Bel Canto Ref 1000 vs. Spectron Musician III Mk 2

I have not compared them one on one, but I have had both in my system, granted there were a few amps between them as I was testing out amps.

I preffered the Bel Canto, I thought it had more lower end slam, and a bit more "sparkle" on the top. I was using Maggies and Spectron sounded a bit on the bright side to me.

Underwood HiFi, through Parts Connexion, offers an upgrade on the Bel Canto's. Given how great their other mods are I would love to hear this modification.

Good luck.

Dob, it doesn't sound like you have ever heard either but are going by what others say?

I had the amps discussed in the thread. My system is listed with my response, but in case you missed it: Maggie 3.6r's and Cary SLP98p F-1 preamp.

Kiwi, I since you have an SLP-05 I should also tell you that I tried many, many amps before I ended up with my current amps, the Cary Audio CAD 500 MB. I use them with Maggies, so how they react with your ML ClX's could be different.

These are the amps I used/tried in the order I ranked them:

1) Cary Audio CAD 500 MB

2) Innersound ESL (now Sanders Sound)

3) Bryston 7Bsst (not the new 2 version)

4) Parasound Halo JC-1

5) Bel Canto Ref 1000 (not the new version)

6) Bryston 4bsst (great sound, but not enough power for the Maggies)

7) Spectron Musician III MK2,

8) McIntosh 501's (great amp, but didn't match with Maggies, they sound great with a buddies 802's)

There were actually a couple more, but they these are the ones I spent the most time with.

I have not had the Wyred4Sound mono blocks, but I hear nothing but great things about them, and I have also heard from similar planar/electrostatic users that the new Sanders Sound amps, while similar to the Innersound amps are actually even better.

Good luck, lots of good options.

MagFan, look up the list, the Bryston 7bsst is on there too. It was much better, stellar in fact. Yes, the 4Bsst did not have enough juice compared to most of the others on that list, did not open up the speakers. No problem with the room, changing the amps did the trick.

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