-one stereos with the cassette deck, record player, 8-track and tuner were very popular, (I just dated myself). They broke with the trend and decided instead to purchase separates. A Pioneer receiver, an SX-450 if anyone cares, a BSR turntable and a set of Kenwood 2-way speakers. They bought it at Tech HiFi, which has since gone out of business. I have the original receipt hanging on my wall. It was a great system, sounded great, but more importantly that modest little system ignited a passion for music that I have to this day.

I have never been without a stereo since that day and pray to never be without one. I listen to music quite a bit and get great pleasure from it and profound stress relief. The original stereo - long gone, but I have a nice system that I have built over the past few years that sounds quite nice. I celebrate August 29th each year to this day and call my Mom and say thanks!

Thanks Mom, Thanks Dad!

A fictitious rating system I developed

Jeff's Beer Speaker Rating System:

1 Beer - Weak - did these come out of a kids toy?

2 Beer - OK - these would sound OK at a party.

3 Beer - Good - these would sound good just about anywhere, not great, but a good speaker at a good price, not revealing or articulate, but rocks the house down and handles music very nicely.

4 Beer - Solid - these would play very well with great recordings and a perfect room, quite a few of these are reasonably priced speakers, can be revealing and articulate, but usually a great sounding speaker and a good value to own.

5 Beer - Sweet - these would play articulate, revealing and sweet sounding music, source type is nearly irrelevant, nearly perfect sound with nearly any music or source, a nice speaker to have if you can afford it.

6 Beer - OMG - these would knock your socks off, sound amazing, redefine your idea of what a perfect speaker can sound like, it's almost like you are in the room with the performers, the speaker to have if you can afford it.

Spin Clean Record washing system MKII - First Impressions

Good day everyone, I finally did it.  I finally broke down and purchased a record cleaning machine.  I have wanted for years to be able to clean my vinyl properly.  I used various pretty effective methods for keeping my records clean, but I wanted to know how much better it could be after a proper cleaning is done.

I broke down and bought the Spin-Clean record washing system - MK II.  It was at first smaller than I expected.  I took a look at the construction and it is pretty nice.  I was able to determine what all the notches were for and so forth without having to look at the manual, so the design is pretty straightforward.

I purchased the bonus pack with the system because I have a lot of records to clean.  The bonus pack came with extra pads, and extra lint free towels to dry the records with.  I was glad that I purchased the extra towels when I got into cleaning the records. Also included is a 32 oz bottle of the cleaner along with the 4oz bottle that comes with the standard kit.  I will be glad I bought the bonus pack in no time.

When I took a look through the manual I read that it would be best if the towels were prewashed before using them for the first time.  So, I got them in the wash following the directions and got them dried before I started cleaning records.  I took some time to go through the manual while I was waiting for the laundry to complete.

 I realized a short time later that I had forgotten to pick up some distilled water for the cleaner.  The directions say that you can use tap water if you do not have distilled water to use.  With all the junk in tap water, I decided to go the pure route and drove to the store and purchased a couple gallons of distilled water. 

So, I filled it up with distilled water to the designated level and poured the cleaning solution where the instructions told me to do so and I got out some record boxes and decided to clean what I wanted to listen to for the next couple days.

Now it was time to do some cleaning as I pulled the cleaned and dried towels from the dryer.  I had read a couple blogs about getting the labels wet when using the spin-clean.  Before I started I read through the manual so I did not run into any issues.  However, I kept in mind what I read and never stopped moving the record once the cleaning had started, that way run-off would not drip onto the label.  I was successful in keeping water off the labels, but I had to develop a system that would not use up all my towels on the first couple records.  Use a junk record to test your process before you start cleaning the good ones. I cleaned two from the junk pile just in case I had issues.

The instructions say you can clean 20 - 50 records with one bath.  I was able to clean 30 albums and I could have cleaned more, you should keep an eye on how dirty the water gets.  I stopped at 30 records as that is all I wanted to do at one time. The water was not terribly dirty, but I had enough records for the listening tests I planned.

I air dried the records for about 20 minutes after wiping them down until mostly dry before playing or putting them in sleeves.  I started with a piano record that was on the disposal pile to see how it sounded.  I was overall pretty impressed as surface noise was very low.  There was still some, but my assumption is that the record was worn, as I have very few records that I purchased new, and it is possible that it was well-loved in the past and played over and over again.

I then played something I am pretty familiar with to see if I noticed any differences.  I put on ELO Discovery LP.  I used a crappy VG version of the LP that I had on my disposal pile.  I put it on the table and it played very respectively.  I will not say that it eliminated noise or anything like that, but I was pretty impressed with the overall sound quality coming from that somewhat scratched up record.  The noise was significantly low, and the pops and clicks were there from the scratches, but it still sounded pretty darn good!

My records were pretty clean overall, but the water got pretty dirty so the device is quite effective at getting dirt out of the grooves.  One piece of advice that I used was to clean the record with a brush before getting it into the bath.  Loose stuff that you can remove before it goes in the machine will aid you in keeping the water cleaner for more records.

My strongest recommendation if you purchase this product is to read the instruction manual and follow the instructions.  If you ruin your brushes you may do damage to your records, so please follow the instructions.

If you have LPs, and you are on a budget, this machine is for you!  Grab some extra towels to put the records on while you dry them and go for it!  I have seen machines for $600 that make allot of noise and cost allot of money, but don't do any finer job of cleaning a record than the Spin-Clean.  This little machine at less than $150 is a bargain in my opinion.  I tend to take care of stuff so I expect this to last for many years.  I would recommend the bonus kit which has the extra pads, the larger bottle of cleaner solution and the extra towels.  I am still going to pick up an additional set of the rollers and more towels before very long.  I got mine at Jerry Raskin's Needle Doctor - www.needledoctor.com


Seriously Sweet and Effective record cleaning!

Peace Out!

Jeff

Associated Equipment
Technics SL-B3 turntable
Denon DL-110 MC cartridge
McIntosh C-27 Preamp
McIntosh MC250 Amp
PSB Image T-6 Speakers