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Spectron Musician III - Can anyone comment on it?

I am currently on the hunt for a pair of amplifiers that have massive peak power capability with excellent micro dynamics and neutral presentation. I am driving a pair of Martin Logan Statement E2's

The Spectron Musician has been reviewed exceptionally well everywhere I looked and seems to fit the bill but I just can't get over 25 years of snobbery telling me to avoid switching amps because linear amps just sound better and, hey, the name on the faceplate ain't Krell or Mark Levinson!

Can I PLEASE get a few people with experience listening to these amps tell me why I should or shouldn't buy them?

I desperately want to buy a pair of the BAT VK-600SE's since I own mostly all BAT equipment but to produce, say, 110db peaks one would comfortably need several thousands watts of power in the bucket to meet the challenge. I don't think the BAT amps have that under the hood.

Advice?
sashua
tedmbrady
208 posts
 
Great review. I still stand by my recommendation that you could save the cost one one full stereo amp by monoblocking only the mid towers, not the bass tower. A stereo Mk2 will be enough there, really (as stated in the review, he uses 3 as well, for his 81 db inefficient Apogee Stages).
philefreak
423 posts
 
Well, I'm near 50hrs. The system goes from bass heavy to treble heavy. Listening to Anders Osborne, he whistles and it's just magical. I'm sure a whistle is hard to reproduce. I'm really shocked by these amps.
psag
518 posts
 
I just received my pair of Musician III SE Mk2 with bybee and V-cap upgrades, to use with Vandersteen 5a's (mandatory biwire). I set them up in biamp configuration with new speaker cables, and they sounded very nice right out of the box- very relaxed presentation and extended highs. I just got off the phone with Simon, and he recommends that I now try monoblock configuration, which will be my holiday project. Simon returned my email with a phone call on the eve of a holiday weekend- What audiophile company gives better service than that?
rkmcv
32 posts
 
Wow so much news on the Spectron, I have been out of the loop for a time.
I got my Spectron III SE MK 2 V-cap/Bybee SE broken in now am getting into the critical listening.
I am using my H-Cat pre amp and comparing Spectron to BEL 1001 MkV mono block set on Usher 718 BE and Adagio Jrs for now.
My SP-Tech Revelation MR1 MkIII will be in this fall.

To start, I must echo the above.
I have never heard a purer unrestrained reproduction of the recorded input.
CD Denon 3910 modified Upgrade Co., Soundstring cables/cords.

With the Tremendous Increases going to mono block and the simplified set-up compared to verticle bi-amping I also concur that as the way to go.
UMMV,

Rod

More to come,
And a 2nd to go mono too!

Rod
tedmbrady
208 posts
 
For those that went from a well broken-in stereo Spectron to monoblock config, how did you manage the break-in process of the new (say left channel) amp? Did you run it as a stereo amp on another system? If so, did you run it loud or soft, does that even matter?

I'd normally run a new piece of euqipment softly and for a long time, when not actually listening, but to "integrate" or "introduce" a brand new amp into a monoblock situation is a different story; I don't want my left channel way out of whack to my right. So I will likely need to put it on a different signal source (easy for me to do; I have a second pre, my surround Continuums, a separate SB3 that i can run in a 24/7 loop, etc.) and wondered what other monoblock converts have done. Thx
Ted
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