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In Reply to: Boy, does THAT pic bring back memories!....... posted by Marc Bratton on January 1, 2010 at 17:55:15:
PHOTOS: The McIntosh MR67 in the Audio Research SP10 > D115> Vandersteen 2C system and BELOW: The MR77 out of it's cabinet when I was first trying it out in the office system: Audio Research LS3 > D130 > Infinity Primus 360.
Marc Bratton,
McIntosh Memories: Yes, I remember my dad looking at McIntosh gear in 1964. My brother and I -13 and 8, wandered around the shop in amazement. There was this darkened display room filled with blue lights and chrome. The many controls and meters were fascinating to a tot and everything had mysterious names. What the hell is “HI FILTERâ€,†AUX1", and “Stereo/Monoâ€? It all looked smooth and heavy. There were fins on the sides- these amplifiers were space-ready !
Part of my sentimental fondness for McIntosh is because seeing it and fondling of those liquid feeling controls resulted in one of my first realizations that there were multiple levels of design and craftsmanship in the case of industrial objects- i.e. there is such a thing as high quality stuff! And then was sticker shock! I couldn't believe someone would pay such a fortune as $400 for an amplifier! That’s $10 per pound! ***
***[ I had a smilar revelation that there were beautiful things that were also very expensive when in 1966 I saw a dark blue Aston Martin DB6 in a car showroom- and sticker price was $16,000! The Rolls Shadow next to it was $19,000 and this is when a new VW Beetle was $1,300 and Cadillacs were $4,500.]
My dad then had a Garrard Type-A automatic/changer, turntable, a Sherwood tube tuner, a Scott 299C integrated tube amplifier he'd assembled from a kit, a Roberts 990 R2R, and a pair of large University speakers. Speaker cables were a double run of lamp cord and interconnects were those grey plastic incredibly small diameter ones with very squared off plugs. On that system I heard Rubinstein playing Chopin, Glenn Gould playing Bach, Maria Callas singing Puccini, Segovia playing Villa Lobos, and I'm convinced that hearing well reproduced recordings greatly stimulated my interest in music- and I eventually studied Classical guitar, harpsichord, organ, clavichord, and piano -in that order, studied harpsichord and clavichord building, published on the clavichord, had a radio programme in Los Angeles for 6 years on which you'd be surprised how little I spoke, and fussed with audio gear . Who knows if I would have so much musical in my life if I'd only ever heard Beethoven's 9th on a car radio?
Cheers,
Bambi B
[ McIntosh: MX110, MC240, MR67, MR77 ]
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- McIntosh Memories - Bambi B 01/1/1022:02:51 01/1/10 (0)
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