McIntosh C 33 Brochure

Page 1

Why, since its beginning in 1949, has Mc- Intosh been acknowledged as the worldwide leader for good sound, realistic music re- production, the chief source for technologi- cal advancement, outstanding appearance, quality, and value? Why has the industry used "as good as a McIntosh" as its yardstick by which to compare. McIntosh has care- fully and expertly merged the many contributing elements into a result that is universally envied and copied but never equaled! The C 33 Control Center is the latest illustration of some of the factors contributing to the McIntosh reputation. McIntosh unites: - continued research into user desires consistent with high quality music reproduction, - engineering that is aggressively inquisitive in the search for better ways to bring these user dictated requirements to a technologically superior, innovative and clearly useful result, - appearance design that has long life, complements the living style, is complimentary to the owner, and is made of materials, whose characteristics permit'a like new always' appearance, - easy to operate; The unique McIntosh designed panels are always easily readable in your choice of home lighting They are obviously designed by human beings for human beings. - manufactured of carefully specified and selected compo- nent parts that have high quality and long predicted life, - assembled by highly trained craftspeople who are dedicated to quality, accuracy and perfection, - thorough verification of the desired capabilities and quality of performance by constant and complete testing throughout the entire manufacturing process. These are some of the elements that are positive and readily verifiable. There are other elements in the McIntosh reputation that are less tangible, but no less important. McIntosh has never dissipated resources on opportunistic adventures into pure commercialism like quadraphonic sound. Today many people are mountain climbing on mole hills in their effort to find some point to extol their products. They would have you worry about: - distortion in soldered joints, distortion in capacitors, speaker cones not made with Mt. Fuji water, conducting electrical sound frequencies in anything but litz wire, transient inteimodulation distortion and many other scientifically indefensible allegations. The reproduction of sound is a very complex undertaking when you live merely with reality. There is no need to complicate reality and waste time and energy with incantations over a witch's brew of speaker wires, toroids, classes A thru Z, direct coupling, DAD, no IC's etc. etc.

Page 2

The C 33 Control Center is the distillation of more than 30 years of technological progress. High Fidelity* described it as mind boggling in its usefulness and flexibility. After all, its really two preamplifiers; it includes: - The most flexible, complete, stereo preamplifier - The most flexible, complete, separate stereo recording preamplifier -The most flexible, complete, program compressor and expander that can operate in either the listen or record preamplifier - High quality, high performance distortion-free five band tone shaping controls that can be used in either the listen or record preamplifier - High quality, high performance monitor power amplifier that protects your speakers and your music with the exclusive McIntosh Power Guard and Sentry Monitor Circuits. Unique separate listen and record facilities, introduced and perfected by McIntosh, permit complete and independent operation. Separate input selectors, electrically isolated from each other, provide non- interference operation in both the listen and record preamplifier. Both listen and record input selectors control low DC voltages which in turn control, electronically, Field Effect Transistor Analog switches. Because the FET analog switches are located at the input, noise, switch clicks and pops are eliminated and the potential for induced hum pickup is close to zero. You can record on 3 tape recorders from any source and you can copy from one tape recorder to another while listening to a completely different program. The program being recorded can be monitored easily with the monitor pushbutton. A fourth tape deck may be plugged into the front panel without disturbing your permanently wired system. Suggested Retail Price $2299 Cabinet Extra Five separate tone shaping controls provide musical spectra tone shaping. Each control adjusts two octave band segments to satisfy your personal preference or the demands of the program material. At the detent in the center of the rotation of each control the equalizer circuits are disconnected, completely removed from the operating circuits. McIntosh has pushed the barriers of low noise performance with this new totally shielded, direct input connected phono preamplifier section. Superior performance, even in the presence of strong interference fields, is assured by the use of the steel exterior chassis plus an inner shield enclosure of plated steel, (shield removed here to show circuits) The McIntosh compandor permits expansion or compression of the dynamic range of program material. Compressed recordings and broadcasts can be expanded on playback to restore dynamic range. Tapes can be recorded using compression and replayed using expansion to increase signal- to-noise ratio. The operating ranges of the compandor are so versatile that commercially encoded program material can be reproduced without the added investment in other outboard equipment. Loudness controls in ordinary equipment are usually simple, passive circuits connected to a portion of the rotation range of the volume control. As a consequence, loudness compensation accuracy is dependent on many variables such as speaker efficiency, amplifier gain and differences in input level. The C 33 loudness control is continuously variable, operates independently of the volume control, and its contour is accurately modeled after the family of "Equal Loudness"curves developed by Drs. Fletcher and Munson. The precision tracking volume control, a step attenuator, has channel to channel accuracy within 1 dB throughout its entire rotation. Such extremely accurate matching is achieved through electronically controlled trimming of the resistance material deposited on pairs of printed circuits. The accuracy of the channel to channel balance and the completely noise free performance are permanently maintained. Use does not affect performance as in ordinary volume controls. The main circuit board in the C 33, as with the other boards, is constructed of military grade epoxy fibreglas resin. The photo processed circuit foils are protected from excessive solder, potential short circuits, and destructive circuit bridging by an extra process, screened solder resist. This is another McIntosh practice to protect your musical pleasure and the unit's performance.