So as mentioned here a couple of times, the word is that this is quite the stereo amplifier. Well, I got a taste of it myself, and it is glorious, and at $9K I think a bargain. While still short of its bigger brethren (the 360 monoblocs at more-than-twice the price) in terms of ultimate clarity and dynamic headroom, the 260 has the usual huge Spectral soundstage, very see-through transparency, incredible driver control, speed and bass performance - yes, deep bass out of the V3 to fill a huge room!
The set up included the SDR-4000S Pro CD player, the 30SS preamp, MIT Magnum MA speaker cables (I am not a big fan of those) and MIT Matrix HD interconnects. I played anything from small instrumental, to jazz to large scale classical, and the ease with which it drove the speakers was phenomenal. The lack of ultimate dynamic headroom compared with the monos is evident, but to some perhaps not significant.
Compared to the well respected DMA-250 that it replaces (and I had owned), the improvement is easily discernible, and I can see why Steve was thrilled when he heard the 260 with Sophia 3's recently. I think the new transformers Spectral put in there (claimed to be the best they have ever designed) are responsible for a large part of this improvement. I think we will be seeing quite a few DMA-250's on the used market...
Peter
The set up included the SDR-4000S Pro CD player, the 30SS preamp, MIT Magnum MA speaker cables (I am not a big fan of those) and MIT Matrix HD interconnects. I played anything from small instrumental, to jazz to large scale classical, and the ease with which it drove the speakers was phenomenal. The lack of ultimate dynamic headroom compared with the monos is evident, but to some perhaps not significant.
Compared to the well respected DMA-250 that it replaces (and I had owned), the improvement is easily discernible, and I can see why Steve was thrilled when he heard the 260 with Sophia 3's recently. I think the new transformers Spectral put in there (claimed to be the best they have ever designed) are responsible for a large part of this improvement. I think we will be seeing quite a few DMA-250's on the used market...
Peter