Another new preamplifier from McIntosh has been announced on the company’s website, hot on the heals of the C1100 that we broke news of yesterday.

“The C52 is the most advanced, single chassis solid state preamplifier we’ve ever made” the company say.
For connecting analogue devices, it includes 3 balanced and 4 unbalanced fully assignable inputs plus 1 each of Moving Coil and Moving Magnet phono inputs for connecting a turntable.

On the digital side, it has 3 optical, 2 coaxial and 1 USB input. The optical and coax inputs will decode digital music at up to 24-bit/192kHz for high resolution audio playback. The C52 is also capable of decoding and playing back DSD files; the USB input accepts PCM signals up to 32-bit/384kHz and supports DSD64, DSD128 and DSD256 plus DXD 352.8kHz and DXD 384kHz. An MCT input offers a secure, custom DSD connection for playback of the high definition audio found on SACDs when paired with the company’s MCT450 SACD/CD Transport​ . The C52 features a 24-bit/192kHz, DSD digital-to-analogue-converter.

The outputs have also been updated to be easier to operate when bi-amping or tri-amping so that your highs and/or lows are not inadvertently turned off. An 8 band analogue equalizer is also included.

For headphone listening there’s Headphone Crossfeed Director (HXD^®) and the Home Theatre Pass Through feature allows for seamless integration into your multi-channel home theatre system.