CHAMP ELECTRONICS -" THE VALVE AMP
HOSPITAL"
NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND
SERVICING OF A PAIR OF MCINTOSH A116
Hi-Fi
AMPLIFIERS
Photo
courtesy of James, the owner. (In-fact James owns all four of the
Mcintosh amps in this article!) James first contacted me a couple of
years back needing all his amps servicing……especially the
pair of A116’s. They had apparently been serviced for quite some
time by a local tech-guy (Sheffield) and one of them still had a high
pitched noise….even after numerous visits to the tech man. I
told James to get them to me and I’ll “sort them!” By
the way, the output tubes are a pair of
6BG6’s……actually a 6L6 with a top cap (connection
to the top of the tube).
As
can be seen in the above photo these amps are very old and have
certainly seen plenty of use! They also have been worked on plenty of
times….leaving the original wiring looking rather
untidy…shame! I had told James that I would try and tidy the
wiring up for him, as can be seen on the left-side amp. This is about
as good as it gets without a full rebuild!
The soldering this previous
tech-guy had done was absolutely disgusting! In fact, he had changed
nearly all the components and left all the long-ends still on them! I
could literally grab these loose ends and pull the components
off….the soldering was so dry!
I
basically ripped-out nearly all the components and
“started-a-fresh” Each component was carefully checked and
new axial caps were fitted throughout. Everything now
re-soldered….life again prevailed! (Please note, only one of the
finished amps is shown in the above photos). At the request of James, I
fitted a set of coloured banana sockets for the different speaker
impedance requirements; better and quicker than the old fashioned screw
connectors originally. Oh yes, and guess what…….the high
pitched noise was gone!