McIntosh C220

Original McIntosh C220, manual and remote. Works beautifully, cosmetically perfect. Rare unit. See pictures. Fresh tubes. Second owner, used for about 20 hours by me. Has been sitting on the shelf for a couple of years as I am using a Carey SLP-05 that I could not pass up. Wonderful presence and very musical. While the C-220 is a traditional tube pre-amplifier in functionality is has lots of advanced technological features to maximize its performance. The C-220 has the traditional McIntosh look with the black glass faceplate, chrome trim and a blue display. The display is illuminated by fiber optics, the volume control knob is linked to McIntosh's advanced volume control system which keeps the channels volume matched within .1 dB. Electromagnetic switches in gas filled glass cylinders keep contacts clean and quiet. Other advanced features include customizable input names, remote control, control connections and R-core transformer, The tube complement consists of 4 - 12AX7As, two each in the line and phono stages. All of this technology can connect to up to seven line level inputs, two balanced inputs, a moving magnet input. With its smooth and accurate midrange this tube preamp features both balanced and single-ended inputs and outputs. Although its top end is slightly rolled off in comparison with other McIntosh preamps, its flexibility and superb build quality make it a winner. The linestage is very smooth. Its nice accurate midrange does a realistic job reproducing both male an female vocals. The soundstage is particularly wide and with good depth as well. Background noise is kept to a minimum and is definitely more in line with a higher end pre-amplifier. The low background noise lets the listener appreciate the C-220's ability to discern details which it does well through most of the frequency spectrum.