Thiel Owners

arvincastro

Good to see you again. ARC is well represented in this thread. Several satisfied fans/owners are here.

Happy Listening!

arvincastro & rascs4 & tmsrdg,

vair68rober'ts post on 02/18/2020 @ 10:07 is Not quite right, actually, not right at all. I do asume that I was the friend who had Sectral's amp and preamp for 10 years.

I was a Spectral owner for 20 years, not 10 years. I also, never had an issue with my Spectral gear in that entire 20 years. Rob should know better, since I met him and have known him since October of 1971.

He has become a wannabe, that gets his info from the web, reviews of others and apparently faulty memory.

In 2016, I decided to totally revamp my entire system. 2 new TTs, new Pass lab electronics, New speakers, which I just got at Christmas 2019, ( Wilson Yvettes.) My Avalon Opus were 14 years old.

My Spectral gear, held its value very well. I bought most of it used and bargained hard for the prices that I paid for it and though it took me 2+ years to sell the entire system to one (1) guy, I only lost $1800.00 on the entire Spectral / MIT system. 

My Avalon Opus went with the Wilson Yvettes that I just bought.

So, arvincastro, rascs4, tmsrdg; If you really want accurate info from a longtime Spectral owner / user; you can feel free to PM me. If we need to exchange phone numbers and talk, we can do that too.

                                                 

tmsrg 
I should apologize for being cheeky and for my faulty memory .

The music goes on .

Rob

Happy Friday! All

@ tmsrdg and @ nkonor
Thanks for your question. It looks like Spectral is getting a lot of attention here recently. I am also a long term Spectral owner, going back to the mid 90s and as I mentioned before I have never had any reliability issues apart from a backlit logo failing 15 years out of warranty. 

 I am only superficially familiar with your Berkley D/A, I have read their reviews. Remember the amplifiers can reproduce high frequencies much higher than the output of the D/A- which is 59KHz . The amps are rated to over a mega or million Hz. Without knowing what the analog circuits are doing at extreme frequencies you are and Spectral techs will confirm that you are running risk of damaging the amplifier. 

In addition, I see the the maximum energy usage of the Berkley is 25-30 Watts, which to me infers that you would likely do better to have the Spectral preamp between the D/A and the amp. Remember the D/A will have to drive not only the interconnect cables, but also the input impedance of the amp. The output of the D/A does not have a current rating but does have a maximum output voltage of 3.25V. The preamps from Spectral typically have a peak to peak voltage capability of 100V and maximum current output of 1amp (!!), fully comfortable with driving difficult loads. 

I have heard the phrases of "wire with gain" or "the best preamp is no preamp." I would agree that it is very counter intuitive to add something between the source and the amplifier and not lose information in the process. But, I have heard in my system, in friend's systems, adding a preamplifier can dramatically improve the sound of the system because it is more comfortable driving the cables + amplifier. By dramatic, I mean in every way- quieter background, deeper bass and drive, complex harmonic textures revealed, wider and deeper soundstage, holographic imaging, more engaging dynamics.

Spectral did make an amplifier called the DMA 150 Universal in the early 2000s that had an extra, small internal circuit board that allowed you to switch the amp to work with a non-Spectral preamplifier. But engaging the circuit that limited the bandwidth of the amp at its input and was detrimental.

I would recommend a preamp. I would gladly trade you one of mine for your CS3.7s :) 

Hope this is helpful and I am happy to have discovered this thread.
Happy listening!