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Re: McIntosh C504 Preamp; sonic characteristics

Posted by Vinyl Rules! (R) on May 29, 2003 at 15:10:51

In Reply to: McIntosh C504 Preamp; sonic characteristics posted by Freud on May 26, 2003 at 21:14:29:

I think the C504 preamp uses an integrated circuit for the phono preamp instead of discrete transistors. This unit may also invert the absolute phase at the preamp output.

I listen to a lot of vinyl and I've always thought the McIntosh preamps with the discrete transistor phono preamps sounded much better than their preamps with the integrated circuit (IC chip) phono preamps.

I'm not a tube person, but many here believe the McIntosh tube preamps sound even better.

My most disappointing purchase was a either a C33 or C34 years ago: I thought it sounded *terrible* on the phono section and my C28 was much more "open" and "less brittle" sounding playing back LPs. I later learned that the C33 or C34 I had acquired used an IC chip phono preamp while the C28 uses discrete transistors in the phono preamp.

As always, YMMV.

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