Jerry's Mcintosh amps

[unnbrokenchain]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to the board and had a question about Jerry's Mcintosh amps. Why did Jerry prefer to use the Mcintosh amps versus just using the twin reverb?
I know he used the twin reverb as a preamp to the Mcintosh power amp. What benefits were there by doing this instead of just using the twin reverb?

[mijknahs]

The biggest difference is the tone. The McIntosh power amp sounds different than the Fender power section. Also volume. You can get louder with the McIntosh if it's 100 watts or more. The 50 watt McIntosh (MC50) is about the same volume as a Fender Twin. Maybe a little less.

[unnbrokenchain]

cool, I was just curious. Also just found out how powerful 3 JBL e 120's actually are. Definitely more than one twin reverb could handle.

Whenever I can afford it, I'm going to purchase a 3x12 Hard Truckers Cabinet with E120's. I currently play through a 65 reissue twin reverb and a 72 bandmaster reverb. I want to get both amp heads in a custom cabinet like how jerry had his two twin reverbs (blackface and silverface). It would work best by having one JBL powered by the twin reverb which is 85 watts. The next JBL powered by the bandmaster which is only 40-45 watts. The third would be for my roland's Gr20 synthesizer which would be powered by a solid state power amp like a QSC GX3, which is cheap and affordable. Now, the problem is that I would be under powering the two other JbL speakers, one for my Bandmaster and the other for the reverb. Instead of modifying both of them to just preamps, could I use them as is and just connect them to a power amp to boost them to get a clean undistorted sound from my speakers? I'm a guitar player, but not much of an expert when I comes to all of this. I' figured someone could help me out with. Yeah I could get my amps modified to just be preamps and buy a Mc2300 Mac of fleabay to get a nice clean sound from the JBl cabinet, since that is what Jerry exactly did, but it would cost me. It looks cheaper if I just leave my two fender amps as is and connect them to a QSC GX3 for the added power and have it go out to the speaker cabinet that way.

[czyfingers]

You can't feed a signal that's already amplified to another power amp. It will sound horrible and probably blow something up. It needs to be a line level signal, which would require the preamp mod to either or both of your current amps.

[mijknahs]

Jerry only played out of ONE Fender Twin (at a time). The other one in the cabinet was just a spare. I don't know why you'd need 3x12" JBLs unless you just liked the "look". It it incredibly heavy to move around. A 2x12" is more manageable. I've used a Fender Twin into just 1x12" and it works fine. A Fender Twin wants to see 2x 8 ohm speakers for full power (4 ohms). Just 1x12" you're underpowering it but its still loud and sounds good.

An MC2300 is only needed when you are playing big gigs and you want to be super loud. It's kinda like saying I need to have 3 Marshall full-stacks for my pub gig. You can do it but "why"? A smaller McIntosh amp is better suited such as an MC2100. They are easy to find and not that expensive and sound good. Anyway, there are a lot of choices and you need to decide what you want vs. what you need.

Jim

[tigerstrat]

there is a middle ground here: put a preamp tap on your Twin (this is one of the world's easiest mods: if you don't do the switching-jack configuration, it's one wire/two solder joints), power 1x12 or 2x12 speakers with the QSC you mentioned (or other power amp) , and leave the BMR and the 3x12 out of the equation.

Or the BMR might make a nice preamp too...

[unnbrokenchain]

Thanks for the responses. Yeah, connecting it to a power amp sounded like a bad idea . I know Jerry only played the silverface and had the blackface as a backup. Right now I have a standard 65 twin reverb and a 72 bandmaster reverb with the speaker cabinet, it has two 12" speakers with a real good bass response. I have a voodoo amp selector on my board where I can witch between the each channel of both amps to blend and layer my sound. I'm not trying to replicate his sound but I have a sound that is inspired/influenced by him, like a kimock kind of thing. So, I currently play through four 12" fender speakers, so it would make sense to get 2 2X12 cabs. I have thought of a thousand ways of doing this and the most easy simple way would just get two JBl's for the twin (jerry thing) and two tone Tubby's for my Bandmaster, half and half best of both worlds thing. All I do really is play at rehearsals and somewhere in public every now and then, it's more of a hobby and obsession of finding that right sound. So, if I got two 2X12 cabinets, instead of having one 2X12 cabinet with the two tone tubby's at 8 ohms wired to 4 ohms and the same with the other cabinet with the JBL's, could I have them split up with one speaker going to the bandmaster and one speaker going to the Twin on both cabinets? That way I could have the same sound coming out of both cabinets and set one on the right side of my rig and the other on the left side. So in the back of the cabinet it would look like a two singles setup. Problem would be the ohms, do either speaker come already set up at 4 ohms? sorry I know I've walked far away from my original question.

[mijknahs]

I don't think you can get the speakers in 4 ohms. They come in 8 or 16 ohms. However, I have no problem running a Twin with just one 8 ohm speaker. You're downloading it but it does no damage to the speaker or the amp. Sounds good too.

[JonnyBoy]

I had the same Ohm problem for my 1x12 small bar gig rig. I wound up taking the much informed and useful advice of Brad S. on a speaker that does the trick as well as any JBL. It is called a Black Widdow by Peavey and is an exact clone of the K120. You can find them in old peavey 1x12 amps and sold solo on the bay. Get the vintage one with the metal dust cap. They come in a 4 ohm speaker usually. Sometimes I find the amp comes with it for 50 bucks more than what I paid for the speaker alone.


