New Bel Canto Gear at RMAF

Simon has absolutely left the company. Tvad feel free to shoot me an email if you want to discuss this further.

Dear Tvad,

Simon did more then (most of) voicing of latest iteration of Spectron amp. Everybody who auditioned Spectron stereo vs monoblock knows enormous difference between both. Yet, in most of the manuals its written by Chief Designer, John Ulrick that "we do NOT recommend to use this amp in monoblock mode " and given some "smart engineering" reasons.

Simon brought Bybee upgrade(for half-year management did not know about it or knew but forgot to audition yet) , Simon brought v-cap upgrade, Obviously I don;t know proprietary things but he even forced them to bring ceramic silver fuses, discard garbage Chinese-like soldering and use only pure WBT (that is until now...). Simon insisted that each and every change in amplifier can be upgraded to the owners of old amplifiers including Musician II made centuries ago to preserve capital invested by customer in original unit and raise "the brand loyalty".

Before he left he suggested the business plan where he introduced Musician IV concept, in details, - very new amplifier - but only as continuation of Musician III amplifier so any owner of older amp can ship it and be upgraded to the latest generation.

I cannot describe the reasons why he left the company, company almost nobody heard about before he jointed and now praised by everybody - but it mist be good reasons and I would venture only one guess - owners wanted more profit, now, today, after lunch!

We will see what will happened with Joule-Electra (new preamp is coming to my house...), Elrod and other companies he now works with. And he is "just" retired electrical engineer (not even audio engineer) and former concert pianist... and its all is hobby for him (he gets paid of course but his life does not depend on it)

I also want to see that will happened with Spectron and not in three years but in three months! Today's Spectron is first class product for sure. However, nobody knowledgeable answers phone now, nor answers e-mail now - do they think they sell refrigerators to idiots? Will they keep quality, expensive parts like silver fuses, will they do QA on each shipped amp.... we will see.

Their luck is that their production engineer is very hard working fellow so the product is always be supported.

Hundreds of new companies raised and died over last few decades and greed was usually main reason (of failure not rise).

All The Best
Rafael

Gents, whilst this is, uhrn. . . 'fascinating', we may want to migrate any further Spectron meta discussion to an appropriate Spectron-related thread. G.

Hello Guido,

The thread is dedicated to Bel Canto Ref 1000 Mk2 and I think concensus is that from first approximation these are first class, sorry D class ;--) amplifiers and we are trying to chat their place among that we condsider the best in class D.

I think Tvad raised excellent question: can we place among these few, the best - the company which a few people heard a few years ago and which dramatically (totally and radically!!!!!) changed its business model i.e. Guido - they want to be the different company (better for them, but does it mean better for customer?) and lost one of its main designers who also did rather profesional customer support. There are not so many such companies so I feel that Tvad question is more then appropriate. Things are so rapidly changes in this economy that I expressed my genuine (abslolutely genuine) interest where this company will be in just three months? and what other companies will be among best in class D in 3-6 months. For example, Simon left Spectron but he didn't die, did he... opened his own ("consulting" as he calls it) company... lets see.
This thread is very appropriate place to discuss Bel Canto and other current, former and future contenders... I feel

All The Best
Rafael