Vintage Asylum

Classic gear from yesteryear; vintage audio standing the test of time.

Return to Vintage Asylum

Message Sort: Post Order or Asylum Reverse Threaded

MCS Integrated Amp surprise!

174.130.76.215
Posted on January 27, 2009 at 09:00:25
Bold Eagle
Audiophile

Posts: 6936
Location: America's Heartland
Joined: May 27, 2001
 A friend of mine just gave me his MCS integrated amp to fix. (it doesn't play) Well, the fix took a few minutes, as both output fuses were blown. They are internal and mounted on the main motherboard.

The surprises came with looking this thing over internally. Chassis and cover are heavy gauge steel, and the cooling slots on the cover have window screen on the inside to prevent kids dropping coins in there. A large and well shielded power transformer, 10,000 uF, 50 V caps, a large square rectifier module rather than discrete diodes, star grounding, a good sized heat sink, 3 pin regulator for the low voltage sections. An even bigger surprise was finding that all the wire wrap terminations were factory soldered!

Output devices were STK flat packs.

Metal front panel and the knobs are heavy machined aluminum with a plastic insert for the knurled shafts. (I did have to re-glue an insert to the shell of a knob) Along the top of the front panel was a long narrow window with LEDs for input indication and two horizontal LED power output indicators.

No power rating, and a caution on the back to use only 8 ohm speakers, but the two outputs are in parallel. The name plate said 120W consumption, so I figure maybe 35-40 W/ch. I did not make a measurement. Output fuses are 4 amp which is 64 watts into 4 ohms.

Anyway, I hooked it to my system, and played it for an hour or so to see if the fuses would hold (they did). My second surprise was the sound. Very nice sound with my Advents. Bass was deep and tight and I'd have to say, pretty close to my NADs and my modded Onkyo integrated. Mids and highs were smooth, clear and clean. No edginess, and a fair amount of sparkle. Fine, low level detail was well rendered. Not quite as good as the Onkyo A-8190 which has a passive line stage, but close to the NAD C350.

Altogether, a much better than expected amp. Being an MCS, you could probably pick up one of these for cheap. Model number was 683-3850. Also, it's a fairly early one as the power cord and convenience outlets are not polarized, and the extra rear input says AUX instead of CD. It does have a phono section, which I didn't try. I'll report back on that!

Jerry

 

Hide full thread outline!
    ...
Not surprised at all, posted on January 27, 2009 at 09:43:31
DavidLD
Audiophile

Posts: 4884
Joined: May 29, 2002
 JC Penney used some really high-end suppliers to build components in their very short effort to sell component stereo. They used United Speaker (later known as Phase Technology) to build MCS speakers employing William Hecht designed drivers (the dome speaker inventor who still runs the company). Hecht also built speakers under contract for McIntosh.

You got me wondering, did anything inside look McIntosh-like?

 

RE: MCS Phono Follow Up, posted on January 27, 2009 at 11:39:22
Bold Eagle
Audiophile

Posts: 6936
Location: America's Heartland
Joined: May 27, 2001
 More surprises. It has an excellent phono section! At least with the nice MCS Direct Drive TT some one gave me recently. It has an AT71 cartridge in it, and the MCS amp seemed to like that.

This would be a very good amp for a vinyl lover's bedroom system or the like. Very quiet, and very smooth and clean sounding.

I also surprised myself a bit when I compared the phono to CD. For convenience, I hooked in the Sony CDR-W1 I have (a CD recorder) and the phono kicked its butt, but good. Had all the sonic character that vinyl lovers attribute to CD. I next tried my Rotel RCD-971 - much better! The phono was still a little nicer in the highs and not as bright. Cutting back the treble control 1-2 clicks made them equal. On my Onkyo A-8190, the MCS TT and the RCD-971 sound very close. If you were going to use this amp with a CD player, you'll want one that's warmer and more "vinyl-like". I'd also think using short, low capacitance interconnects for CD would help with some players (like this Sony), although the Rotel is unaffected.

Lots of fun on a cold, gray, dismal day here in northern Ohio.

Jerry

 

RE: Did anything look McIntosh-like?, posted on January 27, 2009 at 11:50:02
Bold Eagle
Audiophile

Posts: 6936
Location: America's Heartland
Joined: May 27, 2001
 David,

Not even remotely McIntosh looking. It was made in Japan and internally looks very generic Japanese. I looked for clues to its parentage, but didn't see any. Possibly Technics, as the MCS TT I have is definitely Technics-like. Very early in the MCS history, they advetised MCS by Technics, but dropped that in later years.

