MC2 amplifiers

Bought an MC2 650 from a fellow Zerogainer havent had a chance to play with it much yet other than plugging it in to see that it works.Should I use a pre amp or change the volume with the digital control?Mucking about with it this morning briefly I just stuck a stepped attenuator tween phono stage and amp,initial impressions were of extreme clarity and control but I didnt have much time to play with it.

 

Well as you can gang the input attenuators you could.... but I'd use a preamp-it's a very powerful amp and because of the fine adjust it could take a while to lower the volume should you need to!
If you have a balanced option on your pre I'd use it.
Frank

 

If you only have the one source you could go either way. I've had my CDP running directly into it and used the knobs on the front in linked mode and it worked just fine. I am using a pre though because I have a couple of turntables to run as well as the CDP, so I run the MC2 at max gain and adjust volume with the pot on the pre.

If I only had the one source I would probably do without the pre. If you fire it up too loud, there's always the mute button, though if you were using it this way I don't see why you are any more likely to fire it up too loud than if you were using a pre. It retains the level you last had it at after all.

 

Indeed true Uncle.
You obviously haven't fed one at +23 dB by mistake and had to recone 4 tannoy 15" bass units(I literally shook for an hour afterwards), the fans also tend to mean locating the amp a good way away too but...
How are you finding it now Uncle?
Cooky

 

Now I've managed to get the fans silenced, I'm very impressed. Clarity and control sums it up well. Its quite clear that these Speakers need a lot more behind them than the specs might suggest.

PS. No you are right. When I did it I made sure I'd brought the volume to zero before pressing play for the first time.

 

I have a pair of TX102 ,can someone give me a pointer how to wire them up for balanced output?.I feel the need for a pre amp for peace of mind ,with my Crown K2 at least you can see where the gain control stting is.

 

I'd have thought just contacting S&B would be your best bet, though Tenson or 3dSonics who both post here may be worth asking.

 

Using it straight from the phono stage (Heed Questar with WAD stepups),havent blown the speaker cones out yet.Presumably there are only advantages in using the digital controls on the amplifier .