Classic Tube Audio

I was proud to be a part of Dave’s- Mcintosh MC30′s amplifier restoration project. I have included a bit of history from Dave about his system and how some of it all came about.

Dave wrote:

“”It has been an exhausting past few months helping my folks move my grandpa into assisted living.  Throughout his life he collected test equipment, parts, electronic components, tools, plumbing… from swap meets, garage sales etc. and things just accumulated around his property.  I suppose it’s better than hoarding garbage and cats, but it took two weeks to go through everything and a series of garage sales to get rid of a quarter of the items.  We had to keep him out of the sale area because we caught him sneaking stuff back into his office.  We also hauled about a ton of scrap metal to Schnitzer Steel (that was fun and a 500lb utility box almost crushed me).

Anyways I managed to come home with a few treasures, including a Heathkit tube tester and about 1000 tubes (most of them TV and radio, but also some gems like a quad of RCA mil. 1614′s), a Dual 1229Q automatic turntable, an Altec 800 VOTT and Altec A-7 VOTT speaker set, and a HH Scott Stereomaster 355 tuner/preamp.  (I’ve attached a couple pictures) see above

Dave sent me a little more history for posting. Enjoy!

“A little back story on the Macs for those interested:  My grandpa had the Scott 355, McIntosh MC 30′s, and Altec VOTTs in a system during his audiophile years up to the late 70′s when he switched to solid state.  The Altecs ended up in his garage stereo, and the Scott and Macs were put on a shelf and forgotten about.

Fast forward to 2003:  I was only a teenager but I had already taken an interest in hi fi and tube amplifiers.  My dad remembered grandpa’s Macs and he would see if he still had them, and if I could use them. He agreed and brought them the next time he came to visit.

I installed new RCA jacks and used the amps in an unrestored state until I handed them off to Pat in late 2010.It seems as if both the audiophile gene and the equipment skipped a generation.  Needless to say I was one lucky teen”

I thought it would be nice to include some topics of interest for our readers, a “Blog” if you will..if you like these posts, I will do more and set up an actual blog on this site..

Real Stereo Glows in the Dark

Pat~