[BWB75]

I just spent a couple of hours at the audio store, much of which was devoted to coveting the C52 on display. They had it connected to an MCD500 CD player and a pair of 601's driving new B&W 803 speakers.

The speakers are awesome and deserve their own discussion. Same with the 601s. I will comment here on my observations of the C52 preamplifier.

1) Built like a tank. Nice stainless chassis. Lots of inputs. But, we knew that.

2) I did not play a record (it's in a Magnolia store, so analog is not at the forefront, there). I did check out the MC and MM inputs, though. Here is what I learned.

The MM has a 40dB gain and is adjustable plus or minus 6dB from there. The MM stage is load adjustable from 50 to 1000 Pf. Not sure how that translates in ohms.

The MC has a 60dB gain, also adjustable plus or minus 6 dB. The load is adjustable from 50 to 1000 ohms. Not sure why this is in ohms and the other in Pf.

3) The headphone stage is fantastic. I tried it with a pair of nice Audeze headphones (around $700) and found it extremely resolving, non-fatiguing, and wound up sitting on the floor for a long time just bouncing my knees. Great detail, very neutral, could listen all day.

The HDX crossfeed thing did not please me. It significantly muffled the sound, seemingly truncating the extension of the highs and deadening the midrange. The soundstage did not sound especially more natural. It went from the usual "between your ears" effect of regular headphones to a sense that the instruments were arrayed around the top of my head. The imaging did not strike me as better, just different. Switching back to regular stereo opened up the sound in a most gratifying way. I would leave it on that setting.

They had the McIntosh MHA100 headphone system there, too, so I did an a/b comparison. I could not discern any difference in the sound on regular stereo. With HDX activated the MHA100 seemed to crush the sound a little less, but otherwise the performance was the same as far as I could tell.

So, I would not hold out for the HDX feature, but the regular stereo headphone amplifier in the C52 is simply stellar. Music in your head and those blue decibel meters dancing before your eyes makes for a very nice time. Based on this experience, I am going to sell my existing headphone amp and put the money towards a C52...

4) The 601s and big B&W speakers were very crisp and revealing, and everything they had to say was just wonderful. The system as a whole, which must by definition include the pre-amp, sounded very neutral, very coherent, and very detailed. It stopped short of the level of detail that hurts the ears or distracts from the music, but otherwise is right there with the best systems I have ever heard.

I wish I could have done a comparison with the C47, but they didn't have any around.

5).Tone controls! They really work!

6) The interface was easy. I am not a remote using type of person, so I played with the knobs. It's easy to work this pre-amp and it feels like quality.

Bottom line: I want one of these! Time to start saving some pennies!