Leaderboard

Very long term HCers (which most of y'all, TBH) might remember I own a misfit assortment of vintage McIntosh gear. How vintage? 1969. Older than me. For reasons not worth explaining, in 1999 I got two C-22 preamps and one MC-75 amplifier. Two stereo preamps, one monophonic amplifier. Not exactly useful. With that said, I've stubborn held on to them for 24 years and counting. Today I moved them, and the amp nearly killed me. Glamor photo of the boat anchor I took in 2009. One of the pair of C-22s after I had all of the above serviced, 2009. A bunch of the Mac kit and other crap, hanging out in a spare bedroom, 2013. I stuffed the Mac kit, plus a bunch of other electronics, into an upstairs closed before I exited the mainland this past January. It collected quite a bit of dust. The MC75, looking rather grubby. I had a very bad moment getting it down the stairs. I grabbed it from the closet floor, and attempted to stand up. I was not wearing my back brace (100% necessary when lifting things these days.) I could stand up while holding the Mac. My legs said "yeah, that's not happening." Getting old is a real MFer. Eventually I got myself and the amp upright, but at significant cost to my back. After the above photo was taken, I did locate my back brace (stable door and all.) I loaded two pieces of framed artwork into the Fit (not exactly a specious vehicle) and used the MC-75 as a, well, anchor to hold them in place. There it sits. Yes, I straightened the damn 12BH7 once I caught my breath. This is the Fit, mostly packed. In there (besides all the Mac kit) is a Dynaco monoblock (visible behind the lamp), 3 wood clamps, a Technics SL-1200 Mk II, a Symetrix 528E voice processor (direly in need of servicing), a California Labs tube DAC I got from ...one HCer or other (which also needs repair), a Parasound DAC (still running strong, 30 years later), a Tascam 122 Mk III (the greatest cassette deck in history, I will die on this hill) that ALSO needs repair, a shit ton of semi-valuable fabric items used as packing material, my tool chest, and a giant "Ricky Ricardo" style chandelier. My (sainted, octogenarian) mother thinks I'm nucking futs. She's not wrong. My back is killing me.

one more for the evening. Reading, Writing And Arithmetic The Sundays 1990 https://album.link/i/1440917168 Example: Just a chunk of 1990s goodness. It was very much of its time, but so am I.

^^^ Love this album! Need to listen again soon.....

Plays For Bird (RVG Remaster) Sonny Rollins 1956 https://album.link/i/1443215456 < This list needs to be updated Example: I was not a big fan of the first tune, but the rest of the album made up for it spades. I don't really know why, may be the first track was a little bit too much in your face. 4 tracks for 52 min.. Some killer tunes before the magic 1959.

I bought quite a few titles both Mofi, XRCD and HDCD (before Microsoft screwed up the format) about 14 or 15 years ago before prices went up due to "fiber audiophile". Now that I think about it and see the prices of some of these discontinued CDs, I think that I should have bought some more due to their quality and the love with which they are published. Edit: two of my favourites XRCD: 1812 Overture Tchaikovsky xrcd 24 and The Planets Host (by way I have about 8 version of the Planets if someone has interest I can do a comparative).

It cost me a lot of time (and money) to get an untouched vinyl copy: