Upgrade Company mods for Mcintosh amps

The later C100 and the C200 is the same. It was just a cosmetic upgrade. What did he change?

I have been involved in this hobby for over 30 years and just thought I would share my experiences with my Mc252 upgrade. I understand how someone would be skeptical about sending an expensive amp in for an upgrade. You would think that the expensive gear would be the best possible performance but unfortunately, this is not always the case. There is room for improvement. David Schulte has upgraded several of my components to levels of performance higher than the expensive gear. I have chosen to go this route because I have found it to make more sense rather than spending thousands more in changing out equipment for marginal improvements. What anyone else chooses to do is up to them.

how would you 'mod' that that is already perfect?

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

Until I get an explaination of the work that will be performed I'm still holding back on mine.

There is absolutely nothing fake, funny, fishy or ineffective about The Upgrade Company's upgrades: They work sonic wonders. Anyone who wishes to do A-B comparisons is free to contact The Upgrade Company directly to setup any A-B's you wish, even in your area we may have a customer who is willing to participate. Anyone listening to stock McIntosh gear, even their latest models, is wasting the sonic potential inside.
We have extracted an easy 50+% out of current McIntosh models. Ditto for
EMM's latest offerings. We own them and loan them to prove it.

I can certainly understand the harsh skepticism: our State of the Art claims do sound far too fantasic to those without firsthand listening experience,
and those unfamiliar with our proven track record and numerous testimonials.

Secondly, forum posters look rather foolish passing judgement on something they have zero firsthand experience with. When you lack faith and firsthand investigative skills, you fail to find out the truth. With that failed approach, you'll preclude yourself the opportunity to reap the huge rewards we offer, and you'll be stuck in stock OEM merry-go-round of mediocrity, paying thousands of dollars for minor incremental model-year "improvements".

The fact that we offer a 100% Money Back Gaurantee is a strong statement
that we routinely satisfy our customers. How could we be more clear?

A 252 upgraded bests the larger 402, 602 and 501's in ever sonic parameter to all ears in double blind comparisons performed. Their older 851 and 861 DVD players upgraded cream the new 871 sonically. Just as an upgraded Denon universal player will cream the EMM Signature units too all ears, over 100 participants in one test alone. Many high dollar players are full of nearly identical parts found in clock radio's and video game consoles. There is a lot of room for improvement. Specifically what we do to each model is legally protected under "trade secrets". Would you ask Coca-Cola Corp. what's inside their secret "Coke" recipe before drinking it? Certainly not. Our upgrades are self evident to anyone with a working pair of ears.

We're in business full time and growing, proving our State of the Art claims every day for our customers. Mr. Bill Debree who posted above does in fact own an upgraded McIntosh MC-252. Those of you who would like to participate in live A-B comparisons with this amplifier or any Upgrade Co. upgraded amplifier, preamplifier, disc player, dac, transport etc lets set them up, we are very happy to make more believers out there!

Thank you for your continued interest.

Sincerely,
David J. Schulte
The Upgrade Company
www.upgradecompany.com

mrhiendaudio said:

Would you ask Coca-Cola Corp. what's inside their secret "Coke" recipe before drinking it? Certainly not.

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What a load of crap that is. The FDA REQUIRES a listing on every can/bottle of the ingrediants, calories, sodium, etc.

Now how it's made or how much of each ingrediant is a different matter.

If you took your car to a mechanic and told him/her that you wanted it to do this and this. I would surley hope you would be told what was done or parts that were upgraded after it was done instead of just receiving some randomly priced invoice for the work.

Laemmle said:

Hyperbole?.................White, I love when you speak dirty

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...whispering....hyperbooooole,,,,

Too funny.....

Thanks,
Ron-C

I have two Upgrade Comp. MAC players,MCD-201 and MVP-871.I have never heard any thing even remotely close to comparing sonically with these units.I understand all the skepticisim, but what I dont get is the ignorance in which some choose to bash others while not fully comprehending what Dave is doing.If any of you talk to Dave, he will explain in layman terms the transformation in which your gear will blossom into the level of audio nirvana you might not have ever heard.I personally dont spend 10 to 15 hours aday taking apart gear and replacing 50 to 100 key parts for research on the best sound,Dave does.I suggest you all remember this before bashing anyone and their profession.The Upgrade Comp. units are hands down better than anything out there,let Dave prove it to YOU!

This thread got me interested and I decided to contact Dave at the Upgrade company. After a few emails and a phone conversation I decided to give Dave a visit in person. Yesterday with a friend I drove for about 3 hours to get to Dave's and here how our day went:

I brought my MC501s, MDA1000, MVP851 and MS750 with. As soon as me and my friend got to Dave's place he wanted to take us to Bill's house to compare my MC501s to Bill's upgraded MC252 (see post 12 and 22). I admit that with Bill's (debreejr) only 2 posts being in this thread that he does look like a plant but Bill is a real person and he does in fact have a MC252 that was upgraded by the Upgrade Company. Bill was kind enough to invite us into his home to do comparisons (thanks again Bill :thmbsp: ). I have compared the MC252 to MC501s in the past and I thought the MC501s were significantly better than the MC252 in imaging and separation and the MC501s were a little better in detail. In bill's system his upgraded MC252 did in fact sound better than my MC501s. Bill's upgraded MC252 did have a little better detail than my MC501s and Bill's MC252 did a better job at giving the instruments separation, the MC501s sounded a little blurred in comparison. The biggest difference was in the bass, Bill's MC252 had much better bass than my MC501s. In Bill's system my MC501s sounded a little dull with weak bass and Bill's upgraded MC252 was musically enjoyable and just sucked you into the music.

