2023 marks the 54th anniversary of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair that held acts including Jimmy Hendrix, Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Who, and The Band. The four day event led to 400,000 attendees, and was powered by 20 McIntosh MC3500 amplifiers, producing 350W of single channel power.
Now, McIntosh are resurrecting the MC3500, after it was discontinued after a production run between 1968 and 1971. The resurrection is for anyone wanting to recreate the historical moment at full scale power, or even just for private listening. The brand new MC3500 MKII will offer 350W through eight EL509S high power output vacuum tubes.
There is a choice of balanced or unbalanced inputs and outputs, with a rack friendly chassis consisting of a gold anodised, machined aluminium front panel, and a blue backlit power meter.
Each one is looking at a price of $15,000 USD, and the amplifiers only power a single channel. For stereo sound, users will need two of them.
Bill Hanley, the man who was tasked with powering Woodstock, said he chose to run two speaker towers with eight speakers each, using the MC3500s as a backbone.
Hanley’s solution has been described as “a really small, nice, cute little system that nobody in their right mind would have used for a gathering of that size.”
In May, McIntosh also revived an original speaker as the ML1 MKII, and created two special edition wireless streaming audio systems, commemorating the Grateful Dead’s final tour.
