McIntosh Preamp

Personnaly I would go Solid State McIntosh on the pre with tube amps. But that is my ears.

I'm looking at either the C48 or C50 myself.

Tubey or not tubey, that is the question!

Both the solid state and tube Macs are known to sound good. The tradeoffs are the usual ones. Solid state has better more powerful bass while tubes have that midrange magic so many people love. You cant go wrong either way but the tube Mac will keep more of its resale value because all tube preamps are in demand. Hope this helps.

C45 and MC275 are good.

Papajohn,
The C48 is great! Not only good looking, but sounds great. Sound is spacious and open. Go for it!

Mc tube pre with Mc SS amp

C2300 premap + MC452 amp

Stanwal - LOL!

Thanks for all the input guys. Sounds like all pretty good choices. Man, this is cool equipment.
Guess it might just come down to availability and best deal I can find.

I like the C2300. It gives you output meters so you can see your power output on the MC275. I had the C2200 and MC275 combo and I wish I still had it. I now use C2300 and MC402.

I have a C2300. I like it very much. If you go with a tube pre, then replace the stock tubes with Gold Lions, Psvanes or Mullards. You will be even more happy if you do that.

Joe

Hi Hififile, are you saying that you preferred the sound of your previous McIntosh setup to the current one? I would not be too surprised, sometimes newer is not better.

Alberto

I have an MC275 and was considering a C220 or a C2200. Both are great and I loved the sound they put out with my amp and speakers. Whether that combo is too tubey will probably depend on what speakers you drive.

However I ended up getting a Lamm LL2 Deluxe preamp. To my ears it sounds a lot better than either of the Mc preamps. The downside is poorer ergonomics: no remote, no meters, no electronic input level matching, etc. So I opted for a unit that deployed all the budget on the sound rather than other features. Not everybody's cup of tea.

But the sound is fantastic!

I hope this helps.

Lewinski01,
You made the right choice, sound quality trumps convenience and features anytime(asuming you can`t get both in one package).

I had the C2300 with both the MC275 and the MC402. I agree with the poster above to change the stock tubes. If you aren't doing vinyl, then you only need to replace the two line stage tubes. I preferred Telefunkens for the line stage and MC phono stage.

I think the C2300 & MC275 combination sounded the best. I used it with Quads and it was a really nice system. The solid state amp was a little more veiled, by comparison.

The C2300 has a lot of flexibility, including changing cartridge loading on the fly, defeatable tone controls, stereo/mono, etc. I never had any use for the meters and could have done without them. Overall the preamp is transparent, doesn't have its own "tube" or "solid state" sound, is dynamic and very quiet. And it is built very well.

Alberto, to answer your question, there are things I liked about the older system. But overall I like the C2300 & 402 combo the best. Lower noise, much better bass, convenience (amp tubes v. SS). When I think back on the C2200 & 275 combo there were a few records that system gave a richness and liveness to that I don't get with the new system.

I have MC402 matching with Mark Levinson 38S. Have tried The MC402 with C2300 as recommended by many people. However, I could not find the synergy yet