The McIntosh C-20 preamp

I have completely rebuilt two of these and they are just

wonderful!

I have had the pleasure of completely rebuilding two of these wonderful preamps for two customers in the past year.  They sound as beautiful as they look!  I used a nice mix of good film caps and K40 paper in oil caps in them.  Both had bad volume pots and the only replacement is the $249 Gold Point level control.  They are really great sounding though! You have to remove one of the original can caps in the power supply to fit the Gold Point attenuator in.  I cover the hole with a plate and put very nice axial electrolytic caps underneath.  You can fit two really nice F and T caps underneath and bypass them with a good film cap.  It is much better than the original can.  The filament supply is rebuilt with much better parts as well and resistance adjusted to lower the voltage to account for higher modern wall AC voltages. My second customer works for Pass Labs and it is his job to listen to all sorts of gear, both modern and vintage, tube and SS in order that they can voice the Pass Labs gear to sound great.  He had heard several C-20 preamps over the years and had me do this one for him.  When he got it back he wrote and said that it was easily the best C-20 he had ever heard and one of the best preamps he had ever heard as well!  Someday he will have me do a Citation I for him.....