McIntosh Mc2301 Tube Roll

[BDR]

Hello All,

I am a novice building a dedicated listening room and am trying to decide which tubes to put in my mcintosh gear. Have mostly nos telefunken 12at7 and 12ax7 diamond bottoms with goldlion reissues in the amps but am trying to figure out how I should round out my preamp since I can't track down the remaining nos telefunken 12ax7 tubes from a reliable source.

turntable 1- amg viella 12/amg 12jt turbo/benz micro LP S
turntable 2 - clearaudio innovation/TT2/goldfinger
preamp - mcintosh c1100
phono preamp - mcintosh mp1100
speakers - bw 800d3
sub - JL Gotham
amps high/mid - mc2301
amps low - mc601

Current tube plans:
c1100 - Have 6 telefunken diamond bottom 12at7. Still need 6 12ax7 - needs to be telefunken or can I go with another brand? Suggestions?
mp1100 - 4 telefunken 12ax7 smooth plate diamond bottom
mc2301 (in each) - 2 telefunken diamond bottom 12at7, 8 goldlion KT88 reissues

Thank you kindly for any input you could provide!

 

[4-2-7]

I am a novice building a dedicated listening room and am trying to decide which tubes to put in my mcintosh gear.

Welcome to AK
Have you set it up yet?
What's wrong with the mac tubes?

 

[BDR]

Thank you!
I haven't set it up yet. Awaiting the clearaudio stuff to arrive from Germany. I am sure the mac tubes will work great. I've read throughout multiple forums people have experienced good results with swapping them out for different tubes. My plan is to keep the mac tubes for backups.

 

[BillWojo]

^^^ What louisjames said. Don't touch the stock tubes for several weeks and than just change one section on one piece of gear at a time. Each change that you make should be left alone for a week or two, let your ears get used to it and see if you like the difference. You may find that in some sections that those expensive tubes made a difference and in other sections it makes no difference.
Mac amps seem to be less responsive than a lot of amps to tube rolling due to the circuitry, if a tube is made to spec, the amp will work just fine. The input tubes on that will have more effect than the output tubes is my guess.
When my MC40 monoblocks were rebuilt I loaded them with GE outputs and Tele small signal tubes and never bothered to mess with it. Sounds great.

BillWojo

BillWojo

 

[4-2-7]

I am a novice building a dedicated listening room

Ok I'll try and not be harsh and I don't want you to take it that way.

Just because someone can buy the best doesn't make it the best system, it takes a little more then buying and dropping it in a room.

Let me through out the yin yang, you will not know what's good if you you never had bad. In other words there is a learning curve, and teaching yourself what to listen for. How you place the system and do free work and tweaks to the system and room.

All I can say is you would be better severed getting what you bought, put it all together in your room. Learning how to set it up, overcome obstacles that will present themselves. Learning the turntable and it's setup, what's the best stage settings. You have a ton of testing, setup, learning and listening to do, to get the system you have to sound it's best.

Swapping tubes will do nothing for you at this point, they are a subtle change if anything. Without you setting up the system and acclimating to it, the gain or loss will not be realized.

Please do come back and let us all help you get your nice system producing the best Sound Quality it's capable of.

 

[BDR]

Thank you for this advice - it all makes good sense.

I like the notion of making small, incremental and isolated changes in a progressive fashion. Will plan on keeping the telefunken tubes on deck after a healthy break-in of the stock tubes and reserve the tube discovery process for a later date. Will focus on truly understanding the gear and establishing baselines before making subtle changes such as tube manipulation.

Everything slated to arrive within the next month so we're excited for the set up and look forward to the learning curves. The standing invitation to navigate those curves is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your forthright direction!

 

[4-2-7]

I like the notion of making small, incremental and isolated changes in a progressive fashion. Will plan on keeping the telefunken tubes on deck after a healthy break-in of the stock tubes and reserve the tube discovery process for a later date. Will focus on truly understanding the gear and establishing baselines before making subtle changes such as tube manipulation.

Awesome now that's the way to do it

Everything slated to arrive within the next month so we're excited for the set up and look forward to the learning curves. The standing invitation to navigate those curves is greatly appreciated.

