Vintage audio equipment can be a lot of fun because of its superb musicality, but at some point that vintage kit will need updating and/or repair to replace aging capacitors, resistors, and potentiometers, for example.
Vintage McIntosh MX110Z Tuner-Preamplifier
Take for example my vintage McIntosh MX110Z, that has had an enduring presence in my audio systems due to its superb sonics & musicality.
An ailing volume pot is not an unusual issue with vintage MX110Z's (and other vintage gear), but unfortunately McIntosh no longer stocks replacements, so after you can no longer keep your volume pot going with a little DeOxit, what do you do for a replacement?
The original volume pot in my vintage McIntosh MX110Z tuner-preamplifier has been on the fritz for a while now, and was no longer responding to a little spray of DeOxit to keep things working, so I figured it was time to deal with it and answer the question above.
You can see MX110Z's volume pot on the left side of the photo.
First, I tried a volume pot that was being sold on eBay as a high-quality $90 USD direct replacement for the original MX110Z's volume pot. The seller first sent the wrong volume pot, which had to be sent back for the correct volume pot. The new volume pot that arrived measured ok, but exhibited bizarre behavior, and didn't work at all as it should, so it turned out to be a waste of $90 USD.
After that unhappy eBay experience, I remembered that Audio Classics offers a rebuild service for $120 USD that restores a vintage MX110Z volume pot to a like-new state.
Vintage McIntosh MX110Z volume pot.
I decided to send off my MX110Z's original volume pot to Audio Classics and give it a try.
After a couple of weeks I got my rebuilt volume pot back from Audio Classics, and my good friend Ron Barbee installed it for me - thank you, Ron!
Audio Classics did a great job of rebuilding my vintage MX110Z's volume pot, and it works perfectly and sounds great!
I wanted to give a shout out to Audio Classics for offering such great service, and for doing such a superb job rebuilding my MX110Z's vintage volume pot - you guys rock!
I wanted to share my Audio Classics volume pot rebuild experience with you, as I know there's quite a few of you out there with vintage MX110Z's that sooner or later will need to address an aging volume pot, and I highly recommend the Audio Classics rebuild service!
A big thank you to Audio Classics for such an excellent rebuild, and many thanks to Ron Barbee for getting it installed!
As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!
