Hi all,
This is my first post on WBF. I have been interested in Spectral Audio gear for years. However, the whole "guaranty is void" if used without the MIT Spectral cables have been somewhat of a turn off.
I was looking at a Spectral European dealer's
website (apologies, the website is in French only) yesterday and it indicates that it isn't required to use the MIT-Spectral cable anymore.
Is anyone able to confirm this information? And does this apply only to the newer models?
This would be a game changer.
Regards,
D.
PLEASE contact the factory as this is not what they told me last time I talked to the tech department there at all! Not sure what "Noir & Blanc" is up to making these claims. They're
not listed as official importer on Spectral's web site, those are still Audio Graffiti in Italy (AFAIK the first/oldest in Europe), Audio Components in Germany, More Music in the Netherlands and PS Audio in Denmark. Also, the bass boom and treble roll-off of the earlier MIT/Spectral cables are now a thing of the past: the Ultralinear 3/MIT Matrix series generation no longer appear to detract from the sonic excellence of the Spectral components in any way whatsoever (= to say I'm happy with the upgrade would be an understatement - I could always see what MIT was trying to achieve, but not without noticing the drawbacks, whereas now, I've been listening for months, and no longer have any complaints). Note I'm personally using MIT Oracle Matrix 50 (a step up from the Spectral/MIT UL-350 Ultralinear III which corresponds to the MIT Matrix 36) and Matrix HD 60 (equivalent to Spectral/MIT UL-60 HD Ultralinear III), but the point is to use Spectral-approved cabling because the choke that would normally be part of the output circuitry of a power amp is integrated in the loudspeaker cable network box(es) (hence the term "terminator" used for the large(r) box in older models, as the circuitry otherwise lacks termination). Add to that, since the loudspeaker cables are not a low-inductive design to make up for the capacity of the interconnect, but both IC and SC are designed to preserve time- and phase-coherence, and the filters used to achieve this goal
cannot feasibly be optimized in any other way than to make each and every cable sound neutral on its own (I used to design phase-shifting filters for different purposes, i.e. loudspeakers), in an MIT cable setup, the IC and SC do
not compensate for each other (one might say the price one pays using phase-shifting filters is there's no predictable compensation for each other's deficiencies, as compensation affecting the frequency response will cause group delay problems and thus defeat the very purpose of net-working) - which is why it's pointless to use standard/non-networked LF (low-frequency) cables in conjunction with MIT (nothing to do with power cabling and digital - those may well be by another brand), as the frequency response will then be affected by the
other cable (that is, a non-MIT loudspeaker cable may sound as if it had a treble roll-off, while in reality that treble roll-off is in fact due to the capacity of the non-networked IC etc.). In other words, the recommendation to use MIT LF cables in conjunction (again, nothing to do with digital or power cabling) has nothing to do with compensation - on the contrary, that's what "normal", i.e. non-networked cabling does (selected to compensate rather than be built for the purpose: standard LF cable combinations are random by comparison). In short, there is no mystery to what Spectral and MIT do: they're trying to build gear that does what it's supposed to do predictably (which philosophically speaking can be feasibly achieved only/most easily by emphasizing the neutral/flat behavior of each and every link in the chain).
I fail to see in what respect Spectral without MIT cabling, which already existed (the so-called "Universal" models, which Spectral fans agree sound inferior) would be a "game changer"? From a purely financial perspective? It's true that the amps would seem spectacularly competitive if it were not for the necessity of having to acquire MIT cables along with them - but sonically? I guess that depends upon one's definition of "perfection". I used to design/build loudspeakers, so perfection in cabling and amplification to me is no addition nor detraction to the signal (and I don't buy into all those attributes to the effect that Spectral sounds e.g. "fast" - it doesn't, it's merely that most amps have a more diminishing effect on reality). I wish I knew of a more affordable alternative that achieves this goal anywhere near the degree of perfection that Spectral does - but I don't.
Greetings from Switzerland, David.