That’s bonkers!
Yeah, good luck with that one. The speaker cabinets are one thing. But without the Dead’s utterly massive array of McIntosh amps, with zero distortion? Quite another damn thing, which the Grateful Dead had in ultra-copious abundance.
Louder than than God with NO ear fatigue for the audience? Fuck yeah. Expensive? Oh, hell yeah! But other-worldly? Abso-damn-lutely! There’s been nothing quite like it, before or since.
A thing of beauty ….
That BDI and comp really punch about their price tags imo. Great gets. Especially the BDI, it has no right being as good as it is for what it costs.
Googled BDI and got this answer:
What is the BDI short for?
Beck’s Depression Inventory This depression inventory can be self-scored. The scoring scale is at the end of the questionnaire.
Works for me. I feel like an old man trying to be one of the cool kids when reading a lot of these threads. Oh, wait a minute I guess that’s what I am! Time to take the quiz.
@UncleToad If you see something in a post that is referencing gear, and you’re not sure what it is, Google the term with the word “bass” added to your search query.
This is the result from Googling “BDI bass”:
The kawaii pedal
That’s the good work of Alembic before they started making pickups and eventually basses. I want one so bad.
No, McIntosh and Alembic were two different things. While Alembic started by designing and making guitars and gear for the Dead, McIntosh started making home audio amps and preamps much, much earlier.
The Dead played many custom-made Alembic instruments, but they also assembled an outstanding PA out of McIntosh equipment.
Four 18-wheelers full of McIntosh amps and speakers. Took four hours to set up and take down per gig. Fully assembled, it was three-stories-tall, weighing 75 tons!
Here’s the full story:
History of McIntosh:
I didn’t know that McIntosh makes commercials/ pro amp. My dad bought one for when I was very young. It looked so old fashioned years later I found out how valuable it was.
Growing up we have 2 Amps McIntosh and Mark Levinson preamps, both are still at the house I grew up, both have not been used for maybe 30 years. I should plan a trip to bring them here.
I hope the vintage stuff hold their value
Mcintosh doesn’t make commercial gear. Just stupendous home gear that is crazy-clean and powerful. The Dead had McIntosh home stereos and they knew how good it sounded, so they hatched a crazy idea to get tons of it to create one massive Mc system as their PA.
McIntosh gear holds its value like crazy. The tube stuff is like platinum.
I had a McIntosh home rig: preamp, amp and speakers. The pure power and lack of distortion was unbelievable. Mc gear has always been ridiculously expensive, but my two buddies and I scrounged up the bread somehow, and we each had seriously badass home stereo systems.
Every now and then, we would bring all of our heavy-ass rigs together and hook them up to create one monster stereo for very memorable parties that ended up attracting people from all around the neighborhood. Some would tell us it sounded like the Dead was playing our backyard!
But, once, some neighbors called the cops on our backyard bash. To be honest, this party looked like a scene out of a Cheech and Chong flick.
Even though it was my buddy’s pad, I went out to speak with the officers as I was relatively less fucked up than the rest of us. Luckily, this being Austin back in the day, the cops were totally cool. They asked that we turn down the tunes a bit, and said that if they weren’t on duty, they’d gladly join us.
Holy crap! That’s crazy expensive! Wow. My dad’s was tube for sure. I remember he had to turn on the AC before tuning on the amp,
I don’t remember the speakers brand we had. To me at the time it’s just noise
Oh man love that. May be I keep it and learn more about it. I’d keep it in the downlow for now because I don’t think my brother remembers what brand they are and we were both home theater people. He travels home once a year I’d be pissed if it snatch it up
Yeah, man. Snag that vintage Mc gear, if you possibly can.
I lost my solid-state rig in a divorce, but I had plenty of good use of it for decades before that.
The Dead toured with their unique Mc Wall of Sound PA for a very short part of their tour because it was so damned expensive to not only buy but also to transport and to pay the huge contingent of techs needed to set it up and take down.
I and my buds were lucky enough to hear it live when the Dead played Austin. And how it arrived here was a not so long but very strange trip.
As it happened, the Dead played Houston the night before playing here. The four semi-trucks containing the Mc PA were driving up IH10 when the last one in line had its loading door fly open (probably due to an overworked and likely stoned roadie failing to check it properly).
As was reported in the local news, at least ten McIntosh 2300 amps fell out and went bouncing down the highway behind the truck. Luckily, this happened in the wee hours of the morning so traffic was very light and no cars were hit by those massively heavy beasts. The upshot was that the truck pulled over and the 2300s were retrieved.
Upon arriving at the venue in Austin, the slightly scuffed amps were inspected and every one of them checked out, operating perfectly. They were hooked up as usual and they were used in the show we saw that night. From the stage, Jerry told the crowd the story as the rest of the band and roadies onstage laughed their asses off.
As for the sound, it was louder than anything I’ve ever heard, including from The Who or the Stones. But we were able to talk to one another and hear each word clearly. It was surreal and the best sound I’ve ever experienced.
I didn’t actually know that, thanks!