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Re: McIntosh C26 ain't bad....

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I've had the SP3 and C28 when both were new and for the the SP3 is in a class by itself. I think of it as what the Marantz 7C could have been if Saul had come out with a successor. That said, the C28 presented a representation closer to what I heard at the BSO and Avery Fisher Halls than the SP3 in my system and hence stayed with the C28. The SP3 had more air but at the same time seemed to have a veil that the 28 did not. As for the phono preamp, the SP3 preamp and the 28 preamp each react differently to cartridges and I found in the testing that it was not untypical that a cartridge that did nicely in 1 did not shine in the other.

The 26 is not in anyway a dog but in comparison to the 28 has a higher noise level and the 28 has a higher level than the 29. Each is noticably so. However the 28 and SP3 have about the same noise levels. It really is not an issue if the preamps are set up correctly unless you are using very efficient speakers or like to lean against the speaker to listen to the rush.

Oh, the power amps used for the testing at the time were simply those I owned. Marantz 9s, ARC DUAL 51 and D75 and the Mc MC250. Speakers of course were the venerable KLH Nine.


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  • Re: McIntosh C26 ain't bad.... - Brian Levy 19:31:12 04/12/07 (0)


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