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C29 or C30 (help me choose)

ChoppieChops

ChoppieChops

New Member
Hello guys,
After a long journey involving ebay, UPS shipping damage, and an impulse buy, I'm left with a C29 and a C30 which I just had both serviced by a shop which has been in business 40 years. No upgrades, just checking, cleaning and a glass face replaced on the C30. Both have the walnut wood case in perfect condition. I'm sure a complete recap/upgrade is past due but will get to that when I have more cash on hand. I will be connecting a turntable at some point and I understand the phono processing is different on them.

If I to make one of these my long term keeper, which one is the better unit of the two.....design and specs wise...

During this impulse ebay shenanigans, I've also got myself a MC2205 which is killing my back and just had that cleaned and the left channel repaired, I'm sure it also needs a cap/upgrade too.

Anyway,
Thanks guys!
 
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I too would suggest the C30. It's a generation newer, a little more feature-laden, and has better specs. I owned a C30 and also think it sounds better - it's my favorite of the "vintage" SS Mac preamps, and one of the few I might own again. I only sold it to make a move to tubes.
 
Having owned a C-29, played with C-30 and now own a 34 I would say the hands down the 30. But with a few reservations. If you like to be able to adjust the tone controls differently from one channel to another and you do it a lot then the C-30 is out. But if you want to have finer adjustment of the tone controls say only 2 db difference rather than 3 or 4 and you want to select different areas of the spectrum to adjust then you definitely want the C-30. I also like the idea of the separate volume control for the line out and headphones. I think its that way. As I play a lot of vinyl, LP's, they are always need tweaking. You just can't do that as well with the C-29 as you can with a C-30. Of course you can always add 10 or 12 band program EQ to the C-29 and have the best of both worlds like I did for close to 30 years. The question is would I go back to the C-29? NO! I loved it, but that was then and this is now. If you want a real step up get a C-40. I don't have the space for one for I had I would have bought the 40 instead of the 34. .The C-30 does a lot of switching using FET's to select inputs and modes etc. Which cuts way down on semi annual pot and switch cleaning tasks. The signal lines are much shorter and there fore low distortions and freedom from stray noises entering the signal path with the C-30. I really like the record selector switch of the C-32 through C40. I have a CD recorder that replaced my tape machines, so the record selector is still being used in my case as well as the processor loops.
 
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twiiii said:
Having owned a C-29, played with C-30 and now own a 34 I would say the hands down the 30. But with a few reservations. If you like to be able to adjust the tone controls differently from one channel to another and you do it a lot then the C-30 is out. But if you want to have finer adjustment of the tone controls say only 2 db difference rather than 3 or 4 and you want to select different areas of the spectrum to adjust then you definitely want the C-30. I also like the idea of the separate volume control for the line out and headphones. I think its that way. As I play a lot of vinyl, LP's, they are always need tweaking. You just can't do that as well with the C-29 as you can with a C-30. Of course you can always add 10 or 12 band program EQ to the C-29 and have the best of both worlds like I did for close to 30 years. The question is would I go back to the C-29? NO! I loved it, but that was then and this is now. If you want a real step up get a C-40. I don't have the space for one for I had I would have bought the 40 instead of the 34. .The C-30 does a lot of switching using FET's to select inputs and modes etc. Which cuts way down on semi annual pot and switch cleaning tasks. The signal lines are much shorter and there fore low distortions and freedom from stray noises entering the signal path with the C-30. I really like the record selector switch of the C-32 through C40. I have a CD recorder that replaced my tape machines, so the record selector is still being used in my case as well as the processor loops.
Click to expand...

Thanks twiii,
Yes, I believe its a done deal, after reading your post I'll be going with the C30.
Very odd, I blew the fuse on the MC2205 amp. I've dumped about 150, 25 min MP3 tracks onto a DVD. I've downloaded and saved years of Musical Starstreams when they were letting people download and save them. They are all 128BIT recordings but extremely clean. I popped in a DVD in a Rotel DVD player I had, and just let it play on VERY low volume and walked away, checking on it the next day. The gain on the amp left and right was at 3/4 and the C30 was barley on the first volume notch. I'm running this on a pair of Klipsch Chorus. I think it went for 2 days before I noticed no sound, and the DVD was still playing. The fuse had a small black burn mark on the glass....
What in the world could have caused this and I'm afraid to ask a repair price. NOTE: the left channel was gone and I just got it back from the shop with a 400 dollar bill.....and now this???
 
Several things could have caused the short, it will need to be diagnosed. Was the shop that repaired it the last time a McIntosh shop?
 
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