The stunning DMA-500 Anniversary Reference monos take center stage
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I had the Ayre P-5xe. Was using true balanced-in which made for a very quiet phono, but nowhere near the XP-25's overall performance (OOTB or modified).
That's part of the Rockport, Massachusetts harbor; it's a quaint, artsy town right at the tip of Cape Ann. Lovely living up there, or where Peter lives, nearby.
That is Rockport harbor. Rockport is the town from which most of the granite used in the official buildings in New England was mined. That harbor in the background shows a large rock jetty where the ships came in to collect the large blocks of granite. Yes, it is quite beautiful. It is on the back side of Cape Anne, MA. My kids used to race their Opti sailboats in local regattas there. The view is to the north and west looking back at the coast with NH and ME in the far distance.
Tasos is right. It is a lovely small town, right on the ocean, pretty far away from the crowds of Boston. There is a vibrant art and music scene there. Quintessential New England.
I enjoyed reading this post and everyone's impressions.
Did you sell any of your friends on Spectral after this listening session?
Btw, a Spectral phono stage would certainly look nice on your rack to replace that XP-25
Al was sold long ago, IF he were to switch to solid state. At the end of the day, economics and sonic priorities are the first criteria
Tasos, can you describe what happens to the sound of your system when you use different settings on your MIT cables? I wanted to ask about that during the visit, but forgot. I think you mentioned that you now use the lowest setting. If this is the case, and you prefer that setting for sonic reasons, why do you think MIT has the higher settings?
I would consider Spectral, but I don't like having to commit to a specific cable manufacturer. Also, the brand seems to have a very strong following, but one must commit to their dealer network which basically means full retail pricing and little flexibility. The other concern is that their older models were once described as being excellent, but they existed only to be replaced fairly quickly with newer models which seem to have improved quite a bit in terms of noise and power. I remember very specifically when Goodwins tried to sell me the 360 only a few years ago as the latest and greatest, and I think you said they could not control your speaker load. The new 500s are obviously a much improved design.
I would consider Spectral, but I don't like having to commit to a specific cable manufacturer. Also, the brand seems to have a very strong following, but one must commit to their dealer network which basically means full retail pricing and little flexibility. The other concern is that their older models were once described as being excellent, but they existed only to be replaced fairly quickly with newer models which seem to have improved quite a bit in terms of noise and power. I remember very specifically when Goodwins tried to sell me the 360 only a few years ago as the latest and greatest, and I think you said they could not control your speaker load. The new 500s are obviously a much improved design.
The sound gets edgy with the HD setting, and timbre is affected; it only takes a few seconds to tell. I've been on SD for years, ever since the resolution got high enough.
If you don't believe in system design, then forget about Spectral, FM Acoustics, Constellation, or Boulder - they all match with and/or require specific cables (and with the exception of FMA, all others are made by MIT; FMA requires you to buy theirs, be it speaker cables, phono cables, or other). The MIT cables are required for a number of technical reasons discussed over the years, since the amps are unfiltered wide-bandwidth designs (so is Constellation, BTW) - see numerous emails I've sent you on this. If you do not appreciate the technical reasons for cable matching, then steer clear.
People may like other cables, but the equipment will not sound right. It's a non-winning fight. If I were you, as discussed a few times in the past, I'd be more concerned about the stabilizing output inductors in your amps (and so many others), than which cables work with Spectral; ditto for the input capacitors in your amps, which you removed (a good thing).
Regarding full retail price, you are looking at it the wrong way in this case: the margins are very low, and the dealer actually pays for shipping as well. The equipment is low to limited production, and the waits very long. No one's going to give you a break.
Regarding the latest and greatest, forget about what the dealer says, of course he would try to sell anything to you; your ears are the judge. You need to bring any equipment home and tell for yourself, like you do with your Pass. Shaping an opinion based on what you read around the 'net or hear at my place, for example, may not be the right way to do it; for example, you mentioned how soft the Drum record sounded when I had the 360s in here... well, I can tell you, it was the arm and noise around the system more than the amps. By contrast, I had written years ago here at WBF about how well the 360s drove the Q7s at the dealer's... they did have a euphonic sound to a certain extent, and the bass was overripe, no disagreement there.
Years ago, I made a request to Spectral (and I am sure I was not the only one, and hopefully it did reach the product owner), which appears to have materialized: "give us the recording," and leave the soup making to others.
