New to me 2205 :banana:

So, I've had a 2120 for about 7 years now and have loved it from day one (I got it for $50 in good condition) I never thought I needed anything else, 120 W RMS was just fine by me and call me odd but looks have never swayed me over function. I kinda dig the industrial look of the brushed stainless steel.

Until I talked to an electrical engineer and he explained dynamic headroom and impedance loads and what a lack of available power can do to speakers. So as a gift to me and as some fun on the side I decided to look for a classic McIntosh with a few basic things. I wanted to keep the price under $1500 CAD (delivered to my house), I wanted the blue meters and I figured something with a bit more power would be nice. Fortunately for me that only left a few options. One of them being a 2205 that just happened to be one province to the west of me in British Columbia. (About a 6 hr drive from me in Calgary, Alberta.) And although it was not in the best shape (cosmetically) the previous owner assured me that it functioned as it should. So I purchased it and had it sent via UPS to Calgary, and that is where all hell broke loose... :tears:

Although the amp was double boxed and bubble wrapped with Fragile clearly marked in red lettering all over it, the DUMB-ASS delivery driver dropped on the concrete patio on it's face as he was leaving it at my house! He didn't even have me sign for it!


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So now I sit here making a claim for it and am awaiting a reply... :tears:
So far the damage looks like the glass and end cap for the face as well as the rear Input Rca (left input) is broken. But I love the way they look when restored and will do my best to restore this one back to original if possible, adding a few upgrades along the way.

First things first will be to replace the Power filter and driver boards caps.
but I do have a few questions. Mainly, can the filter caps be replaced with a higher capacitance, and would that adversely effect any thing? I know that you can increase the voltage (I was considering 63- 100 v as apposed to the 50 v that is on there now) as well an unrated temp rating if possible or is that not recommended?

Anything else I should look at doing when I crack in to it? (Disregard the glass and input board as ups will be taking care of that I hope)

Well you chose the right time to break the glass. McIntosh just finished their production of the replacement glass last week. You can get it for $138 plus shipping. You can also buy brand new replacement end caps for $74 plus shipping from sundancepins.com or buy used ones off of eBay for around $60. As far as replacing the RCAs, that's not too bad of a job either.

If you don't have any damage to the potentiometers, switches or the chassis itself, everything is repairable or replaceable. You should be getting a decent refund if you plan on keeping this, however. I wouldn't accept anything less than $250, assuming none of the switches or pots were damaged.

By the way, bubble wrap was the wrong packaging material for this, regardless of being double boxed. Oh, and writing "Fragile" on the box is asking for the UPS guy to drop it.

We keep saying it, never ship something like a MC2205 in anything but the McIntosh shipping carton or the Audio classics shipping carton.
They are too heavy....
Bubble wrap on something like that is useless, you might as well put nothing there.
It has to be secure and the front panel has to not be making contact with any part of the carton.....
Seen this too many times......

I'm sure you were horrified when that happened....

But you'll sort it, I had to do it to mine after the seller lied to me.... Thought he would get away with it being on the other side of the world.
They are really easy amps to work on...

I would consider replacing the relay, they are available .....
I had to replace the relay on my one....one channel would go low level or drop out occasionally....

Keep us posted on the progress....

Someday the insurance claims will be denied when these amps are not bolted down to the bottom plate of the inner box. Bubble wrap only goes between the inner and outer boxes.

The stupid thing is, the nice gentleman I got it from went to UPS and dropped it of with no box, but payed UPS 50$ for them to box and package the amp... if anyone should know how to package something of that size and weight, you would think it would be them. Personally, I know better. But I didn't have much of a choice.

I am sure everything will workout in the end, nothing that time and money can't fix. Plus, I enjoy a certain amount of work when it comes to equipment. I like seeing the engineering that goes into a solid piece of gear and I know from my 2120 that Mcintosh builds em' like a tank

I'm going to see if I can get UPS to ship it to Terry DeWick/Audio classics for repair on their dime. (although I'm doubtful) But that would be the ideal situation as for me to ship from here would be astronomically expensive (north of $400 last time I checked)

It's a waiting game now to see what their going to do...

