I am not surprised. If you look at my system, I have a low speed fan on top of the unit; I run it at 3.3V and it's extremely quiet - highly recommended. I will do the same on my amps soon.
First thoughts on the Spectral DMC-30SS Series 2
- Thread starter ack
- Start date
Hi jtein,
I am not very involved with the audiophile scene in the Philippines. I just hang around with a few friends who are also in this hobby. For you to get a feel of the audiophile scene here, please check out www.wiredstate.com. If you do not wish to join, you can read the few topics that are open to non members. If you like to see all the topics, then I suggest you become a member, then decide to stay a lurker or contribute some posts.
I am not very involved with the audiophile scene in the Philippines. I just hang around with a few friends who are also in this hobby. For you to get a feel of the audiophile scene here, please check out www.wiredstate.com. If you do not wish to join, you can read the few topics that are open to non members. If you like to see all the topics, then I suggest you become a member, then decide to stay a lurker or contribute some posts.
You are very welcome over there jtein. We have members from Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong but most are from the Philippines and filipinos in the US. We try to have members post in english so most posts are such except the humor threads where many go colloquial. WBF members audiostar and jadis are moderators there while myself, dante and rvc serve as the executive board.
Thanks mullard and Jack for your kind invitation. Will take a look at it.
I have been thinking of how to comment on the series II upgrade. I was satisfied with my series I. The upgrade was a bit of a now or much later proposition on the financial end. I was not expecting significant changes, I was in for a pleasant surprise.
It's been about two weeks and I'm having a difficult time describing the changes. There was nothing a miss with my series I. The series II does increase the body of instruments/performers, a seemingly increase in depth and presence of performers. I think I'm losing the distinct memories of the series I. One of my concerns was excessive gain as the series I was a nice match. I have changed my phono preamp to the middle gain setting and I run about 40-50% of the volume. I believe there were comments regarding heat, my unit runs no warmer than my series I, perhaps a touch cooler at idle.
I can say that I am pleasantly surprised with the upgrade. I was a bit of a skeptic as some upgrades are difficult to detect as notable increases in performance, especially at showrooms and unfamiliar systems.
Enjoying music.
It's been about two weeks and I'm having a difficult time describing the changes. There was nothing a miss with my series I. The series II does increase the body of instruments/performers, a seemingly increase in depth and presence of performers. I think I'm losing the distinct memories of the series I. One of my concerns was excessive gain as the series I was a nice match. I have changed my phono preamp to the middle gain setting and I run about 40-50% of the volume. I believe there were comments regarding heat, my unit runs no warmer than my series I, perhaps a touch cooler at idle.
I can say that I am pleasantly surprised with the upgrade. I was a bit of a skeptic as some upgrades are difficult to detect as notable increases in performance, especially at showrooms and unfamiliar systems.
Enjoying music.
I have some information that might be helpful to mullard88; I've owned a DMC30SS series 2 for a little more than one year now. Right after I recieved it, I started to have several problems similiar to mullard88. The most dangerous was "run away volume". When I would adjust the volume, the unit would take off (by itself) and go to full volume. This behavior was witnessed by several of my friends. It also exhibiting other issues like the protection light coming on, and the unit not responding to inputs. Of course I immediately reported this to my distrubitor and he got in contact with Spectral. Off the unit went to Spectral where it was tested thoroughly. They found nothing. But, to be safe, they replaced anything they thought might be contributing to the problem. I got the unit back but much to my dismay, it still exhibited the same problems. I spoke to Marc at service several times. He's a very knowledgable guy but all he could say was that I must have some other active IR source that was causing the micro-processor to go crazy. I did a little research on-line and found some info that stated that certain fluorescent light ballasts have been found to interfer with IR remotes. I was happy to try anything, so I replaced the ballasts in my room. This completely cured all my problems.
The story doesn't end here though; it had been a year with absolutely no problems, then it started again. I called Marc to ask if he had anything new to report. He did confirm that light ballasts can be a problem for this unit, but we were both confused because I had replaced every ballast in my room. I did some more testing and this is what I found; I had recently purchased an esoteric X-01 CD player. It seems that it's remote had something like a "stuck" button that made the remote emit a continuous signal. Once I corrected this, everything works fine.
So, I'm very happy with the spectral unit, but it's remote control system seems to be sensitive to outside influences.
I say that because I've had several other remote controlled units in the same room without problems, only the spectral unit exhibited this behavior.
so if your unit starts to act up, I would put IR interference on the list of things to look into.
Michael Mizner
Tucson Arizona
The story doesn't end here though; it had been a year with absolutely no problems, then it started again. I called Marc to ask if he had anything new to report. He did confirm that light ballasts can be a problem for this unit, but we were both confused because I had replaced every ballast in my room. I did some more testing and this is what I found; I had recently purchased an esoteric X-01 CD player. It seems that it's remote had something like a "stuck" button that made the remote emit a continuous signal. Once I corrected this, everything works fine.
So, I'm very happy with the spectral unit, but it's remote control system seems to be sensitive to outside influences.
I say that because I've had several other remote controlled units in the same room without problems, only the spectral unit exhibited this behavior.
so if your unit starts to act up, I would put IR interference on the list of things to look into.
Michael Mizner
Tucson Arizona
Nice to finally understand this problem. So here we have a wide bandwidth design in all sorts of ways 
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