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In Reply to: B&K Sonata MC-101 posted by Ranger55 on March 29, 2022 at 15:37:01:
The B&K MC-101 was basically a Pro-10 MC with tone controls. Alas, the tone controls, in our experience, degraded the MC-101's sonic performance. They seemed to add grain, and reduce transparency.
The MC-101 could be used with or without the 20dB gain stage. With the gain stage activated, the volume control remained at MIN. In passive mode, we were finally able to get some play with the volume control knob. With the equipment and speakers we had, we never turned the volume control past 9:00. Although the passive mode was quiet, it robbed the music of life. We were constantly bored, and my friends and family often lost interest and fell asleep. That is monumentally wrong.
The MC-101 was "sensitive" to interconnects. It sounded murky, with AudioQuest ICs. It didn't sound right (square peg/round hole), with the Kimber PBJ and Silver Streak. It was boring and airless, with MIT Terminator 2. Wireworld Eclipse III was okay. In some ways, the best match for the MC-101 was Cardas Quadlink 5-C.
The MC-101 came with an outboard power supply. In hindsight, we wish we had an audiodharma Cable Cooker in the 1990s, in order to treat the 5-pin XLR.
In our opinion, the star of the MC-101 was its phonostage. You had to go inside the unit, to adjust the settings. But once you got them right for your cartridge, the MC-101s phonostage was relatively quiet, which allowed it to be more accurate (far more so than the, for example, Conrad-Johnson PV-10A). So as you threw various turntables, arms, carts, and phono cables at the MC-101, the latter did a good job of letting you know what was going on. I thought the Sumiko BPS, on either a SOTA Comet or Rega Planar 3, was an outstanding match for the MC-101.
The MC-101 does not have remote control.
For $200, you could get the MC-101 with XLR analog outputs. However, these were wired with pin-3 positive. Most consumer balanced power amps had (and still have) pin-2 positive.
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Follow Ups
- RE: B&K Sonata MC-101 - Luminator 20:07:32 03/29/22 (0)
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