Bel Canto Ref 1000 vs. Spectron Musician III Mk 2

07-18-10: Radicalsteve
Kiwi,

I owned the Spectrons (monoblocks with bybee and v-caps) with my CLX's. They were very nice with my ML ReQuests, but with the enormous resolving power of the CLX's I found the Spectrons were brittle, lacking in depth and sounding strained. With my dealer we did a side by side comparison with my Plinius SA-250 and frankly is was no contest, the Plinius won hands down, especially in weight, nuance and texture.

Thanks for your comments. System synergy is everything and your source and room interaction will further either add or substract from the experience. I do understand where you are coming from. I have heard the CLX with uber expensive Ayre Acoustics KX-R with MX-R monos and frankly hated the starkness of it all.

the more I read on this sting, the more I think you neeed Sanders Sound amps.

Hello Kiwi,
About an year and a half ago, I also posted the same question as you did (my speakers are WATT/Puppy 8 soon to be replaced by Sasha, most power hungry speakers in Wilson line).

The same Ajackson urged me not to buy Spectron, the same Radicalsteve complained on Spectron with his new speakers (Apogee Scintilla and not what he claims today - but who cares, importantly he complained and Plinius 250 he likes is good amp for these who don;t care about its weight and heat).

These boys scared me and I decided not to buy Spectron first without home audition.

To make it short, I tried and fall in love with Spectron stereo then bought another one to run in monoblocks then got all Spectron upgtrades then got Remote Sense cable and finally, Joule-Electra preamp - I cannot be more happy then now. Absoutely in audio heaven.

I looked for many amplifiers and I have tried Bel Canto Ref1000 Mk2. Its good amplifier, don;t want to say a bad word BUT BUT BUT Spectron is in different class whatsoever - its effortless presentation, its midrange etc. I am sucker for midrange and I used to tube amps (last McIntosh 2102) - Spectron is better, more REAL.

Now, as you said Spectron has policy of 30 days home trial so I would use this opportunity - it may be your last amp.

BC ref100mkII is definitely not for those looking for very warm tube sound in an amp.

My experience is it delivers what is fed into it, ie if you use tube pre-amp and/or source, the sound of those will be delivered, but does not deliver any tube-like warmth in of itself.

Having said that, the midrange in my system is sublime along the lines of more neutral sounding tube gear I have heard but I would attribute the midrange to the combination of components not to the BC amp alone itself. it is not a substitute for those who must have a tube amp to be happy or to drive their particular speakers properly if those speakers are designed to work best with tube amps.