The Best Tube Amplifiers vs Spectron ?

F- the Spectron guards. It is what it is. The Spectrons are amazing amplifiers and do some things amazingly well. In the end I preferred the BAT 600 Monos. To me and my ears the Spectrons had a very slight "digital" sound to everything. The BATs were more like a tube amp if you will. Images were better fleshed out and everything sounded more palatable. I also preferred the soundstage of the BATs. It gave me a nice layering and depth that wasn't there with the Spectron. I think the Spectrons are fun and eye opening at first but for me over the long haul I would prefer something different. Yes I am one of the old tube guys that were talked about earlier. I can see what musicians would like about the Spectrons as they are very accurate. To each his own. Enjoy!

Hello Bruceeboy.

There is no need to F- anyone, please. I am interested in your comparison beween Spectrons and BAT 600SE monos. Incidently, I know recording engineer in L.A. who compared both and preferred Spectron, may be again, as you said, he preferred that musician preferred. At any rate , when you said that Spectron has very slight "digital" sound I wonder if you have auditioned them with V-cap [oil/teflon] cap upgrade? BAT600 has similar optional upgarde of oil caps in the power supply for $3k and in monos its $6k. Spectron has its upgrade for $3k for its monos - so may be they should add more oil capacitors...

I am sure we(Spectron owners) will learn something interesting from your reply.

Thank you in advance.

Rafael

Compared against the 'best' tube amps? There are a lot of tube amps out there (more manufacturers in the US now than in 1958). Did you listen to all of them :) ??

Hi Rafael,

My audition was with the MKIII with the V-cap option. The BATs also have all the upgrades. I also preferred Ralph's Atma-Sphere MA-2's over the Spectrons. Again I can't describe it other than to say, to me the BAT's and the Atma-Spheres sound more like real music then the Spectrons. More organic maybe while the Spectron while sweet enough are more sterile sounding. Again personal preferences. Thanks.

It's quite interesting that several posters have found a SS (class D no less) that seems to stand up with some of the top designs. I have heard the Sigfreids on several occasions and found them to be excellent.

But looking over StereoMojo's review, James Darby provides some insight into why one may want to choose this amp, and why in some circumstances, another may be a better choice.

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FACT A: If you have speakers that are legitimately very efficient with high sensitivity (those specs are dodgy as well), you do not need these amps. Or probably even one of them. Examples are single-horn types or full-range models like those by Coincident which have good sensitivity and benign, amp friendly impendence curves.

FACT B: If you have 100 or 200 wpc amp (specs are tricky here, too!) driving rather inefficient speakers with impendence curves that range all over the place and you listen at moderately loud to loud levels to music other than harpsichord solos in a largish room, you are probably listening to large amount of distortion and/or clipping.
The size of the speaker does not matter. Some small speakers (like Brit monitors) are notoriously hard to drive.