new to tubes, match for spectral amp

Good point flex.
Actually the reason I started thinking about this was while in a stereo store I happened to hear some audio research stuff with eidolons. The cables in use were actually the cables they usually use for the spectral setup.
That got me thinking about when I first listened to this stuff about 5 years ago and I heard an audio research preamp and an older spectral amp. I liked it but at that time in my novitate I only knew about the spectral amp and preamp combo (as Asa implies). Now I am a bit more curious.....and maybe more sacrilegous.

I tried a spectral pre with a cary tube power amp. It ended up being about as detailed a sound as I've ever heard in my system - but not my cup of tea even though I could've lived with it. I do agree with the above post that you should sort of decide which character you prefer and go that route - spectral and tubes are just apples and oranges - rather than trying to combine them. Perhaps if you went for the more neutral, less 'romantic' tube gear (CAT, ARC), you'd be happiest.

I suggest you listen to a complete tube system and then see if it's worth trying to compromise - find a dealer that will let you try the various options.

Beside ARC, I would listen to some Cary combinations or other tube options a good dealer can provide. It's hard to beat the sound of female jazz vocalists on a Cary system.

Good luck and good listening!

John Williams
jowillia@columbine.net

Hello J, we've exchanged thoughts before....I use both the gear you have and tube stuff in my rather complex system. As was said above, you should not mix your kind of Spectral gear with tubes. It will sound just plain awful. The advice given above, to listen to an entire tube system is excellent. I'd also lend the Jadis gear an ear. By the way, should you ever want to discard your 360's, drop me a line. I'll buy them from you, if we can agree on the price.
Happy listening,

I'm not being concrete (read: rigid), simply giving you my honest advice in a concise form. That you did not like its consequences in flexibility for your next purchase does not reduce my advice in the same manner.

Yes, flex, Eidolon is more harmonically rich to balance out people who buy SS, and particularly units like Spectral. The MIT does the same thing. At that, assumed, level of system balancing such divergent balancing in equipment profiles, in my humble opinion, is regressive.

This is an arranged system without the flexibility to move in as many directions as other systems because it designed to appeal to the audiophile who wants it done for him by a grouping of manufacturers working together in the first instant. This philosophy, while effective in the first instant, reduces flexibility thereafter. Flexibilty is not impossible, but tubes are incongruent with this system's balancing parameters. If the system still sounds sterile (even after the harmonically enhanced Avalons and MIT's...) then I would agree with the person who says to go with a tubed DAC.

Again, we need to know why the questioner finds his system needs changing and in what regards (a sudden move towards tubes assumes, usually, deficiencies in harmonics and spatial presentation, although the questioner never specifies this). Perhaps I wasn't being, er, concete enough in my first response...