As I posted earlier, I'm really looking forward to trying friend Yazaki-san's ideas for modifying my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers.

'Real Sound' hot-rodded vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers.

It's always fun doing audio adventures with Yazaki-san, as his insight, knowledge, and experience have really changed the way I think about audio performance, and for voicing my system at the 'DNA level' using resistors, capacitors, and tubes & wire! What fun!

Yazaki-san's methods in pursuit of Real Sound have been a powerful revelation for me!

An adventure package from Yazaki-san!

For our current resistor & power cord adventure, Yazaki-san sent me an audio adventure package containing paralleled Ohmite WN/3.3KΩ resistors for R5 in my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers, and enough reproduction Western Electric WE18GA wire to make two power cords, one for each MC30.

McIntosh MC30 schematic: replacing R5 with Yazaki-san's Ohmite WN/3.3KΩ resistors.

Ohmite WNE10KFE and WNE5K0FE paralleled for 3.3KΩ at R5.

In the photo above you can see the Ohmite WNE10KFE and WNE5K0FE resistors Yazaki-san paralleled for 3.3KΩ to use in the R5 position in my vintage McIntosh MC30 monaural amplifiers.

Reproduction WE18GA wire.

The Western Electric WE18GA reproduction wire looks quite a lot different on the outside than my vintage Western Electric WE16GA wire, having what appears to be a lightly lacquered finish on the cotton casings, which are also different in color than the vintage WE16GA, but internally the reproduction WE18GA looks similar to the vintage WE16GA, with it's inner white plastic insulator and tinned-copper conductors.

WE16GA internal structure showing white plastic inner insulator and red cotton fabric casing.

As a safety reminder, the white plastic insulator is what makes the WE16GA or reproduction WE18GA suitable for higher voltage applications like power cords or internal wiring of amplifiers & preamplifiers.

You should not try making power cords out of the Duelund DCA16GA wire, as it doesn’t have the internal plastic insulation that the Western Electric does, which means it can't safely be used for higher voltage applications like power cords or internal amplifier/preamplifier wiring. It would probably sound really good though, at least until it catches on fire and burns down your house! (Humor!)

But seriously, be safety conscious when picking a wire for a particular application, there's a reason why there's the white plastic insulator for the WE18GA, that's what makes it suitable for higher voltage applications.

The Duelund DCA tinned-copper series of wire are perfect for lower voltage applications like interconnects, speaker cables, loudspeaker wiring, and crossover wiring, for example, where their lack of the plastic insulator gives them superior sonic & musical performance for those applications.

Both the Duelund & Western Electric tinned-copper wires are great wires, just be sure to use them where they work best, so you get both safety & great sound in your audio adventures!

Marinco 8215

Marinco 8215

As I mentioned earlier, I'm using the Marinco 8215 plugs that Yazaki-san recommended to me (Ron-san also thinks highly of the Marinco 8215's, and uses them routinely). The are available on Amazon: $21.59 USD for the Marinco 320IEC15, and $11.87 USD for the Marinco 8215’s show above that I'm using for this power cord project.

Marinco 8215 AC plugs with reproduction WE18GA wire.

I've been crazy busy lately, so I haven't made as much progress on this audio adventure as I'd hoped, but I did get the Marinco 8215's wired up with the reproduction WE18GA, so the plan is that today I'll get them on my Cable Cooker for some run-in time over the next week, so you'll hear more about this soon!

Ok, that's all for now on this new vintage McIntosh MC30 adventure with Yazaki-san.

As always, thanks for stopping by, there's much more to come!