Bel Canto Ref 1000 vs. Spectron Musician III Mk 2

I've never heard Spectron but the bass with BC ref1000mk2 is interesting. When I first heard them compared to my prior amp, a Musical Fidelity A3CR, I wondered where the bass was. It turned out it was there more than ever just so tight and controlled and 3 dimensional that it was disorienting at first.

For me nowadays the bass is just right. Its all there, tight and articulate yet powerful. It does not mask or overpower the midrange and allows that to come through nicely. Top end is slightly recessed compared to the MF I believe, but is still all there and non-fatiguing.

One of the more telling things about the bass with the BC ref100mk2s is that everything I play is cleaner and more defined and dynamic top to bottom than most anything else I have heard. Even modern loudness wars CDs that contain a lot of energy throughout and often a lot of deliberately muscled up bass are delivered again most tightly and articulately. These and large scale classical recordings that are also delivered best with some muscle combined with refinement are the kinds of recordings that I notice the biggest difference in. Nothing rattles the BC on either of my two pair of OHM speakers. Same true on my smaller monitors, however there more the size of the speaker becomes the bottleneck in regards to overall bass impact and effect. many recordings like these that just never sounded quite right before do now. And the more relaxed acoustic types of music as well as both male and female vocals are still spot on as well. Really hard to find fault.....

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.

Impedance matching to pre-amp especially if a tube pre-amp is always a consideration for any amp, not just SPectral or Class D.

Stock Icepower modules have 10K input impedance which is not optimal for use with most tube pre-amps.

BC ref1000 uses stock Icepower modules and has 10K input impedance.

BC ref1000m has a separate input stage with 100K input impedance which should match well to most any pre-amp. It seems to do well with my ARC sp16.

Spectron amps may vary regarding input impedance also from model to model I think I recall, so best to know exactly what model you are dealing with and its input impedance specs if to be used with most tube pre-amps.

I take any user accounts of SS amp performance with a grain of salt especially when used with a tube pre-amp because matching impedance and its effect on amp/pre-amp synergy is not something that many take into consideration up front before buying unfortunately.

DAn,

I would like to hear a good Spectron someday for comparison to my BEl Canto ref1000m mononblocks, which have been a home run for me to-date (I picked them up second hand over a year ago now).

My experience with the ref1000m's was that when I first hooked them up, the sound was so different from what I had just prior with a Class A Musical Fidelity A3CR that I did not know what to make of it. So it was definitely different. In my case however, once my ears adjusted I determined the sound was miles ahead and more in line with reference systems I have heard using very high end gear only.

I will say that the amps seem to benefit my larger full range, current hungry OHM Walsh speakers more than they did my small Dynaudio monitors, so I think the benefits of Class D over other amps in general may be determined somewhat by the particular speakers used.

FWIW, I have not compared the BC ref1000m's to any other Class D amps, low or high end in any sort of meaningful test.

All I can state is that yes I find them hard to fault and they fit the bill perfectly for me.

I suspect I would like the Spectron's as well if I heard them though I would not expect the two to sound exactly the same.

There are lots of flavors of home sound (they are all just different flavors after all) out there that I like a lot and could live with if I had to, especially since I run multiple speakers in multiple rooms to provide some variety, which is of course the spice of life!