McIntosh MC2125 Vintage Solid State Stereo Amplifier

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One of our favorite amplifiers from this period. Rated at 125W x 2 channels.

It's not as big and heavy as some of its older brothers, but it's right at a sweet spot for powering most vintage speakers from this era.

Typical Mcintosh features such as a glass faceplate that essentially guarantees things will not age over time.  Most amplifiers made with metal faceplates tend to either get scratched up or the writing rubs off over time.  But due to the glass, McIntosh amplifiers and preamps still look amazing even after 30-40 years of use.

This particular piece is a great example, as you can see the glass is pretty much intact and looks like the day it left the factory even through its had some use. Features the beautiful glowing blue meters you've come to expect and love in McIntosh amplifiers.

And one of the nice features about vintage McIntosh is that it looks great even when matched or mixed with current McIntosh. They kept the same design language so you can mix a modern C48 preamp with this MC2125 vintage amplifier and have it all kind of look cohesive and work well together.  

Simple overall operation, yet you'll find more controls than you would on a normal modern amplifier.  You have individual left and right channel gain controls allowing you to just dial in the amount of gain for each channel. A control for the meters range which lets you pick between -20dB, -10dB, 0 dB, MEASURE, or HOLD a maximum setting.  Corresponding to this control you will see 3 indicators for "WATTS", "HOLD", and "DECIBELS" change on the front between the meters.

There's a speaker output on/off control knob in case you're making adjustments and want to eliminate the connection to the speakers.  A power knob (of course).  And over on the right you'll see the soft clipping features known from McIntosh as their POWER GUARD technology.  Under normal operation this will stay green, then when you've reached the 125W potential maximum output these lights will start to flicker orange letting you know that yo've reached the maximum power output. Yet it will do it conservatively to make sure the amp stays protected.  

On the back you'll see 2/4/8/16 Ohm taps with is also very unique to McIntosh.  They use autoformers on the output stages which allows you to have direct taps to allow the most efficient connection depending on the impedance of your speakers.

On the back there's a convenience outlet to power something from this amp, a switch that allows you to enable/disable POWER GUARD, a stereo/mono mode switch that allows you to switch/bridge into mono around 250-300W for a single channel, and input sensitivity in case you've got a preamp that's a little high or low in this setting.  You can get the most from the potentiometer on your preamp by adjusting this between 2.5 ~ 0.75 volts.

This amplifier can be placed into a McIntosh case.  You'll see the sliding rails on the side with the Panlocs that let you attach this amplifier to the case.  A very cool feature.

This particlular sample is in really nice condition.  The faceplate does not exhibit bubbling of any sort, the top cover work is super clean, there's no rust or scratches or anything of the sort, and more importantly (the achilles heel of these amplifiers) is the chrome-work.  If stored in any damp environment over time (someone's basement or attic), they tend to rust and the chrome starts to pit.  But this example apparently had a very nice life as there's no pitting whatsoever on the chrome.  It's super bright and shiny and in beautiful condition.

Our technicians tested this amplifier in our lab and ran it to its full rated power and watched POWER GUARD function correctly at the full rated output.  And we did a full inspection to make sure there were no capacitors or components that needed replacing.  

This listing includes just the amplifier.

Click here for a PDF copy of the owner's manual

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