Description
This is an incredibly rare, incredibly well-built Sansui C-2301 Preamplifier. It’s often referred to as the best preamplifier Sansui ever made. I’m not expert enough to know, but I can tell you the clarity of sound coming from this machine is stunning! Here’s an excerpt of a write up: “Fully balanced layout, carefully selected parts, 140µ PCBs, dual transformers, ditto for the phono stage (two real phono MC transformers), non-magnetic parts, special Hitacon caps (from Hitachi), pure-copper chassis plates, gold-plated terminals and switches, regulated power supplies, and - very elegant looks encased in wood and hidden behind a glossy front which is made of real glass. Mostly, the C-2301 is balanced from input to output, with a floating ground and all blocks isolated from each other. The volume pot is a gold-plated metal-film resistor wiped by 200 multiple-alloy brushes. Hardware-wise, I have the strange feeling we have been regressing since the late 1980s as none of the fairly affordable high-end I can see today sports anything like this - it seems all we can get is either cheap tricks with a thin front or mega-buck esoterica. And nothing in between. Glorious Sansui-black that is still sought after, if a little less than the companion power amp (B-2301) and its two other versions : B-2301L and the ultimate B-2302 Vintage. All three from the Basic Audio LegacyVINTAGE series, a somewhat misleading tag as neither are either basic or were, then, vintage... They are now, vintage, and they are also part of the GREAT legacy of music-making japanese high-end audio.” And another:“ The preamplifiers chassis consists of an extruded aluminum front panel attached to steel side panels which, in turn, are bolted to a steel back panel. Dark, persimmon-wood side panels, favored in several high-end Japanese components, decorate the steel inner chassis. Circuitry is mounted on 11 circuit boards, seven of which are mounted on the large, copper subchassis that covers most of the inner space. All major metal parts are fastened together with thread-forming sheet-metal screws.Circuit boards in the preamp are very high-quality glass-epoxy, single-sided, with solder mask and component designators. Circuit-board interconnects mainly use nickel-plated contacts in nylon housings; the cartridge-level internal wiring, on the other hand, utilizes thick cable and gold-plated RCA connectors. Component quality is very high, e.g., 1% resistors predominate. A particularly nice design touch in the C-2301 is the use of cable controls for the front panels selectors. Each drives a push-pull steel band in a plastic sheath that winds its way to a printed-circuit slide switch near the rear panel. This keeps input selection switching near the input jacks, so long leads do not run to the front panel, acting as antennas for hum, r.f.i. or crosstalk from the other channel.”Please let me know if you have any questions or would like additional pictures. If you check my feedback as a seller, you’ll note that I have a lot of buyers remarking on the quality of my packing. I take pride in over-protecting these vintage items so they arrive to you safely! Note: if you want shipping to AK or HI, there will be a surcharge - message me for info.Note: this is the 100v version, but I’m including the US 120v adapter (transformer) so you won’t need to find one (unless you live outside the USA).
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