The design brief for the MC3 was that it should hold it’s own in any company, at any price without it costing a kings ransom. The result is, we believe, that there are very few phono stages that will come even close for sound quality and flexibility at anywhere near the relatively modest cost of this stunning phono stage.
The MC3 has fully user adjustable input loading and gain, using internal jumpers. With no less than 10 internally regulated supplies used for each of the separate channels and sections to maximise all areas of performance, especially bass drive, detailing, stereo imaging, transparency but most importantly rhythmical integrity. As with the MC2 it will support low output moving coil (MC) , high output moving coil (HOMC) and moving magnet cartridges. In addition it has two inputs (rear panel switch-able) one dedicated for MM and the other for MC all using high quality, gold plated sockets. Unusually at this price it also has a rear panel switchable unique MONO mode enabling any input to be summed to mono, this can be selected to be either passive or active, with make up gain, via internal jumper selection. We offer a free advice telephone service to optimise and match the performance with any cartridge when using our MM2 or MC3 phono stages.
It is unique at the price, with its’ fully RoHs compliant gold plated custom made double sided PCB’s ,natural anodised extruded aluminium case and high quality internal parts like it’s use of 1% thin film resistors plus Wima and Vishay polypropylene film capacitors throughout. The RIAA. Equalisation accuracy is within 0.25dB across the audio band and signal to noise is very low at -75dB. Our psuedo balanced discrete input technology gives you the option to optimise grounding to reduce the possibility of Hum/noise. The circuit topology has a fully discrete input transconductance gain stage featuring two paralleled super matched pairs of bi-polar PNP input devices with a current mirror devised from another NPN super matched pair. This is followed by our unique op-amp based active/passive RIAA filter which uses the best op-amps available, this is then followed by a totally buffered output section with a very low output impedance of around 10 Ohms. This helps to reduce cable effects and improve output current and drive. It will easily drive a 600 Ohm load!!
Attention to detail also extends to the dedicated custom made outboard power supply, the PSU3 which is supplied as part of the package, with its use of a split rail design and cascaded super regulation stages this has the benefits of maximum rejection of RF noise, maximum dynamic range and improved overload margin. It also uses a gold plated custom made PCB with high quality rectifiers and optimised snubber caps. Based on a custom wound multi-tap toroidal transformer with an inbuilt bespoke mains filter with full DC blocking, this is no ordinary power supply.
Not just content with state of the art performance it also has a pretty face with a back lit blue logo and input/mode legends, also in blue, which turn green in mono mode. The backlit front panel is made from optical grade, scratch resistant hard acrylic, similar to that used for modern camera lenses. The brightness of the display can be adjusted or turned off using the internal user controls.
Status - full production
Preliminary Specifications.
Max Input MC ............................................................................................................................................26mV
Max Input MM .........................................................................................................................................116mV
Gain...................................................................................40dB( MM )-/58dB/61dB/64dB/67dB/70dB and 73dB
THD Distortion ............................................................................................................................<0.005% 1kHz
Signal to noise.(MC - 64dB Gain)................................................................................................................-75dB
Signal to noise.(MM - 40db Gain)................................................................................................................-83dB
RIAA ..............................................................................................................................................within 0.25dB
Stereo separation better than ...................................................................................................85dB - 20-20kHz
Input Loading Resistance - Input 1 MC.....................................................................22R/47R/100R/470R/1K/47K
Input loading Capacitance - Input 1 MC.........................................................120pF/1n0/2n2/4n7/10nF and 22nF
Input 2 - MM Input Loading(Fixed) ...............................................................................................47K with 120pF
Output impedance ..............................................................................................................................<10 Ohms
Max output level .......................................................................................................11.5v depending upon input
Dimensions WxHxL.................................................................................................175mm x 52.5mm x 160mm
Weight........................................................................................................................................................4.7kg
Power consumption (Max)...........................................................................................................................3.5W
Price MC3 & PSU3 together ................................................................................................................£1500.00
E&OE specification subject to change