In 1990 when I was 34 years old. Prior to that time I had heard McIntosh equipment, lusted after that sound during my days in college but never had the financial resources to acquire even one piece.
On that day in 1990 I was having lunch with a family member and in his car trunk was a surprise, a distant uncle's old McIntosh stereo system. This gentlemen had suffered most of his life with the debilitating effects of diabetes and in his later years had become totally blind and largely housebound. His link to the outside world was his love of music and his stereo system, a McIntosh MR-71, C-24, MI-3 (no power amp could be located at the time) purchased in November 1967 from the local dealer in Seattle Washington. Over the years that stereo was his pride and joy and the one thing that brought him more pleasure than anything.
In 1985 he passed away at the age of 40 due largely to the complications of the diabetes and his possessions were scattered throughout the family. Fast forward five years to 1990 and his mother, who was now moving into an assisted living facility, was in the process of selling her household contents, including his stereo, which had been sitting in her basement packed in the original boxes for the last five years, at her garage sale for $20.00 per component. An astute family member spotted the components while the sale was in process (no one had bought them or was even expressed any interest), told her what she had and promptly liberated them!
I was given the stereo which was largely in pristine cosmetic condition, for the price of lunch and told to keep it operating, functional as I was only its "guardian / care taker"; and if I ever failed in that task severe retribution would be exacted upon me.
With that I spent the next three years on the hunt to track down the original amplifier, finally locating it in another state, with yet another distant family member who was using it on her farm as part of an outdoor PA system to call the ranch hands together for meals. To make a long story…. longer - I got all the components back together and I have been enjoying the system ever since – all of the components being "DeWicked" at least once or twice over the last twenty-five years.
On that day in 1990 I was having lunch with a family member and in his car trunk was a surprise, a distant uncle's old McIntosh stereo system. This gentlemen had suffered most of his life with the debilitating effects of diabetes and in his later years had become totally blind and largely housebound. His link to the outside world was his love of music and his stereo system, a McIntosh MR-71, C-24, MI-3 (no power amp could be located at the time) purchased in November 1967 from the local dealer in Seattle Washington. Over the years that stereo was his pride and joy and the one thing that brought him more pleasure than anything.
In 1985 he passed away at the age of 40 due largely to the complications of the diabetes and his possessions were scattered throughout the family. Fast forward five years to 1990 and his mother, who was now moving into an assisted living facility, was in the process of selling her household contents, including his stereo, which had been sitting in her basement packed in the original boxes for the last five years, at her garage sale for $20.00 per component. An astute family member spotted the components while the sale was in process (no one had bought them or was even expressed any interest), told her what she had and promptly liberated them!
I was given the stereo which was largely in pristine cosmetic condition, for the price of lunch and told to keep it operating, functional as I was only its "guardian / care taker"; and if I ever failed in that task severe retribution would be exacted upon me.
With that I spent the next three years on the hunt to track down the original amplifier, finally locating it in another state, with yet another distant family member who was using it on her farm as part of an outdoor PA system to call the ranch hands together for meals. To make a long story…. longer - I got all the components back together and I have been enjoying the system ever since – all of the components being "DeWicked" at least once or twice over the last twenty-five years.