Quote:
Originally Posted by gadawg
Peter,
So I went back tonight and did some reading on the 32 Reference as its been a long time and my memory isn’t what it once was ... I was surprised to find that it made use of the instrumentation quality op amps like the 52. Actually the op amp boards look very similar to what was in the 326s. Both were a substantial upgrade over the 380. If you go back real far you can find units that used actual transistors mounted on heat sinks but that appears to have changed in the later Madrigal era. Harmon continued that up until now and I’m guessing will bring out new Ref product that follows their new design directions. I’ve owned a 380, 326 and now 52 Ref and the 52 is the best but the 32 is very very good and if you find one in great condition you’ll have an excellent unit at a bargain price. I did listen to a 32 but it’s been a while
In fact ... the 52 seems to be more of a refinement of the 32 rather than re-invented. There are a ton of open box pictures on the web of both units and there are a ton of design similarities between them. One of the biggest differences was the material for the circuit board which I believe stopped being available at some point on the 32. I can only say I wish they had ‘refined’ the 33H rather than produce the 53’s! I’m betting the next Ref amp isn’t too many years away now that the 536s bests the 53s in many areas IMHO.
George
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So to actually respond on the topic of this thread.
An alternative (because of budget) would be a 326s for me. They appear a bit more often on local eBay. What I can see is that indeed some design elements are copied from the No32. However the power supply doesn't come close. This doesn't mean that it is no good, but it does not have the isolation the 32 has. In my opinion a 52 and 32 will sound good no matter how poor the AC is, but a 326s needs a clean supply. And the rest of the equipment still does as well as I have not seen any other component (source or power amp) that uses this kind of isolation from the mains supply as the 32 and 52 have.
In my situation with fully isolated balanced AC mains (pos and neg 115V AC) the 326s could perform quite well.
The discrete designs from the Madrigal area you refer to is the 26 for instance. I borrowed that unit once and reverse engineered it to get the schematic. Not a design I would like to use, but for its days quite a daring design. unbalanced in the middle and a balanced to unbalanced input option with just a discrete inverter amp to get balanced out.
But these amps are getting quite old now.