We have a McIntosh forum when it's time to set that equipment up..
http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?forums/mcintosh-audio.54/

And record quality will play a big part of the systems sound quality when playing them. Maybe read a bit in here

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index....-productions-quality-record-pressings.698195/

 

[BillWojo]

My introduction to tubes was through a set of restored Mac MC40 monoblocks. I missed the journey of moving up in gear and discovering the differences that the next level brings. I had the opportunity to do that with some SS gear.
I have since picked up other tube gear and some of it is rather nice but nothing has made me want to pull the Macs off of the shelf. My latest "ah hah!" moment was getting a VTA SP9 preamp. My Altecs are keepers.

BillWojo

 

[twiiii]

I gave up rolling tubes when I had my C-22 and 240's. I had kept my original Telefunken tubes for the C-22 and tried, different brands. I don't remember which at the time. I knew the GE tubes were the best for the 240's output but I tried other miniature tubes.

When Davie came to town with the Mac Clinic I loaded up the 2 240's the MC 60 and the C-22 and all the tubes. -This was my 3 rd or 4th Mac clinic and as I was working part time for the store and had spent hours talking to Davie Oon previous visits.. He saved testing my equipment until after hours just so we all could learn a lesson. So with the guys from the service department and the sales guys gathered around Davie tested the C-22 first. I think it had Mullards in at the time. The sound seemed a little clearer to me. Well, the unit didn't quite meet specs, close, but no cigar. He checked it with GE and some other brands I had and the unit did meet specs, One set of tubes caused a little roll=off in the bass but nothing major. Then he asked for the original Telefunkens that had been replaced two years previously, and the unit easily out performed the other tubes. But Davie wasn't satisfied and replaced tubes selectively improving the distortion even further. He did the same thing with the 240's, and MC 60 which was KT 88 outputs. I learned that Davie hand picked the tubes he brought with him for clinics. And that Mac checked all tubes for installation in new units. I don't remember the failure rate, but tubes were returned with marginal performance. I quit rolling tubes that day. I always had a complete set of Mac replacement tubes for my Mac pieces. Buy the time we got our Sound Technology test equipment the C-22 and the newer 275's were long gone. I realize Mac tube stuff performs very well, but I just don't want to face the thought of having one of the tubes gradually failing as happens all to often.

I hve never had a Mac SS piece fail meeting specs. Oh my MR-80 had touch button issues, the MPI-4 lost a tube after 35+ years, the C-29 had a treble control switch come apart, and the 2505 speaker on and off switch needs cleaning from time to time as do the push buttons on the C-34. But thats all easy stuff. Even my 206 had a volume control that need cleaning once. The MAC=3 volume control needed replacment. And the MX-119 input selector went bad from static electricity. BUt the remote worked around that. But from 62 when I got my first Mac amps till 73 or 4 when I got rid of the last tube amplifiers. It was always something, but 95%of the time it was tubes. So I have been SS since. I admit I have owned Crown amps for a while, and they needed rebuilding every ten years.

I like the C500T and if it had a mode selector, input and record selectors and tone controls I might have one. But just like having a Frank Gow C2200 I would have to have spare sets of Mac tubes to replace periodically, because I know the odds would be against me getting the right sound without them. I would still keep my C-34 to have something to reference to the tube pre-amp. If I had a big, large, vast, record colection. I would have a MP 1100. I don't, and won't. But thats another issue you can read about in the TT section.

 

[airtime]

Ok I'll try and not be harsh and I don't want you to take it that way.

Just because someone can buy the best doesn't make it the best system, it takes a little more then buying and dropping it in a room..

Swapping tubes will do nothing for you at this point, they are a subtle change if anything. Without you setting up the system and acclimating to it, the gain or loss will not be realized..

Listen to this guy! This is the best advice I've read on tube rolling in a new system. Throwing money at a system you even know is pointless. It's all about knowing your system, what YOU want out of it and your taste. How much a tube costs or collectible value shouldn't never come into it.

Enjoy and post your progress

 

[BDR]

twiiii,
Great stories. Enjoyed reading these. Gotta say I'm glad I asked my initial question because these responses have redirected me to ask more appropriate ones for a novice choosing tube power.
I failed to recognize the importance that the 2301s will arrive fully tested by mac to their specs. This seems crucial to develop a performance baseline as I build and tune the system. How can I most efficiently monitor the stock tube performance over time insuring I identify and replace tubes as they fail in order to protect the system's performance as a whole?