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Ok so here we go...
Not to take away from this thread topic but, I also struggled with some of the reservations Peter mentioned in his post above. It had mostly to do with the MIT requirement for Spectral
I kept on telling myself they are tone controls etc... We've all read and heard people's two cents on networked cables so, I'm not even gonna go there.
But, the and the big but as Tasos mentioned above. Spectral is designed as system. That system is the pre+amp+MIT Cables at the minimum.
Keep in mind you can drive a third party amp with Spectral pre-amp just not the other way around. That's what I did before I was able to acquire a Spectral amplifier.
MIT cables are also available as Spectral Ultralinear 2C3D series without the dials and fancy casework. You don't need MIT ACC 268 to enjoy Spectral.
When implemented successfully , Spectral sounds very special indeed. Now, that sound might not be for everyone but, to me its very special.
From this post, It sounds like the SV amps are indeed unique to the industry. While other manufacturers have pursued a designer's subjective bias to make an amp sound like they want it to sound. Nelson Pass has even said himself, he wants to make a solid state amplifier sound like a tube amp. But, what does that solve? It is just another flavor which is great and lots of people enjoy it...
But...
Spectral has been pursuing identifying these distortions in audio components and removing them. The end result, with this SV architecture is the space, dimensionality , musicality , tonality ...whatever we audiophiles want to call it. It was always there in the recoding, just distorted by the electronics/playback equipment.
Once those distortions are removed there is the recording right in front of you. The SV technology has gotten us there. It's taken 40 years but, it's here now with today's semiconductor technology.
Spectral hedged their bets on the only way to experience this the way it was recorded is via a system wide approach. The component before and after and time/phase aligned MIT interconnects/speaker cables all contribute to this system.
MIT's poles of articulation are keeping the signal as linear as possible throughout the frequency spectrum (at least my understanding). So we have the most linear electronics and respective cabling.
The end result delivered to the loudspeakers and the listener is quite special.
After hearing this approach, I've subscribed to it myself and have no further reason or desire to pursue anything else.
Now, if we ever got an SV phono stage and an SV DAC then we would be set. And you can bet there are quite of few people already lined up to buy them without ever even hearing them.
Happy Holidays to all.
Not to take away from this thread topic but, I also struggled with some of the reservations Peter mentioned in his post above. It had mostly to do with the MIT requirement for Spectral
I kept on telling myself they are tone controls etc... We've all read and heard people's two cents on networked cables so, I'm not even gonna go there.
But, the and the big but as Tasos mentioned above. Spectral is designed as system. That system is the pre+amp+MIT Cables at the minimum.
Keep in mind you can drive a third party amp with Spectral pre-amp just not the other way around. That's what I did before I was able to acquire a Spectral amplifier.
MIT cables are also available as Spectral Ultralinear 2C3D series without the dials and fancy casework. You don't need MIT ACC 268 to enjoy Spectral.
When implemented successfully , Spectral sounds very special indeed. Now, that sound might not be for everyone but, to me its very special.
From this post, It sounds like the SV amps are indeed unique to the industry. While other manufacturers have pursued a designer's subjective bias to make an amp sound like they want it to sound. Nelson Pass has even said himself, he wants to make a solid state amplifier sound like a tube amp. But, what does that solve? It is just another flavor which is great and lots of people enjoy it...
But...
Spectral has been pursuing identifying these distortions in audio components and removing them. The end result, with this SV architecture is the space, dimensionality , musicality , tonality ...whatever we audiophiles want to call it. It was always there in the recoding, just distorted by the electronics/playback equipment.
Once those distortions are removed there is the recording right in front of you. The SV technology has gotten us there. It's taken 40 years but, it's here now with today's semiconductor technology.
Spectral hedged their bets on the only way to experience this the way it was recorded is via a system wide approach. The component before and after and time/phase aligned MIT interconnects/speaker cables all contribute to this system.
MIT's poles of articulation are keeping the signal as linear as possible throughout the frequency spectrum (at least my understanding). So we have the most linear electronics and respective cabling.
The end result delivered to the loudspeakers and the listener is quite special.
After hearing this approach, I've subscribed to it myself and have no further reason or desire to pursue anything else.
Now, if we ever got an SV phono stage and an SV DAC then we would be set. And you can bet there are quite of few people already lined up to buy them without ever even hearing them.
Happy Holidays to all.
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