For your consideration, we have a rare and special Mcintosh MR 65B FM Stereo Tuner. The unit was obtained from the widow of the previous owner who prized this unit. In 2003 he sent the unit to Audio Classics for servicing as well as upgrades that were performed by Robert Modafferi. You can see the Dole sticker that Richard used on units he worked on, along with his signature and date below it. We have attached pictures of the receipts and printouts of the work done. All upgrades, including the upgraded gold plated RCA output plugs are listed on the documents presented in the pictures section of the listing.
When we acquired the Tuner, we needed to address a few issues. First, we cleaned all pots and switches, and treated them with Deoxit F5 and D5 respectively. We also removed each tube, and cleaned each socket. There was a hum caused by a bad leg on the Multi Capacitor that we replaced with an identical one from CE Manufacturing. We also looked at two issues that were not addressed in 2008. First, we were able to safely remove the Volume knob, and filed down the pot metal socket, in order to be able to remove it in the future for servicing. Removing the knob allowed us the ability to remove the faceplate, and then we were able to remove and clean the backside of the glass which made a remarkable difference. The other issue we addressed was the top half of the faceplate. It comes stock with a painted matt black finish that had failed, and had many chips in it. We were able to safely remove the paint, leaving the gold anodized finish underneath, like the rest of the faceplate. We stopped and left the black finish around the inside bezel, and decided not to respray the faceplate. We just think the unit looks great with the gold finish. She might not be perfect, but it sure is a beautiful piece.
All bulbs were replaced with new incandescent bulbs, as we prefer them over LED on a vintage Mcintosh piece like this. The hard to find Festoon bulbs were sourced from RR-ARTifacts who have them specially made for them. Instead of using white paint on half of the bulb, as in the originals, (to direct the light) they use white teflon tape which won't burn off.
Lastly, we aligned the tuner using our Senco SG80 AM/FM Stereo analyzer. It is just a wonderful sounding tuner. It's one of those pieces that come through our shop, and I wanted to keep for myself, but, it needs to move on and be enjoyed by the next owner.
Tubes:
1 x 6DS4 Small metal tube (V1)
1 x 12AT7 Telefunken (West Germany) (V2)
4 x 6AU6 Tube Mcintosh/Amperex branded, (England) (V3, V4, V5, V6)
1 x 6CS6 Mcintosh/General Electric (V7)
1 x 6BN8 Mcintosh/RCA (V8)
2 x 6BL8 Mcintosh/Amperex (Holland) (V9, V10)
1 x 6BN4A Mcintosh/RCA (USA) (V11)
1 x 12AU7A RCA (USA) (V12)
1 x 12AU7A RCA (USA) Multiplex Decoder MX1 section
1 x 6U8A RCA (USA) Multiplex Decoder MX1 section
More pictures are available upon request.
We don't have the original box for this unit, but we take packaging and shipping seriously. We spare no expense and use heavy duty boxes, polyethylene, and or instapak when boxing up our gear for shipping. For this unit we will also cut an mdf or heavy duty cardboard board with four holes to lock the feet of the unit in place during shipping to keep it from shifting during shipping. This is the same process used by Mcintosh in their OEM boxes. It will protect the glass.