Pre-Power Amplifiers of the Year over $20,000
Spending time with a McIntosh amplifier at this level — ten bucks short of $36,000 the pair — is just a joy. McIntosh manages to maintain its amplifier ‘sound’ even with solid-state designs, the secret being what the company calls autoformers, similar to the transformers in the output stages of its valve amplifiers, ‘looking’ exactly the same (electronically speaking) to any loudspeaker that is connected to one. And while the power output of a solid-state amp will vary depending on the impedance of the speakers you connect to it, the power output of an amplifier with an autoformer will remain the same, irrespective of impedance, or of the frequency at which the power is delivered, so that the four amplifiers inside the MC462, each pair operating in balanced differential mode (which McIntosh calls ‘quad balanced’), deliver 450W per channel whether into 2, 4 or 8 ohms. Further advantages include higher power output, immunity to noise, increased dynamic range, and lower distortion. All good!
The $14,995 C53 preamplifier’s front panel is bustling with controls, not to mention the teal-illluminated VU meters. The large rotary control to the left selects your input choice from three balanced inputs (via XLR), four unbalanced inputs (via RCA), two phono inputs (moving coil and moving magnet), and seven digital inputs (two optical, two coaxial, HDMI with ARC, USB-B for computer, and
MCT, this last McIntosh’s own DIN-like connector which allows digital SACD/DSD signals to be transmitted in the purest quality, though they can only ever be decoded by a McIntosh DAC). There’s also a wealth of control, trigger and data inputs available.
The digital circuitry for the C53 is all contained within a single module (DAC2) which is able to be switched out for new capabilities that can’t be addressed by a firmware upgrade. Nice future-proofing.
The $20,995 MC462, meanwhile, is more than just its autoformer output and quad-balanced circuitry. We expected to be (and were) impressed by how loudly music could go without distortion — we listen pretty loud and most amplifiers can clip a little on the peaks. But after living with this McIntosh combo for some time, what impressed us most was almost the opposite
— how quietly we could listen without hearing any distortion whatsoever, and absolutely no background noise. This is essentially an amplifier that has no audible distortion and no audible noise at low to normal listening levels, but which can also kick serious arse, with impact and visceral ‘thump’ like you’ve never heard before. Because hey, it’s a McIntosh pre-power. Dig it.
More info: www.synergyaudio.com