McIntosh MC2300 - BlueBall

I've written about this mc2300 amp for the past couple years,

and now christen it BlueBall.

The majority of the time it's been in my possession,

it's looked like this.

On it's back,

top or bottom off,

ass in the air.

It's reproduced about an hour of sound,

but not 300 watts,

maybe 4 watts 

and yeah it actually sounded great...

Which is why I'm nurturing hope,

to pursue this tortuous courtship.

In august I chose to drop it off at the local tech.

Three months later,

the call to pick it up.

Yessss.

I was jazzed,

had some dough set aside,

was expecting to bring it home and crank it up...

Nope.

Guy said it had too many hack repairs.

Too many stalled gigs,

the sound guy searching the floor of his van for any useable resistors and transistors,

trying to bypass the problem.

Probably while in some smokey bar,

soldering with a flashlight in his mouth,

already a few beers after sound check.

Those top 3 white cubes are only sposta be one,

and those little striped cylinders (film resistors),

Is like reusing your toilet paper,

ya just don't do it.

No wonder the tech didn't want to get his hands dirty.

He suggested find a generic Honda amp,

not rebuild a clapped out 1973 dodge charger.

Hmm,

Them's fighting words...

If you know me by my posts so far,

there was either two ways to do this.

Part it out and get stuck with the worthless carcass,

or spend hours learning a trade.

I researched the schematics,

read other amp rebuild issues in forums like audiokarma.org,

ordered the parts,

and carved out a nook in the dining room.

Les do this.

Oh my holey chit.

There are 8 heat sinks,

with 24 transistors and 32 resistors.

Really it shouldn't be that hard,

but only one heat sink followed the schematic.

What the %#@$&!!

On top of that,

while explaining to Jaxon what I was doing,

I realized the heat sinks weren't in the correct order.

Say they're in an AABB-AABB configuration,

these are BAAB-AABB,

so the left side is all wacked.

Here I was wondering why the wires weren't the correct colors.

OMFG.

It's gonna be the slower boat to China.

TP