Then we went out to dinner and then back to Dave's house. Dave does seem to be a McIntosh fan, he had a C200, MVP861 and MVP871 at his house and he said he had a MC252 and MCD205 on the way. We did many comparisons and one interesting one was a MVP861 that he upgraded that sounded a little better than a non upgraded MVP871.

I have modified some of my equipment in the past and we talked about what he does in his upgrades. He did tell me much of what he will do in an upgrade and everything he told me made sense to me. It was much of what I have done to my equipment in the past. I won't give away Dave's secrets, but I will tell you I agree with his upgrade philosophies.

Was I impressed with Dave and his upgraded equipment? I guess I was, I left him my MC501s, MDA1000 and MS750 for him to upgrade for me. :yes:

Victor

You are a very open minded person Victor, thanks for sharing this info with us. Your impressions along with your history and reputation on this forum will lend credibility to Dave's tinkering. But my question still remains, if the man is this talented why is he not designing and building his own amplifiers? or working for a company like Mcintosh?

Thanks Victor for your comments. The knee jerk reflex of folks on this forum against even the possibility of someone improving Mac is fairly disappointing.

Like any company Mac makes trade offs in the design, manufacture, of their products. Some of those trade-offs involve the quality of sound. They are no different than any other company in any other industry---trading off horsepower, fuel economy, reliability, weight, expense etc or any number of variables, based on their knowledge of their market and business goals.

Without knowing this guy at the Upgrade company, David, he obviously works on his own because he believes he can do better on his own than working at Mac. Why is that such a stretch? Whether he actually achieves that depends on whether the market agrees with his judgement on trade-offs, versus the judgement of Mac. The beauty of the market is that there's probably room for both.

Victor,

I am candidly impressed as your opinion is the only one so far that I appreciate. All the other significantly "pro-modification" voices are coming from guys that post with one to two posts, or at the outside 15 posts. You can certainly understand how it appears that their statements are "plants"!

I have a Denon 3910 that I have modified by Underwood. I had the "ultimate" work done on my player, and the work was very carefully outlined and detailed with pictures and specs. I even opened up the unit and verified that the work was performed as stated. It was and the unit sounds great. It has a balanced tube output, enhanced power supply, caps, etc.

The point that I am trying to make is that the work done was explained to me with a ton of detail and no "black magic" or special sauce....

It was up to me to decide if it was worth it or not and did not require a gigantic leap of faith.

If the work performed really does improve the sound, then explain what work is done and how it helps. I don't want to have to go to dinner with the engineer to learn the secrets, (though that actually sounds like a very good time!)

So my point is, I am impressed that you felt strongly enough to have him do work on your gear. I respect your opinion. If he wants to have folks take his work seriously and grow his business then he needs to be very descriptive about what he is actually doing.

Thanks,

Michael

Victor said:

This thread got me interested and I decided to contact Dave at the Upgrade company. After a few emails and a phone conversation I decided to give Dave a visit in person. Yesterday with a friend I drove for about 3 hours to get to Dave's and here how our day went:

I brought my MC501s, MDA1000, MVP851 and MS750 with. As soon as me and my friend got to Dave's place he wanted to take us to Bill's house to compare my MC501s to Bill's upgraded MC252 (see post 12 and 22). I admit that with Bill's (debreejr) only 2 posts being in this thread that he does look like a plant but Bill is a real person and he does in fact have a MC252 that was upgraded by the Upgrade Company. Bill was kind enough to invite us into his home to do comparisons (thanks again Bill :thmbsp: ). I have compared the MC252 to MC501s in the past and I thought the MC501s were significantly better than the MC252 in imaging and separation and the MC501s were a little better in detail. In bill's system his upgraded MC252 did in fact sound better than my MC501s. Bill's upgraded MC252 did have a little better detail than my MC501s and Bill's MC252 did a better job at giving the instruments separation, the MC501s sounded a little blurred in comparison. The biggest difference was in the bass, Bill's MC252 had much better bass than my MC501s. In Bill's system my MC501s sounded a little dull with weak bass and Bill's upgraded MC252 was musically enjoyable and just sucked you into the music.

Then we went out to dinner and then back to Dave's house. Dave does seem to be a McIntosh fan, he had a C200, MVP861 and MVP871 at his house and he said he had a MC252 and MCD205 on the way. We did many comparisons and one interesting one was a MVP861 that he upgraded that sounded a little better than a non upgraded MVP871.

