MX110 Tuner

[Jamman]

Hi,
Hoping I can get a little help if possible. I recently purchased an MX110 that appears to be in mint condition. It recently serviced and the sound in is a wonderful. Liquid, Lush, huge 3D sound stage, I could go on and on but not what I posted this for. By the way I have owned and still own what some would consider the best stock preamp in the world according to Arthus Salvatore of the Audio Crtique fame and the MX takes a back seat to no one!
So here are my questions.
1. The FM tuner sounds great when I tune a station in, but something is wrong with the tuning. I can only get the stations in the middle of the band to tune in strong. I think it needs to be adjusted. I did hook up an attenna. I really do not want to send this anywhere. Can anyone tell me how to adjust this?
2. Does anyome have a manual they can scan and e-mail to me?
Thanks very much for any and all help.

 

[dewickt]

Hate to say it but sensitive in middle of the band probably means more than just alignment, to test and align you should use a calibrated FM generator. All I have written up for a calibration procedure is for a MR65B, just enough differences to be confusing, also requires a 10.7 generator and a FM stereo generator to do it right.

 

[dshoaf]

Manuals are available and other tech details, too...

I got a complete set of schematics for all 3 versions of the MX-110 along with some of the service notes issued against it from Roger Russell - www.roger-russell.com.

Not sure he'll have the full owners manual but you can get those off eBay folks who specialize it that. Also try A. G. Tannenbaum's web site for it - http://www.agtannenbaum.com.

Hope that helps.

BTW, a couple of simple things to try on your tuner problem (do these only with the power off, of course):

* You didn't mention it but is the accuracy of the tuner *way* off? If so, then this is an indication that V3 is weak. This happened to one of my MX-110s. Generally, replacement means that you'll have to have it re-aligned as the local oscillator is running at a different frequency.

If that didn't help:

* Clean the pins on the tuner tubes. Start with V2 and V3.

After doing these and with the power back on: To confirm once they're clean, you'll want to just wiggle them a bit to see if there's any change in the tuner's performance when tuned to a known station on either end of the band.

* V1, the 6DS4 (that little metal can in front of V2) is the first stage of RF amplification. Reset it carefully with the power off - it gets quite hot.

* Beyond that, you'll have to start really disassembling things to get the tuning cap (inside the black box in front of V3) contacts cleaned and you're really into a good tech's services at this point, if you're not comfortable with doing the above steps.

BTW, most of the tubes for the MX-110 are available and I'd recommend that you clean all the tube pins for more reliable performance.

Do a search here on my name or MX-110 and you'll find other posts from me on my experiences restoring my 2 Z-series models. I recommend the same for yours if you *really* want to hear what this under-rated preamp can do.

Enjoy and cheers,

David

 

[CarlV]

McIntosh made me a photocopy of the MX110 service manual for $5. plus mailing.

Carl

 

[Jamman]

Thanks everyone for all the info. It does tune in stations not in the middle of the band its just that I dont get a very strong signal. Now I am wondering if I need a better antenna? I will clean the pins and purchase a better antenna, any recommendations? I have owned a number of highly regarded preamps and this one is just so musical to listen to. Id forgot how wonderful it is to have tone controls and individual gail controls. You can really tailor the sound to your room and tastes. Hard to imagine more people haven't found out how good this preamp is. Still a great bargain. Has anyone compared it to the C22?

 

[Rich Andrews]

Originally posted by Jamman
Thanks everyone for all the info. It does tune in stations not in the middle of the band its just that I dont get a very strong signal. Now I am wondering if I need a better antenna?

While a better antenna may help, it is not going to fix the problem. If it cannot pick up stations as well as in the middle of the band, then it probably needs some repairs and an alignment. I have heard of this before and it almost always was that the unit needed both. Time to pack it up and ship it to Terry.

r