Mcintosh C50

[audiosalons]

Our first one arrived Friday, looks like they are starting to ship.

[1KW]

So how does the C50 sound compared to the C2300 ?

[audiosalons]

Dont know yet, still in the box waiting for it's owner. Im really curious on the UBS input, its a strong selling feature.

[Volks]

Awsome..............Hopefully mine will arrive shortly

[Mack]

I am told by the guys at Mcintosh, order today, get it in 2-3 weeks.

[David]

I was thinking seriously about ordering the C48 but first needed some information on how it sounds. My usual practice is to have an audition. Last week I called up the factory and chatted for a while. The person I talked with had one home for the weekend and wanted to buy it. He said that the DAC is very detailed (no surprise there) and in his opinion sounds better than the md500. He told me that the preamp was not as good as the C500. Eventually I came down to earth and decided I will try to audition a c48 against the dac and preamp I have before my decision. I do expect a lot since the Sabre chip seems to be the most advanced going and McIntosh should masterfully know how to implement the analog circuit and power supply to keep it smooth and dynamic.

[Ritmo]

The information I've seen on the c50 and c48 is that the differences are the 8 band vs 5 band eq and the meters on the c50.

Does anyone know if there are any architecture or chip differences? If not, then I would expect that sonically these units should be identical.

Comments?

Thanks,
Mike

[Formerly YB-2]

Will be interesting to 'hear' if there is a difference. Seems the MCD500 and the preamps all use the Sabre chipset. Can the implementation be different in the preamps?

[David]

Originally Posted by Formerly YB-2

Will be interesting to 'hear' if there is a difference. Seems the MCD500 and the preamps all use the Sabre chipset. Can the implementation be different in the preamps?

My understanding is that the new preamps use the latest Sabre32 ES9018 DAC chip, a 32 bit chip. The MCD500 uses an earlier (24 bit?) chip.

Also from the brochure specs the c50 and c48 seem to be identical except for the equalizer and meters. This makes the C48 the sweetest deal.

[Formerly YB-2]

Thanks. The posted brochure and press releases do not agree on the DAC issue. Guess we'll have to wait until next month in Vegas, unless Ron-c chimes-in.

From an esthetic point-of-view, I also wonder about the additional meters on the C50. If I were still listening to tubes, then it would work well. But, another set of meters with an MC452, for instance, is too much 'bling' for me. Still waiting for the MC251 small form-factor monoblocs.