Marantz 7C

Vintage Marantz 7B tube pre amp

Excellent condition, cosmetically and functionally.

There's a good reason you're looking at this amp. What places this one many rungs above the competition though is:

This amp was serviced by Bob Hovland and features over a dozen of his highly coveted MusiCap capacitors and solid tantalum capacitors (emphasis on "solid"). 2 weeks ago Bob looked it over again and fully tested it. It's still up to spec. If you haven't heard of Bob Hovland or the Hovland Company, just Google him. In addition to his many achievements, he was also an engineer at Marantz.

Here is his write-up of this amp from this year:

"This is an earlier refurbishing by Bob Hovland of a very nice Marantz 7C, using Hovland MusiCaps to replace the leaky bumblebee coupling capacitors throughout. All small electrolytic capacitors in the phono section have been replaced with MIL-spec solid tantalum electrolytic capacitors that combine excellent audio performance in this application with extremely long and nearly unlimited life. All controls and switches have been cleaned and preserved with DeOxIt. Please be aware that the Marantz 7C models do not have a timed automatic muting circuit, and will need to be turned on FIRST and turned off LAST, especially when used with modern solid state amplifiers, in order to protect the amplifier and speakers from turn-on and turn-off surges. This is a disclaimer.

"The six ECC83/12AX7 tubes are in excellent condition, and have been selected for low noise and microphonics in the phono stage V1 and V2.

"This 7C has been maintained regularly since the upgrades, and has lived in an exceptionally dry environment for most of its life, and is in excellent working condition throughout. The owner wishes to reduce the size of his collection; otherwise this unit would not be for sale. It has excellent musicality and should have good synergy with a large number of hi fi systems."

If sound quality of capacitors was rated on a 1-10 scale, Hovland MusiCaps are 20. Since the Hovland Company no longer makes them, they are scarce to impossible to find when you need the values for an amp like this one.

This will be double boxed and carefully packed with plenty of bubble wrap.