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
The 240 is majestic and probably didn't need so much parts replacement, as Mcintosh used the best parts, and they were incredibly stable.
ReplyDeleteI just let an MC240 go yesterday and I had parting pains.
Tubes as you point out are another story.
The MX 110 is also an amazing sounding preamp.
I have one in my possession also that needs some slight work.