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McIntosh Tone Controls

Confession: I like bass. Not like EDM or Rap. Like jazz and classical bass. 

Anyway, I have a McIntosh C47 with bass and treble tone controls. Does anyone know if these are pure analog or they are doing an ADDA conversion? I find a need to turn the bass up in my room about 3dB with most music and it’s pretty transparent and doesn’t seem to cause much if any side effect. 

Because of this, I was considering upgrading to a C52 to get finer control. I would love to hear other suggestions as well in case anyone has them. 

(Setup is Mytek Manhattan II as DAC and Phono stage, MC452 amp, And B&W 802 D3 speakers)
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mayoradamwest OP
429 posts
 
Does anyone know if the McIntosh tone controls are analog or digital? 
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stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,248 posts
 
The bass control on a McIntosh preamp is set at 30hz and treble control is set at 10Khz. They are analog. 
scorpio1951
189 posts
 
   I own two McIntosh preamps and have a 38 year history of owning McIntosh components. I agree with stereo5. They are analog. To confirm you might look in your owner's manual, or just simply call the factory and ask for someone in Technical Support. By the way, that C47 is a very nice preamp. Unless money is no object to you, I see no need to upgrade to a C52. I doubt that you would hear any difference between the two. 
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mayoradamwest OP
429 posts
 
Thanks all, that makes me feel better about it! I could not find anything in the C47 manual that talks about the signal path for tone controls.

@scorpio1951 The reason for the C52 would be to get the 8-way EQ, assuming it’s also analog. The integrated Luxman I was playing with at a shop today had a choice of frequencies for bass and treble, though I see that the C-900u has bass set to 100hz (at least according to the specs).
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