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McIntosh MR78 upgrades?

I have an MR78 that's working well. 

I can bring it to Audio Classics, and for about a grand, get the power supply and audio section upgraded, and the tuner will be aligned. 

There's another shop, maybe 2 hrs from Audio Classics that does a power supply upgrade for $250, plus an alignment would be billed based on actual time on the bench. So let's say $350-$400. 

Is the audio section upgrade worth $600? Would be most interested to hear from people with Mac tuners that have had them modernized. 
128x128zavato
kennythekey
580 posts
 
Right, good point. It would be nice to find a local guy to do realignment, so when a tube needs to be replaced, I'm not shipping the tuner off somewhere.

I'm wondering how these comments are adding up for zavato? It seems that no matter what we have, we keep messing with it ($cha-ching-$cha-ching). - LOL

zevato - IMHO, no matter how much you put into a tuner, it's still a tuner. It will never sound as good as a fine turntable or digital source.
Kenny
zavato's avatar
zavato OP
1,391 posts
 
Kenny, you're right, and part of my issue is that in my area I really have only 2 stations that sound good. So I truly question whether the full blown mod is worth the money vs just recapping the damned thing. 
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,520 posts
 
Richards MR78 mod includes increasing the tuner's alternate and adjacent channel selectivity, which improves it's ability to pull in closely-spaced channels cleanly.
zavato's avatar
zavato OP
1,391 posts
 
Decided not to go the Audio Classics route. Selectivity is not an issue where I live and and I only have a handful of stations worth grabbing. Given that, I'm doing the recap and alignment and easily saving $600 in the process. That's solid $ to spend on music. 
zavato's avatar
zavato OP
1,391 posts
 
So I heard from the folks that I brought my MR78 to for recapping. They advise that some of the caps inside are just a few years old, and some are original. Apparently someone tinkered around inside several years back. I'm told the work was neat and high quality caps were used. Curious that whoever did the work a few years ago only replaced a few caps. 
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