I have modified some of my equipment in the past and we talked about what he does in his upgrades. He did tell me much of what he will do in an upgrade and everything he told me made sense to me. It was much of what I have done to my equipment in the past. I won't give away Dave's secrets, but I will tell you I agree with his upgrade philosophies.

Was I impressed with Dave and his upgraded equipment? I guess I was, I left him my MC501s, MDA1000 and MS750 for him to upgrade for me. :yes:

Victor

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Good report Victor. I'm a firm believer better parts better sound just like better cables better sound :thmbsp: I have a couple of questions.

1) What makes this company better than another?
2) How much to do your 501's MDA 1000 and MS750?
3) How long does it take to do?

Thanks

basite said:

how would you 'mod' that that is already perfect?

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

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Agreed,its not hard to "change" the sound from a peice of gear it's getting it to sound better that im skeptical about,to each his own though,if others feel the need to improve or change the stock Mcintosh sound more power to them,though for me, the Mcintosh house sound is the end of all ends.

wizeazz said:

I.I understand all the skepticisim, but what I dont get is the ignorance in which some choose to bash others while not fully comprehending what Dave is doing.

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How can you comprehend what Dave is doing when everything is a secret?

I am glad the topic of upgrading McIntosh finally comes up here, and I will be happy to hear/read from Victor when he has received his upgraded Mc-equipment back. I am a fan of Mc-amps myself, but I always thought that you could probably upgrade their performance.

Audio Components, the German distributor of McIntosh, for years already does not like the quality of several components McIntosh uses as stock, and has McIntosh use better parts for the units delivered for the German market.

In the case of the C200, which I own myself, the German importer claimed, that 48 parts were changed. I was sceptical of this claim before I bought, but Chuck Hinton of McIntosh confirmed that these German units come equipped with better capacitors - at a higher price.

Wilfried Kress, the respected editor of the German magazine HiFi&Records, recently reviewed, and measured, several McIntosh units such as the MA6900 or the MCD201. He reviewed them favourably, but was astonished to see that the internal construction of McIntosh-units made almost no use of what he called audiophile-grade parts.

That McIntosh amps sound as good as they do even so, is certainly proof of the excellent construction work of McIntosh-engineers. I wondered, nevertheless, which sonic heights you might achieve if you combined this approach with high end parts and tuning down to the last cable - like, say, Ayre or Hovland-amps are constructed, from what I read.

To give but one example: The small cables from the autoformers to the speaker tabs in my own 402 do not seem to be of any special quality to my eye. So I am glad to hear that there is some folks working on getting out more of Mc-amps - if I lived in the US, my own 402 would probably be on its way to the Upgrade Company or another company in the field soon.

Regards,
Florian Hassel

exracer said:

But my question still remains, if the man is this talented why is he not designing and building his own amplifiers? or working for a company like Mcintosh?

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Why do some people climb mountains? scuba dive? race cars? spend every dime they have and borrow every cent of equity in their home to open a restaurant? Sometimes people have their own dreams about live that people without open minds can not grasp.

hassel said:

I am glad the topic of upgrading McIntosh finally comes up here, and I will be happy to hear/read from Victor when he has received his upgraded Mc-equipment back. I am a fan of Mc-amps myself, but I always thought that you could probably upgrade their performance.

Audio Components, the German distributor of McIntosh, for years already does not like the quality of several components McIntosh uses as stock, and has McIntosh use better parts for the units delivered for the German market.

In the case of the C200, which I own myself, the German importer claimed, that 48 parts were changed. I was sceptical of this claim before I bought, but Chuck Hinton of McIntosh confirmed that these German units come equipped with better capacitors - at a higher price.

Wilfried Kress, the respected editor of the German magazine HiFi&Records, recently reviewed, and measured, several McIntosh units such as the MA6900 or the MCD201. He reviewed them favourably, but was astonished to see that the internal construction of McIntosh-units made almost no use of what he called audiophile-grade parts.

That McIntosh amps sound as good as they do even so, is certainly proof of the excellent construction work of McIntosh-engineers. I wondered, nevertheless, which sonic heights you might achieve if you combined this approach with high end parts and tuning down to the last cable - like, say, Ayre or Hovland-amps are constructed, from what I read.

To give but one example: The small cables from the autoformers to the speaker tabs in my own 402 do not seem to be of any special quality to my eye. So I am glad to hear that there is some folks working on getting out more of Mc-amps - if I lived in the US, my own 402 would probably be on its way to the Upgrade Company or another company in the field soon.

Regards,
Florian Hassel

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that explains some of the cost difference between north american and european components; but when you buy a C200, you would think that wherever in the world you get it, it should be the same ?! that is shockingly strange.

So can I order a German-spec c200 please?

Maule said:

Why do some people climb mountains? scuba dive? race cars? spend every dime they have and borrow every cent of equity in their home to open a restaurant? Sometimes people have their own dreams about live that people without open minds can not grasp.

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I know what you are saying and i dont disagree with you but dont you think designing and building an amplifier with your own name on it is more of a dream than tweaking someone elses? Who knows, maybe he will eventually...