Some of the lower end and later MCS receivers were poorly designed, having no regulation on the low voltage power supplies and very poor FM sensitivity. Really muddy sounding. Adding some three pin regulators to those models improved the sound markedly, but some of them didn't have enough excess voltage to work with a three pin. For a while, guys were bringing those in to the EE labs for rework, but some couldn't be helped. That got most of us turned off to MCS gear, but this little integrated is a different animal.

Jerry

 

RE: Did anything look McIntosh-like?, posted on January 27, 2009 at 13:36:43
DMW
Distributor or Rep

Posts: 497
Location: Midwest USA
Joined: July 26, 2003
 Do these units have a date of manufacture on the backside? If so, do you know a general date up to which they used quality OEM's for their line of audio electronics?

 

RE: Date codes?, posted on January 27, 2009 at 16:22:22
Bold Eagle
Audiophile

Posts: 6936
Location: America's Heartland
Joined: May 27, 2001
 I really don't know a lot about this series of gear. There is a date code of 103, whatever that means. There is also a very long serial number, so it's probably a coded number, but I have no clue.

It's clearly a pre-CD era unit and has a non-polarized power plug, so it's likely late 70's, early 80's.

Jerry

 

I have had some MCS products, posted on January 28, 2009 at 11:23:45
airtime
Audiophile

Posts: 11336
Location: Arizona
Joined: February 4, 2003
 I had one of their receiver and speaker sets. It really did have a great sounding. I would say very Marantz like. The receiver looked very 70's-ish generic but sounded terrific!

It come with a set of three way speakers that also sounded good and were good quality cones. I think I gave them away at some point but I still use the cabinet today. The crossover had good quality parts. Not just the typical 0.8mH coil and lytic cap. But an actual crossover!!

Enjoy

charles

 

RE: MCS Integrated Amp surprise!, posted on March 26, 2010 at 11:47:16
billybob


 
Concur with all that is said about this being a decent MCS unit. I have been using previously an MCS Panasonic(front panel) 2000 int. tuner amp to power 2 and four way speakers for music duty. The 2000 I found at my GF along w/speakers and a TT of the same 683-2000 line. When acheiving volume levels with my Klipsch Chorus 1, I typically am maxed out. While researching craigslist I saw this posting, which drove me to pursue this unit with it's matching 2705 tuner, which from preliminary looks, appears to be a decent tuner with stiff new feel tuning. A little over a c-note later and I may have a keeper 2 unit set. Listening now on my T-3000 speakers(2 way) with bass and treble zeroed out and loudness switch off and it is like listening to a new system, w nice bass, etc. There is talk here and other sites regarding who manufactured the different MCS lines for JC. The unit AU-8300 was cut into the original styrofoam by machine i noticed in the original box, so I am going with NEC as being the primary builder of these 2 units as both are definitely a matched set. BTW, I have some user's manual and specs on both units that were in each box.
After spinning some more vinyl and if any interest in my findings with Sirius radio and tuner/cd, I will post more about units' findings.
Billy

 

RE: MCS Integrated Amp surprise!, posted on March 26, 2010 at 11:53:10
billybob


 
Almost forgot, the 3850 unit is 45 watts per channel. Will see how this unit handles 4 speakers!
Minty like condition with low hours on them accordiing to seller.

 

RE: Date codes?, posted on March 26, 2010 at 15:01:00
billybob


 
I apologize about charging in here half-cocked.

NEC 8300A = MCS 3850 (also Curtis Mathes mentioned)http://hifigoteborg.se/Nec%208300%20A%20spec.htm

The Technical Service Data has NEC/JC Penney 1980 printed on it.
Date code on box is 010.


NEC AUT9000 = MCS 3705 tuner

 

MCS 3850, posted on February 4, 2011 at 10:42:38
mjob


 
Anyone know how to get a power supply for one of these units?

michaeljamesobrien@yahoo.com

 

RE: MCS Integrated Amp surprise!, posted on April 13, 2011 at 13:18:50
clay


 
I still have my mcs system that i purchased in 1979,
however the amplifier has developed some problems.
does anyone know where i can get my hands on a schematic.

ps: it is the mcs 3835

 

RE: MCS 3850, posted on April 13, 2011 at 13:23:14
clay


 
jot down the numbers on the side of the power supply and take that to a electronics supply, they will be able to cross ref.

 

Page processed in 0.024 seconds.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]