What do you guys think of Spectral?

I agree with John 1. I had the DMC 20 with the DMA 180 and the top of the line MIT. The MIT never sounded so good. The Spectral and MIT combo is super detailed and transparent. The cool sound that John 1 talks of is what I was hearing on too many records. On the best recordings the Spectral and MIT combo was magical. Precision, detail and transparency is what spectral is all about. The Spectral gear is also some of the best made stuff I have seen. As far as a more detailed sound, I think Spectral will be hard to beat. I was very impressed with Spectral and I am not a SS fan. Be very careful with setup, Spectral gear will show off any flaws else where in your system.

One of my friends has this stuff. Probably the most precise and highly detailed equipment I have every heard. Spectral and Pass Labs are on their own cloud in this respect. A little cool sounding but I guess that's an artifact of the precision. I tend to prefer warm sounding systems too. I noticed his system did not really come into it's own until he put in MIT z system and the top gun MIT cables. Exactly as noted above. The stuff is so precise that it accentuates any flaw in the chain. My pass labs equipment is definitely more forgiving - I plug that directly into the wall.

I have finally gotten my spectral setup sounding warm yet detailed but only after extensive ac work. By that I mean I have installed dedicated outlets and a quieting transformer as well as the MIT line conditioning gear. I have MIT cables and Avalon Arcus speakers. The system is now very musical while still having the speed and detail of the Spectral electronics. Most people think Spectral is bright and if not used with the best in surrounding equipment and ac, they would be right! Hope this helps, Tim

I've used Spectral DMC20 (modified) and DMA180 on ML Monolith and Audiostatic ESLs. They did seem to perform best with the best ($$$) MIT cables, (tended to tame a slightly dry upper mid, lower treble). Outstanding sonics with turntable as source with lots of detail. Ultimately, I went with tubes which were more satisfying with the electrostatic panels. In my system, OTL amps produced the best sound that I consistently got from ESLs. Enjoy.