Translation Results Requested Through Conyac Made Public

"Ming Da" wasn't a name we'd heard before, but the sheer beauty of Meixing' Electronics' MC-7R valve preamplifier and the 'direct-from-the-manufacturer' pricing of ￡288 was too enticing a prospect for Jhon May to ignore...

This interesting preamp comes extremely well packed in a very sturdy cardboard box-within-2-box-
if weight is any indicator of quality, then the Ming Da MC-7R is supreme at 9.5kg the first thing that greets the user upon opening the first box is a pair of white cotton gloves.
These are included to avoid spolling the polished chrome appearance of the preamp or the included valves, It also brings a certain element of ritual to the proceedings - a nice touch in these 'plug & play' days ! The supplied instructions were all in Chinese, but the inputs / outputs are all clearly labelled, so this shouldn't pose a problem.
The MC-7R is sturdily built with its black, satin-brushed aluminium 9mm thick front, and 3mm thick back panel.
The classis is manufactured from polished stainless stell,apparently chosen for its non-magnetic properties.
The mains transformer with OFC windings is potted in a black crackle-finish enclosure situated at the rear of the pre.
Valves of unknown original are supplied, but appear to be well-made items.
According to their website their valves are manufactured in Russia, Czech and America.
They only use valves that have been tested for over 100 hours.
The double-triode compliment of 12AX7 and 12AU7 driver valves are visible at the front of the amp, with the 5Z3 rectifier
valve postitioned in the centre.
The MC-7R preamp comes with fours sets of inputs, and two sets of outputs should you wish to have it connected to two different systems.
In common with many pre-amplifiers these days, there is no phono stage.

Lack of said phono stage does have its plus points in that there is more budget which can be a located towards maximising
the quality of the line stages.
Users buying a preamp such as this are likely to choose their own separate phono stage anyway, so the omission is not
a glaring one.


Usually the gold-plated input sockets are positioned along the right-hand side of the pre-amp.
Visually I think this spoils the appearance of the amp once all inputs are in use.
Cunningly the unit is pictured without interconnects connected on the MexiXing website !
I would have preferred the input and output sockets to be at the rear.
The reasoning behind this thought is of achieving the shortest possible wiring between al the sockets and the internal components and valve bases inside the amp.
Internally the parts cotents is of a respectably high standard .Valve bases are all ceramic , silver-plated contact types.




Capacitors are Solen polypropylenes, with high voltage Rubycon electrolytics for smoothing and cathode-bypass positions.
Resistors are a mixture of 2w metal film and wire-wound types. Signal wiring is silver-plated copper.
Lastly, the volume pot is the ever-green Alps Blue. The unit is hard wired throughout which should aid in the sound quality stakes. Some capacitors are secured to the chasses with hot-melt glue, which should help in damping out any vibrations
in the components that could degrade the sound . The negative side of this however is that components are slightly harder to upgrade / replace than usual. It is also difficult to unsolder and remove components without causing heart damage to neighbouring ones.
Generally speaking internal construction quality is reasonably good, though attention to minor details like neater soldering
could be improved . Many of the connections appear hastily made and dirty, with lose strands of wire visible which had presumably been over-looked when the ends were tinned. This could potentially create a short especially between the connections on the valve bases, and is potentially very dangerous. This really letsless down an otherwise fantastically screwed- together piece of equipment. Quality control could do with some improvement evidently...