I think in the proper factory packaging, there is nothing ever touching the glass of any Mc equipment. Also, they are always double boxed and 'fixed' in place. I would not trust any packaging outside of factory \ Audio classics packaging. Live and learn. Good luck with the repair.

Two thoughts:

1. $50 for an MC2120? NICE!
2. Fragile is the code name for I dare you to try and break this! for shippers.

Keep us posted as you restore this one.

Those pictures are heartbreaking, but it's hard to blame a driver when he's tasked with handling a 100 lb improperly packed box with shifting cargo.

I'm getting to the point where I blame buyers who don't insist on or buy proper McIntosh boxes.

lbcgav said:

Well you chose the right time to break the glass. McIntosh just finished their production of the replacement glass last week. You can get it for $138 plus shipping. You can also buy brand new replacement end caps for $74 plus shipping from sundancepins.com or buy used ones off of eBay for around $60. As far as replacing the RCAs, that's not too bad of a job either.

If you don't have any damage to the potentiometers, switches or the chassis itself, everything is repairable or replaceable. You should be getting a decent refund if you plan on keeping this, however. I wouldn't accept anything less than $250, assuming none of the switches or pots were damaged.

Click to expand...

Are the pots NLA? or is it just that they're hard to replace?

I'm referring to the gain pots, power switch, speaker switch, and meter level switch. They might be available from McIntosh, if not, then you might be able to get them from Audio Classics or Tom Manley at mcintoshaudio.com. A quick search for part# 134-273 (gain pot) shows that Audio Classics might have its replacement in stock, #134-433. I don't know about the power switch, and other switches. I don't believe they're particularly hard to replace, though.

The G.O.A.T. said:

Are the pots NLA? or is it just that they're hard to replace?

Click to expand...

Here are some pictures of the inside.

Part 2

The G.O.A.T. said:

Although the amp was double boxed and bubble wrapped with Fragile clearly marked in red lettering all over it, the DUMB-ASS delivery driver dropped on the concrete patio on it's face as he was leaving it at my house! He didn't even have me sign for it!

First things first will be to replace the Power filter and driver boards caps.
but I do have a few questions. Mainly, can the filter caps be replaced with a higher capacitance, and would that adversely effect any thing? I know that you can increase the voltage (I was considering 63- 100 v as apposed to the 50 v that is on there now) as well an unrated temp rating if possible or is that not recommended?

Anything else I should look at doing when I crack in to it? (Disregard the glass and input board as ups will be taking care of that I hope)

Click to expand...

The way my EE friend who designs lots of stuff explained it to me:

The voltage rating on the caps is the max Volts they can withstand before they blow, so more is better.

Higher temps rating are better in the power circuits, filter caps would be a good one.

Higher Capacitance in the filter caps only, do not increase on the other caps. The filters are almost certainly twice what the circuit calls for, increasing another 20-30% won't hurt anything. Higher temp rating like 105C can't hurt.

I haven't looked inside my box, but Gregory did an extensive write up on his rebuild. Some of the guys like non polar caps, apparently the board is not marked like the nice folks at Yamaha do on the circuit boards.

Gregory said something about replacing lots of resistors, either out of spec, too loose spec 5% to 1% or upgrading to metal film resistors for less noise or all of the above.

The meters need to be cleaned, the contacts and posts and their driver boards recapped 2 ea?

Replace the Relay switch, same model number new is still available from everyone.

Replace the bulbs, I understand there are long life, or cheapo, custom made leds that don't fit will unless someone has a source for leds that do fit.

The 2205 is second gen solid state, the rectifier might be worth looking at while you are in there. Also take the temp of the transistors and other components, the ones attached to the heat sinks you can feel the sink near them to see if one is hotter than the others, the ones on the board you may be able to touch directly several at the same time. If you have a thermal camera you can also do it that way.

The 2205 ships from the factory bolted onto a piece of plywood with nothing touching the front. Mine survived the UPS delivery drop.

I want to warn you about doing too much to this amp before the claim is processed. They could deny your claim if you alter anything.

