I confess! I'm the new owner. Hell, I didn't even know this thread existed until the other day! I'll make up for my absence with a long, rambling story...
Although the deal was done way back in July, I wasn't able to even unbox & hook them up until the third week of September. Long story, but the boxes sat in my office in NYC for a couple of weeks while I was away working in Europe. Then, other commitments kept me away from home until the middle of last month. It was awful! A lesson in non-instant gratification. Talk about jonesing for a listen!
Once home, I was eager to set things up and did a quick temp job. All was good, in fact it sounded great, but there was a slight problem with the volume controller. It would work fine from the remote but the manual control was acting a little whacky - skipping several steps sometimes and other times not functioning at all. Tried all the reset procedures and a few other tricks to no avail. My guess was that something happened during shipping to knock it around a bit.
So, after calling McIntosh to see if they had a replacement, (they did, they had uprated the part), I made a call to Ryan at Audio Classics who confirmed that they'd seen a few go bad and get flakey. I gave
@damacman a shout and we came up with the brilliant idea of me driving 3.5 hours each way to Audio Classics to have them check the unit and replace the part if that was what it was. (Okay, it was my idea.)
Well, since I'd purchased a few pieces from them, I'd always wanted to check out Audio Classics (and maybe the McIntosh factory!) and I had a rare, free day so off I went with a big bag of NYC bagels for the guys and the two C100 boxes. Arrived fairly early (only took 3 hours
) and met Ryan and a few of the other gents who work there. Discussed the work with Ryan and he said he'd take care of it while I went on a tour of the McIntosh factory while they made the repair. Sweet!
I expected the tour to be with a bunch of other guys, but I was lucky to be the only one there! I spent a nice hour and a half going through the various stages of manufacture and testing. Mark Christensen, Marketing Coordinator, told me about the evolution and history of McIntosh as we went along. Always wondered why they made the early move to Binghamton. Seems it was because there was a very large engineering and manufacturing pool there after WWII. Who knew?
Everyone who worked there was great and I got to spend some time taking to the individuals who performed various tasks through the assembly and testing process. Incredibly interesting to see how it's all done and the care that is taken along the way.
Anyway, at the end of the tour I got to sit and listen to the killer reference system with XRT2K speakers each driven by a 2KW amp. Unbelievable! Never heard anything more realistic in my life. I was both awestruck and crestfallen - it was amazing, but I knew I'd never own a system like that! To rub it in more, he kicked in the full 9.1 surround set up pushing 16,000 watts of power! Pink Floyd's The Wall in 9.1 is spectacular! What a great experience! Gave my thanks to all there and headed back over to Audio Classics to check on the repair.
Now, if you've never been, AC is a McIntosh lovers paradise! The gear is stacked (carefully) like cord wood! Beautiful units all around and they're all in really great shape. They also have their fair share of other brand classics from the golden age like HK, Fisher, Marantz, etc. I had a blast just wandering around there for an hour or so. It was hard to resist the temptation to pull the credit card out and buy a little something more to take home. Thankfully the repair was complete and I packed it all up and drove the 3+ hours home.
As soon as I got home I unboxed and gave it a good long listen in a proper setup. I was blown away by how great it sounded! I've been listening for all of 2.5 weeks now and all I can say is WOW! My C46 was no slouch, but the differences are pretty apparent in every aspect of the listening experience with the C100. It just sounds sooo good. My 12 year old son even commented on the improvement.
I have to say thank you to Tony for doing the deal and also for making it all good in the end! Also a great thanks to Ryan and everyone at Audio Classics for being so great and accommodating!
Here's a pic in the temporary setup with my pair of MC240's run in monobloc mode. I'm flipping the listening setup this week and will post revised pics. Tony, I could use that MC225 of yours to make a pair with the single I just picked up.
. Someone's going to be pleased for sure
