Does anyone use the C45 in a stereo (rather than multichannel) system ? If so, any comments. Has anyone compared the C45 to the C220 or C2200 ? Want to stay with a mac preamp for a mac amp and would rather stay solid state than tube. Ideal would be a mac 2 channell solid state preamp - unfortunatly they don't make one. A little leary because wondering what is left of the 2 ch preamp when you are paying for 5 channels?
Well, the c46 highest tone control is centered on 4kHz. I ruled it out for that reason. If I'm buying a Mc Preamp, it's partially for the tone controls. Not being able to roll off the upper highs on the c46, I wouldn't buy it.
The 4kHz EQ setting is very well chosen by McIntosh. It's very effective at removing treble harshness and forwardness without unduly truncating very high frequency content, if used moderately.
I played with the 4 kHz control and it didn't roll off the harshness. In fact at that time I didn't know it was not rolling off up to 20 kHz like a conventional treble control and was trying to figure out the weird rolloff I was hearing. I asked myself why is it rolling of the mid highs and not the upper highs. It was not effective at rolling off the boosted highs heard on many new CDs. Later I checked the owner's manual and saw what was happening. YMMV.
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