Ups should cover up to the amount insured if they were in charge of packaging. That is what I have seen in the past.

One thing to be aware of is that I don't think UPS will give partial claims (ie, glass only.) There is a very good chance that if they accept the claim, they will come up with some value for the unit, hand you a check and TAKE THE ENTIRE UNIT. Who knows where it goes.

Thanks for all the valuable information bubo.

lbcgav:I was worried about that, hence the pictures with a date stamp (and I can put it back the way it was)

faber12: It was insured by the UPS store that boxed it and sent it to me, so the store owner is making a claim as well. From what the owner of the store told me, if corporate won't cover it she will. She also said that most claims are denied because of improper packing, but because I payed an authorised store to package it and they did it by the book, I should be good to go. She actually took pictures of it before they boxed it up. Also I should mention that both me and my boss saw the delivery driver drop the amp on it's face on a concrete patio right in front our faces and then take off without a signature. That is pretty negligent of them if they don't cover it.


Jlovda: They better not take the entire unit. Only one person would walk away with there life... I've waited quite some time to add a second McIntosh to my stable, and besides, It's the first one I have ever had with the meters (So Pretty...)
PS. Once this is all sorted out would you be interested in redoing the driver boards for me? (Your work was top notch on my 2120, thanks)

I have been talking to UPS back and forth over the past 3 days and they said that they would have a solution inside of 5 business days. I guess I will have to wait and see.

I'm not even sure what to ask for...
So far I'm thinking (in Canadian dollars)
Glass and associated attaching hardware = $175 (glass) + (unknown amount for hardware) + shipping = $30ish + install by a pro =$120 (local shop rate per hr)
end caps =95 + shipping $10-15
Input board = (unknown, still awaiting a call from McIntosh on that one)
Power, right gain, meter selection, and left gain pots = (unknown) + Install (I would guess between one and 3 hrs of install time)
Transport of amp to authorised service Center (closest one to me is in Vancouver) according to UPS is 175 ish each way.

I know it would be around $1,000 without factoring in the input board and pots.

That was the amount I had in mind for the total restoration...

Too bad you had to go through all this, but I am glad that ups is covering it for you.

The G.O.A.T. said:

Thanks for all the valuable information bubo.

lbcgav:I was worried about that, hence the pictures with a date stamp (and I can put it back the way it was)

faber12: It was insured by the UPS store that boxed it and sent it to me, so the store owner is making a claim as well. From what the owner of the store told me, if corporate won't cover it she will. She also said that most claims are denied because of improper packing, but because I payed an authorised store to package it and they did it by the book, I should be good to go. She actually took pictures of it before they boxed it up. Also I should mention that both me and my boss saw the delivery driver drop the amp on it's face on a concrete patio right in front our faces and then take off without a signature. That is pretty negligent of them if they don't cover it.


Jlovda: They better not take the entire unit. Only one person would walk away with there life... I've waited quite some time to add a second McIntosh to my stable, and besides, It's the first one I have ever had with the meters (So Pretty...)
PS. Once this is all sorted out would you be interested in redoing the driver boards for me? (Your work was top notch on my 2120, thanks)

I have been talking to UPS back and forth over the past 3 days and they said that they would have a solution inside of 5 business days. I guess I will have to wait and see.

I'm not even sure what to ask for...
So far I'm thinking (in Canadian dollars)
Glass and associated attaching hardware = $175 (glass) + (unknown amount for hardware) + shipping = $30ish + install by a pro =$120 (local shop rate per hr)
end caps =95 + shipping $10-15
Input board = (unknown, still awaiting a call from McIntosh on that one)
Power, right gain, meter selection, and left gain pots = (unknown) + Install (I would guess between one and 3 hrs of install time)
Transport of amp to authorised service Center (closest one to me is in Vancouver) according to UPS is 175 ish each way.

I know it would be around $1,000 without factoring in the input board and pots.

That was the amount I had in mind for the total restoration...

Click to expand...

They might accept a quote or two from repair shops, if you had to take them to court, you would need the paid receipt to prove damages. I'm not an attorney blah blah blah.....

See what they say. Good luck!