Dimensions: 23’ × 12’ Medium
Ceiling: 9’
"So I started restoring these magnificent McIntosh monoblocks as obsessively as folks restore vintage cars or vintage motorcycles. It's probably not the best business model, because you have a finite quantity of them, and it's an enormous amount of work. I take them apart entirely, rechrome the chassis, re–silk-screen, repaint the transformers, and I do all the electronic work inside. When I'm done, I want the McIntosh in question to look and sound like we assume it would have when it came out of the plant in 1952, '53, '54.
"A lot of people take a McIntosh and want it to sound like a Fisher, or they take a Marantz and want it to sound like a Scott. I never change the value of any part. I stick to what the schematic says. I respect and admire the engineers who designed these things. My goal is to do no harm, and hopefully bring them back to the original intentions of the engineers."
Read more at https://www.stereophile.com/content/yves-beauvais-page-2#C3TZIEQBxoWEdj74.99I love this SUT and have found everything said below to be right on the mark. And as detailed, it's a great match for my MX-110 MM phono stage and both the Koetsu and Hana carts.
From Stereophile Magazine review -- "The SU-1 is definitely not what one expects a moving-coil step-up transformer to look like. At 19" wide, over 5" high, and weighing 35 lbs, the SU-1 is clearly a serious product. The rear panel holds two pairs of gold-plated RCA jacks and a ground terminal. There isn't much to talk about inside the unit; the SU-1 is a black box that contains two other black boxes—the left- and right-channel transformers. Build quality is excellent."
"A few other technical notes: the SU-1 works best with low-output
moving-coils, especially those with output voltages of less than 0.5mV.
The relatively low-output (0.3mV) AudioQuest AQ7000 cartridge I used was
a good match for the SU-1, while many of the newer high-end
moving-coils have output voltages of 0.18mV, making them good candidates
for use with the SU-1. However, cartridges with a high output impedance
(above a few ohms) should be avoided. Not all phono stages work well
with the SU-1; the phono stage input impedance should be high (47k ohms
is ideal). Phono preamp gain is also a critical factor in how much
difference the SU-1 can make to the system. High-gain phono stages don't
need the stepped-up voltage, and some may be overloaded by the SU-1
when driven by even moderate-output moving-coil cartridges. The ideal
conditions for the SU-1 are a very low-output moving-coil and a 47k ohms
input impedance moving-magnet phono stage."
"If you love LPs and have a low-output moving-coil and a preamp with a high impedance input, the SU-1/IC-1 is a "must hear" product. But I'll warn you: Once you hear your favorite LPs through the SU-1 step-up and IC-1 interconnect, you may not want to live without them."
