McIntosh C2600

The C2300 was one of the most admired McIntosh vacuum tube preamplifiers ever made. Its successor the C2500 has been even more popular. Building upon those successes is the C2600 which incorporates the best of the previous models while adding our advanced digital audio section and upgraded tube circuitry design.

The C2600 is a versatile vacuum tube preamplifier with an expansive set of 16 inputs to connect virtually all your analog or digital music sources. For audio purity, the analog and digital sections are housed separately in our dual chassis design to prevent signal corruption. Analog inputs include 3 balanced, 4 unbalanced plus 1 each dedicated Moving Magnet and Moving Coil phono inputs. Digital inputs consist of 3 optical, 2 coax, 1 USB and 1 McIntosh exclusive MCT connection. Three sets of balanced and unbalanced analog outputs will connect the C2600 to your amplifier.

“Lately, I’ve reviewed a few preamplifiers that are priced much higher than this preamp, but when I put the McIntosh C2600 in my system I was pleasantly surprised. I was not only surprised with its sonic performance, but that this performance comes with so many features. Its number of inputs, tone controls, programmability, not to mention high-performance internal DAC and superb phono section.” – EnjoyTheMusic.com

The C2600 features a 32-bit/384kHz, DSD digital-to-analog-converter (DAC). The optical and coax inputs will decode digital music at up to 24-bit/192kHz for high resolution audio playback. The C2600 is also capable of decoding and playing 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. When paired with the MCT500 SACD/CD Transport, the proprietary MCT input offers a secure DSD connection for playback of the high definition audio found on SACDs in order to deliver the purest possible sound quality.

“The McIntosh C2600 is among the finest preamplifiers we’ve tested. It has everything you need in one cabinet, which looks much more expensive than it is. The sound of C2600 is so natural, and it does not matter what kind of input you use.” – Lyd & Bilde

With the C2600, all inputs can be renamed to your preference and are available all of the time, giving you more freedom to configure your system. 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 accidentally turned off. Bass and treble tone controls can adjust individual sources as needed. For headphone listening, the addition of Headphone Crossfeed Director (HXD^®) brings an added dimension to your music. The Home Theater Pass Through feature allows for seamless integration into your multi-channel home theater system.

The C2600 features classic McIntosh design cues that not only blend with existing systems but also with any room décor. It can be paired with a variety of amplifiers, speakers, room correction devices, CD players, turntables and tuners to make a complete home audio system.