Advice with Mcintosh mc 30s

[tommyt]

Hi,

I am just getting into higher end audio and am still very ignorant, excuse me. Anyway, I have just bought a pair of mint condition Mcintosh MC 30s and now I need a pre-amp. I have read that Mcintosh did a reissue of the c22 per-amp - 2 questions here: (1) Is the c 22 re-issue still available from stores?
(2) Is this pre-amd a good match for my amps. I am considering buying a pair of Anthony Gallo Nucleus Referece 3.1 speakers based on a lot of great reviews........would these be a good match for my amps and pre-amp?

Thanks

[basite]

Hi,
Welcome to AR...

you just bought a pair of excellent amplifiers, a true collector's item too, btw...

for a preamp, take a look at berner's mcintosh site: the compedium

a preamp from the same era, could be a C22 indeed, but also look at the other preamps, a C24, C26 and C28 are very well known too (albeit that the C26 and C28 are solid state, so if you want a complete tube system, you shouldn't consider them)
Mcintosh re-released the C22 preamp, but it's a limited edition, IHMO pretty overpriced, and when you buy it, you'll have to buy the accompanied MC60's with it.

for speakers, while the gallo's are very good speakers, they won't make a fantastic match with your amps, it would work, but the gallo's arent really that sensitive, so they like more power than the MC30 can deliver...

Look at JBL's (especiallysecond hand older ones, with really high sensitivities, the L220A works fantastic), or Klipsh (they sound wonderful with a pair of Klipschorns, but basically every model here should work.)
another speaker that you should definitely consider is Tannoy, most of their speakers have a higher sensitivitiy, great sound, and a great match with Mc's...

there are some smaller brands too, two interesting ones are: avantgarde
and zu audio


good luck finding a good speaker and preamp & have fun

Cheers,
Bert.

[Feanor]

Hi,

I am just getting into higher end audio and am still very ignorant, excuse me. Anyway, I have just bought a pair of mint condition Mcintosh MC 30s and now I need a pre-amp. I have read that Mcintosh did a reissue of the c22 per-amp - 2 questions here: (1) Is the c 22 re-issue still available from stores?
(2) Is this pre-amd a good match for my amps. I am considering buying a pair of Anthony Gallo Nucleus Referece 3.1 speakers based on a lot of great reviews........would these be a good match for my amps and pre-amp?

Thanks

The C22 reissue is the C22CE, though I think it too is now discontinued.

Welcome to AR Forums, by the way.

In general I agree with Basite's comments. Although in my opinion the old McIntosh tube equipment is rather serverely over-priced from a performance point of view if not a collector's. This likely extends to the reissues such as the C22CE. Personally I would look for a used, more modern McIntosh tube preamp model such as a C220. For instance this one recently sold on Audiogon.