Any McIntosh C48 owners out there?

On the McIntosh forum at audioaficionado.org there are several posts that may be of interest.

One post suggests the volume control function of the C42 is unique to that unit.
"One of the things that frustrated me with the C42 was McIntosh's optical volume control. It was Mac's first preamp to use their optically controlled volume. McIntosh chose to design the volume curve linear without the standard audio taper, which in subsequent preamplifiers this was corrected. This caused me to have to turn the volume up far past the point I was use to with all other preamps to achieve a given volume level. I am sure one can grow use to this, but I never cared for it."

Another owner gave a very positive endorsement to the C48:
"I have now lived about a month with the C48 instead of C220. i initially noticed how much quieter the C48 was. Now, after having used it for a while, i can say with great confidence that my stereo has never sounded as good! i am really happy with it, both as a pre and as a Dac."

Mglenn, I just picked up a C48 as it hit Audiogon last night, so will keep you abreast of what I think of it. I'm excited to get this thing!

Sid42,
I saw a C48 listed briefly at a very good price, which was actually less than some C46 preamps offered. Congratulations. I will be interested to hear your evaluation.

Well, I actually was lucky enough to find a used C48, and my observations are very similar to Mglenn's. But the biggest thing I noticed was that the sound was very clean and very spacious as compared to my former C37, which has the same specs as the C48. All-in-all, it's a terrific looking and sounding preamp. The volume control is very quiet and smooth, which was a big concern of mine, as I worried it might be like the C42's. It's not. It also has the 5-band equalizer, as compared to the 8-band Mac seems to like now, and even it's new stablemate, the C50, is using the 8-bander. The phone jacks have gone back to 1/4", vs 1/8" Mac's been using for awhile.
I can see me keeping this baby for a long time, heartily recommended.

I have owned a c48 for about 6 weeks now. I'm a bit frustrated with the DAC performance. Its very harsh when compared to my wyred4sound DAC2. Chuck Hinton at mcintosh said the soon to be released drivers for the usb will change how it sounds. Im skeptical since I was listening to 16/44 and even tried the digital coax in and still the harshness. It may very well be a great preamp, but its got two very serious flaws:

1. The only way to activate the HT Bypass is through a 12v trigger in. My wyred4sound DAC2 has that method in addition to a very simple "HT" button that puts it in bypass.

2. The DAC is disapointingly harsh and cloudy sounding.

I've been running the unit constantly since it arrived in hopes that its a break-in issue, but as of 6 weeks out nada, zip, no difference. I guess the wyred4sound unit is just that good, but something tells me it gets better (which is why I bought c48 to begin with).