This discussion is timely for me. I have a McIntosh 6900 integrated amp that I purchased on Audiogon in 2007. It sounds great. In 2018, Paul Seydor of TAS was “besotted” by McIntosh’s then new C52 preamp. It has now been succeeded by the C53 (again just reviewed by Seydor) which is the same except for the latest digital components and an HDMI capable of taking in an eArC capable TV s audio. I had been thinking about the C52 (and now C53) but lacked the funds to spring for one. Seydor describes the preamp as completely neutral – it won’t varnish bad recordings but neither will it exacerbate what makes them bad. He said the engineers at McIntosh would rather eat worms than distort. I have two-fold questions for the forum:
1. By having the C53 take over the preamp function of the 6900 Integrated, would this be a superfluous exercise and waste of money? With all things being equal in my system (good source, good speakers, good cables) and sourcing with the best recordings, is the preamp function of the 6900 good enough that there would be no noticeable sonic improvement by supplanting it with the C53?
2. There has been a C53 listed for sale on Audiogon for some time by a dealer who took it in on trade. It is in its 2nd 30 day run with no takers. I asked the dealer why his customer traded in such a recent model. His answer was: “You buy McIntosh for the blue meters. Performance is never great”. Do you folks agree with that assessment?