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McIntosh MC30 Vs. MC60

Seamaster

Seamaster

Active Member
I recently bought a pair of MC30 that were restored by Vintage Vacuum Audio. Yves did really great job, and they sound fantastic. MC30 and MC60 are the only two power amps that were made by McIntosh using tube rectification, which gave them a more vivid tube tone compare to other McIntosh tube amps. I had a pair of modern MC75, sold them right after I got my MC30, never regarded that decision.

Now, I found a pair of MC60 that were resorted by the same gentleman at Vintage Vacuum Audio in 2015. It is very interesting to compare the MC30 and MC60 side by side and figure out the mystery of "the best tube amp made by McIntosh"......

Setup:

Macbook
McIntosh D150
Dehavilland Ultraverve 3 preamp with Mundorf Silver Gold in Oil (Sorry McIntosh, Kara beat you in tonal balance and bass)
MC30
MC60 (Coming)
Tannony Turnberry speakers
Anti Cables 6.2 Reference RCA
Nano Tech Golden Strand Anniversary speaker cables (not good enough, will change)
 
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The thing I've always appreciated about McIntosh's tube-rectified amps is that they didn't skimp on the rectifier tubes. If it needed two of them, they used two, so as not to create a power supply bottleneck.
 
Seamaster said:
I recently bought a pair of MC30 that were restored by Vintage Vacuum Audio. Yves did really great job, and they sound fantastic. MC30 and MC60 are the only two power amps that were made by McIntosh using tube rectification....
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Actually, there are a number of earlier models that are tube rectified as well.

However, among the newer style chrome & black series of amplifiers, tube rectification was exclusive to MC30 & MC60 which would be the last with that circuit design.

Congratulations on your purchase of the MC60s.
 
62caddy said:
Actually, there are a number of earlier models that are tube rectified as well.

However, among the newer style chrome & black series of amplifiers, tube rectification was exclusive to MC30 & MC60 which would be the last with that circuit design.

Congratulations on your purchase of the MC60s.
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Yeah forgot about those oldies. The MC60 are at UPS store, I am heading there today to pick them up. I hope there will be no surprise or drama.
 
Seamaster said:
Agree, I also feel modern MC75 and MC275 technically sound good but lack soul even with vintage tubes
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This analogy is going to rankle the diehards. If sound can be thought of as a spectrum spanning tube to solid state, I would place MC60 as the ultimate in tube sound. As you noted, full of soul, and I would add full of spark and syrup without sacrificing detail. Vintage MC75, MC275V, and MC275G (Series II) are a step towards solid state sound. There is plenty of tube goodness but that last serving of soul is missing.
 
Seamaster said:
Yeah forgot about those oldies. The MC60 are at UPS store, I am heading there today to pick them up. I hope there will be no surprise or drama.
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Fingers crossed for safe delivery. What speakers are you using? I run Yamaha NS-1000M which is pure magic. My restored MC60's make those speakers disappear, something that none of my high definition solid state amps can do. Interestingly, I have ss amps that can reproduce perfect square waves and the MC60 gives up nothing in detail. Mac sure got it right...a long time ago.
 
SoCal Sam said:
This analogy is going to rankle the diehards. If sound can be thought of as a spectrum spanning tube to solid state, I would place MC60 as the ultimate in tube sound. As you noted, full of soul, and I would add full of spark and syrup without sacrificing detail. Vintage MC75, MC275V, and MC275G (Series II) are a step towards solid state sound. There is plenty of tube goodness but that last serving of soul is missing.
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I had a set of MC60's freshly refreshed from Yves at Vintage Vacuum...and now have a set of MC30's also from Yves.....Personally, I didn't think the MC60's had the tube sound I guess that I expected. They were great but feel like the 30's had more of what I expected I guess. I had the MC60's alongside an MC7270 and I found myself more often than not choosing the MC7270. In fact, to my ears on my system I wasn't hearing a great deal of difference. They both sounded great but I never found myself switching to the MC60's and saying Ahhhh now that's a tube sound. Of course there are a lot of variables and others may hear a bigger difference on their respective systems. I "feel" Like I'm listening to tubes when I have the mc30's on.
 
I guess it is about how much tubeiness you are looking for, MC30 is at my limit for tube sound, anymore would be too much
 
Switching from MC75 to MC30, my speakers had drastic change in personality, for good, not day and night rather earth and mars. MC75 made me feel I should have bought Frist Watt amps instead messing with all the tubes. The stock tubes of MC75 sound pretty terrible, BTW, harsh and gainy. My body was some what tense when I listened to MC75. While MC30 made me more connected to music.
 
Seamaster said:
I guess it is about how much tubeiness you are looking for, MC30 is at my limit for tube sound, anymore would be too much
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I've been looking at a pair of MC60 and the stuff I read seems to suggest they are less "tubey" than MC30. I'll probably not end up with them through indecision but, OTOH, more amps is truly about the last thing I need.
 
Never owned 30s
I restored a pair of 40s for someone so they were both in my system (40s and 60s) Not a tremendous difference IIRC.
I've heard 225 in other places on other speakers so it apples to oranges. So far 60s are my favorite. I'm interested to see what you think.
 
Seamaster said:
Switching from MC75 to MC30, my speakers had drastic change in personality, for good, not day and night rather earth and mars. MC75 made me feel I should have bought Frist Watt amps instead messing with all the tubes. The stock tubes of MC75 sound pretty terrible, BTW, harsh and gainy. My body was some what tense when I listened to MC75. While MC30 made me more connected to music.
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First Watt over MC75??!! Can't say I would put down the MC75 that badly but they are not my favorites. However, they have a secure place in my Mac collection.
 
When ever folks ask me what they should get if they want to love tube sound I recommend the MC 60 with a C-20. I had MC 60's way back when they were just special with my Stevens and Altec speakers. Now those speakers all roll off starting around 9 KHZ, so the differences between the amps was n't very large to my young ears and I preferred the grunt of the MC-60. A friend of mine still has my 60's though he lives now in Florida and his system is in storage when I last heard his 60's driving big 15 Altec coax the sound was very detailed and warm. A totally different sound from what I experienced way back when. 30's were a little to soft for me and like I said they don't growl or roar like a MC 60. Its like the difference between a 240 and a 275. Though I think a 275 is smoother than a 240 which is the opposite of a 30 vs a 60. Tube amps with their low dampening factor are so easily influenced by impedance swings of speaker loads. A couple DB difference here versus a couple of db the other way from a different amp can really influence the sound. Look at Stereophiles tests of tube amps or Ken Rockwell's test of a 240 and its easy to see how a speaker load can change the output of a Mac amp 3 or 4 db over an octave or two. This change can easily influence our opinions. So unless everyone is using the same speaker for comparisons,its hard to make a decision. And what a MC 30 sounds like maybe preferred with X speakers a MC 60 maybe preferred with Y speakers.
 
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