Jim, I just scored a MC50 hoping to use it for my 1x12 small bar Garcia rig. The guy I bought it from is an amp expert that did an overhaul on it, used it as a bench amp for years and revamped it for sale to original spec with the good stuff. He said it pushes 60 watts full blast without a problem. Still, I assume 50 watts is blistering with a good speaker and preamp. I haven't got it yet, I got it for $94 plus shipping. It doesn't look pretty (scratched up paint, logo broken), but that's not important to me, if it sounds as good as he says and offers a return situation then I assume its good to go. I am thinking I can get some of that Mac clipping from an amp this size at a usable volume too. What is your take on the MC50?

[mijknahs]

The MC50 sounds great. It will defintley start clipping at a manageable volume. It might not be enough for a loud bar band though. Borderline. Sometimes it will be perfect and sometimes you'll think you need more headroom. Depends on how loud the other guys are. Might even depend on the room.

I usually run it with just 1xJBL E120. It only weighs about 20 lbs. $94 is a steal. I paid $300 for mine but it's in mint/showroom condition. I think the ultimate amp would be the extremely rare MC100. Perfect in power and weight. MC2100s are kinda heavy.

Jim

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

Absolute score on the MC50. That's what I want. They're tiny and only 18lbs. And really, they're a 75 watt amp, and that's basically what most of our Twins are. Personally, I think the Mc50 is ideal. The Mc250 is two of them in one package, so you can use both sides or keep one side as the backup of one channel cooks at a gig from overheating.

Man, I can FILL a bar with a 24 watt Deluxe Reverb with a single K120. I'll have people asking me to turn it down sometimes. But some bands have over-loud bass players or guys who over-bang on the cymbals, and that's where you need the bigger, cleaner power to compete. I think 75 watts is a good range for this Jerry rig, it lets you light up the mac a bit, clip a tiny bit, and not damaging your hearing by creating a miserable life with tinnitus or hyper-acusis as you age. Anyone here willing to sacrifice the quality of the second half of their life by using excessively loud rigs is really gonna regret it. I hear of some people playing clean Jerry rigs thru 1000 watt amps and 4 JBL's, and man, that's one of the most damaging things you can do to your ears. It's brutal. I'll always argue that you should find the quietest rig you can get away with that gives a nice barely clipped tone at a good, musical stage volume.

B

[JonnyBoy]

That's what I was thinking, and I also Mic a line to the board, just to give me coverage in stereo and a little boost of volume. I plan on using the Twin pre--->GCX---> MC50--> Peavey Widdow (1x12). I just scored a K-110, its 16 ohm so I need to get another one before I can use it. I got it for $39 since it had a messed up dust cap, which is an easy fix for me. I am hoping to get that soon and find another one of those rare K-110-16's. I am hoping that is going to be my ideal set up with the 2x10...

[modz]

So i have never pushed a MC250. The one I got isn't very loud so I figured it wasn't the amp for me. I decided to sell it. Stu and Brad both thought I was crazy saying it wasn't loud enough. It seems that as I turn the SMS up the amp starts clipping, along the lines of a tube amp being pushed. So I have decided to keep it and try a capacitor upgrade. Anyone here attempted this? I did see some mods.
Can anyone give me pointers?
Are the exact value caps available?
What caps should I be looking to buy?
Woodworker with a soldering iron:)
I have the worst luck with ebay!
Thanks for any help from anyone.......

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

Tracy.

I've got a pretty good stock of cap's as well as the Mac's service manual. I had good luck with mine replacing a few of the smaller electrolytic cap's and also bypassing a few in there with good film cap's to improve their performance. I left the big silver can's alone. Those seem to be VERY high grade and in many cases, they're still running well. Probably not a bad idea to replace them, but in my case, they're doing just fine still. I think that once the power is all cleaned up with fresh caps, and also the two electrolytics that are in the input driver stage audio path, then we can bench test it and see if she's delivering the 70 or so watts per channel that she should be. Once in good shape, the MC250 should be quite a bit louder than a real Twin.

See you at the Steel Convention! I'm down there all Friday and Saturday, and will be there today for a little while setting up. Noon to 4 on Friday has 4 amazing steel players in a row, all well worth seeing for sure!!

Brad

[JonnyBoy]

Tracy,

You are not crazy, Brad is right it needs a little love and a Dr. visit. My MC50 I bought from a retired amp tech, and he had all the caps redone before he sold it. I found a gem there, he also replaced a can on top with a good motorola he had in his shop. He said he would have done both, but only had one. It bench tested about 70 watts.
I then got a MC250 for some stereo output and it is not as loud by far. Bought it from a guy that didn't do anything to it, probably sold it because he used it up and didn't know what to do to fix it up. It has almost 1/2 the power of my MC50. I run it at full blast (about 8.5) to get it to sound loud enough. the MC50 can go at 5 and it is loud enough, plus it sounds better. Also one side of the 250 is a little louder than the other along with the fact that the volume jumps almost 2x the db when you pass 6 or so on that side. It obviously needs serviced. The guy told me that they are not too bad to service, if brad has a manual you're in luck!! Also consider yourself lucky you live so close to Brad and he can give you some help. I would give it a chance after a Dr. visit.