billybob Posted February 22, 2019 Author Share Posted February 22, 2019 Edit $330 bundle... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted February 22, 2019 Author Share Posted February 22, 2019 From Audio Asylum: MCS Integrated Amp surprise! Posted by Bold Eagle (A) on January 27, 2009 at 09:00:25 A friend of mine just gave me his MCS integrated amp to fix. (it doesn't play) Well, the fix took a few minutes, as both output fuses were blown. They are internal and mounted on the main motherboard. The surprises came with looking this thing over internally. Chassis and cover are heavy gauge steel, and the cooling slots on the cover have window screen on the inside to prevent kids dropping coins in there. A large and well shielded power transformer, 10,000 uF, 50 V caps, a large square rectifier module rather than discrete diodes, star grounding, a good sized heat sink, 3 pin regulator for the low voltage sections. An even bigger surprise was finding that all the wire wrap terminations were factory soldered! Output devices were STK flat packs. Metal front panel and the knobs are heavy machined aluminum with a plastic insert for the knurled shafts. (I did have to re-glue an insert to the shell of a knob) Along the top of the front panel was a long narrow window with LEDs for input indication and two horizontal LED power output indicators. No power rating, and a caution on the back to use only 8 ohm speakers, but the two outputs are in parallel. The name plate said 120W consumption, so I figure maybe 35-40 W/ch. I did not make a measurement. Output fuses are 4 amp which is 64 watts into 4 ohms. Anyway, I hooked it to my system, and played it for an hour or so to see if the fuses would hold (they did). My second surprise was the sound. Very nice sound with my Advents. Bass was deep and tight and I'd have to say, pretty close to my NADs and my modded Onkyo integrated. Mids and highs were smooth, clear and clean. No edginess, and a fair amount of sparkle. Fine, low level detail was well rendered. Not quite as good as the Onkyo A-8190 which has a passive line stage, but close to the NAD C350. Altogether, a much better than expected amp. Being an MCS, you could probably pick up one of these for cheap. Model number was 683-3850. Also, it's a fairly early one as the power cord and convenience outlets are not polarized, and the extra rear input says AUX instead of CD. It does have a phono section, which I didn't try. I'll report back on that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted February 22, 2019 Author Share Posted February 22, 2019 Continued: RE: MCS Phono Follow Up Posted by Bold Eagle (A) on January 27, 2009 at 11:39:22 In Reply to: MCS Integrated Amp surprise! posted by Bold Eagle on January 27, 2009 at 09:00:25: More surprises. It has an excellent phono section! At least with the nice MCS Direct Drive TT some one gave me recently. It has an AT71 cartridge in it, and the MCS amp seemed to like that. This would be a very good amp for a vinyl lover's bedroom system or the like. Very quiet, and very smooth and clean sounding. I also surprised myself a bit when I compared the phono to CD. For convenience, I hooked in the Sony CDR-W1 I have (a CD recorder) and the phono kicked its butt, but good. Had all the sonic character that vinyl lovers attribute to CD. I next tried my Rotel RCD-971 - much better! The phono was still a little nicer in the highs and not as bright. Cutting back the treble control 1-2 clicks made them equal. On my Onkyo A-8190, the MCS TT and the RCD-971 sound very close. If you were going to use this amp with a CD player, you'll want one that's warmer and more "vinyl-like". I'd also think using short, low capacitance interconnects for CD would help with some players (like this Sony), although the Rotel is unaffected. Lots of fun on a cold, gray, dismal day here in northern Ohio. Jerry Full thread: https://www.audioasylum.com/forums/vintage/messages/20/200760.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted February 23, 2019 Author Share Posted February 23, 2019 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted March 2, 2019 Author Share Posted March 2, 2019 Last bump for forum...$300...local bundle...40,000 views coming and then Pfft... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billybob Posted March 26, 2019 Author Share Posted March 26, 2019 New deals: https://gainesville.craigslist.org/ele/d/steinhatchee-sansui-sr250-turntable/6826749388.html https://gainesville.craigslist.org/ele/d/steinhatchee-bundle-price-sansui-sr/6846965532.html OBO for locals Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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