I had one of these back in 2010 and was mighty impressed with it both as an line level and phono pre amp, but its large and ugly and was replaced by a slightly prettier TOFT LBPA5.
Playing about with a DSpeaker Dual Core I thought the BBC SCA1 was the perfect pre amp to go infront of the equaliser allowing me to route multiple digital and analogue inputs to the Dual Core via the SCA1 listen/record 2 zone function. All worked wonderfully well until I tried to route high res digital audio. The SCA1 clearly only accepts 44.1khz and I am guessing but haven’t tried 48khz. I couldnt get it to pass 96khz which sort of killed the idea dead.
I have now routed my digital signals through the AV processor and used an old analogue switch for the others so the BBC SCA1 is no longer being used and is up for sale
Key info below:
BBC SCA1 pre amp- input router
Broadcast quality stereo pre-amp with phono stage built for the BBC by Morgan Smith.
Separate input and record on all inputs and balanced/single ended outputs on the listen side.
Key Features:
Analogue Listening
- High quality phono stage with earthing terminal
- 8 rear mounted line level inputs switchable between 0db and -10db
- 1 front mounted line level input switchable between 0db and -10db
- input gain control on 3 of the line inputs, front plus 2 rear
- Volume control for record and listen
- Mute switch for the monitor/listen output
- Single ended and balanced outputs
Analogue Recording/second zone listening
- Separate input and record sections means you can listen to one input whilst listening or recording on another. There are separate volume controls for both the main and record sections which means this can operate as a 2 zone preamp. Note the meter works on the record output signal not the monitor out.
- Single ended outputs only
- 7 analogue record outputs this could be used for multiple simultaneous recordings or routing to power amps in multiple rooms or multi amps on one multiple speakers.
Headphones
2 x broadcast quality headphone sockets
Digital Switching
- 5 of the input on the rear and one on the front can accept a digital signal, each switchable between coax and toslink and then output across 5 coax and 5 toslink outputs simultaneously.
- Note this only switches legacy digital signals, 44.1 tested, from the input to the outputs. It does not contain a DAC. It does not pass 96K signals.
Dimensions
Width: 43cm
Depth: 36cm including protruding switches/terminal on rear
(38 cm if you include knobs protruding on facia)
Height: 14cm
Weght: 6.5kg
£200 delivered to UK via UPS, £185 collected from close M1 J28
photos to follow