Classe preamps CP 47.5, CP 60 & CP 65

[DM3000 Owner]

What are your experiences with Classe CP 47.5, CP 60 and CP 65 preamps? Has anyoen compared them? How about the phono boards?

[Glen B]

I've owned the CP-35 (late model with digital display), CP-45 and CP-50 (which you left out). The CP-50 and CP-60 are similar, sharing the same basic circuit, except that the latter has an external power transformer and greater on-board power supply filtration.

The CP-50 has some features like gain and phase reversal available only from the remote, whereas the CP-60 has buttons for all features and inputs on the front panel. The CP-50 offers about 95 percent of the performance of the CP-60.

The CP-47.5 was an attempt to provide some of the performance of the CP-50, but at a lower price point. The 47.5 was the one model that had cheaper stamped metal RCA jacks versus the usual solid metal "Tiffany style" jacks found on all Classé products. To the best of my knowledge, the CP-65 was similar to the CP-60 except for different cosmetics and some automated configuration features.

All models are typically warm, smooth, detailed and transparent. These traits increase as you go up the model chain, along with greater naturalness of timbre. Of the three models I've owned, the CP-50 also had notably better bass performance.

The phono boards offer excellent performance. The CP-45 and CP-47.5 share the same model phono board. The CP-50 and CP-60 also share the same more elaborate and expensive phono board.

[DM3000 Owner]

Hve you compared them to other preamps? I have a long rca run (about 35 feet) and woudl like to go with Balanced interconnects. I am using a Musical Fidelity A308CR preamp.

I love the preamp but it only has RCA outs. It would be nice to have RCA and XLR so that I can go balanced to my amp and RCA to my subwoofer (or xlr if a second pair of outputs is included).

[Glen B]

I originally moved B&K Sonata MC-101 to Classé. At one time I had an Adcom GTP-555II pre/processor in my separate HT system concurrently with the CP-45 in my 2-channel system. Other than those, I've only compared Classé vs Classé.