Review: Spectral DMC-30SL

I couldn't agree more...love the dmc30sl for it's ultra revealing ways, and the overall Spectral/Avalon sound for sheer musicality.

Just wanted to add another datapoint tho' not exactly related to the DMC-30SL:-

Today an audiophile friend kindly brought over his Spectral DMC-20 2-chassis preamp. We compared it to my CAT SL1 Mk3 in my system. The DMC-20 is a fantastic preamp indeed & I agree with 'Shubertmaniac' that the DMC-20 put back heart & soul into the music. This pre is very revealing & neutral. It has a musical midrange, extended highs & excellent bass. One of the many tracks we played was "Rainy Day" from John Lee Hooker's "Don't Look Back" CD. Fantastic, stomach pounding bass (not to mention excellent vocals). I had to constantly remind myself that I was listening to a ss preamp!

This, IMHO, is the highest compliment that can paid to a ss unit:- when we switched back & forth with my CAT preamp, we could not tell any difference in the sonic signature! We, of course, could see which pre was playing in the system but if we were blind-folded, no way we could tell! If I had to struggle to find a difference then I'd say that the mids of the CAT were slightly sweeter & fuller than the DMC-20. This I attribute to one being a ss design & the other a tube design. The DMC-20 was slightly lean in the midrange vs. the CAT. However, both preamps are on the accurate side of neutral. It would be fair for me to say that the CAT is the tube cousin of the DMC-20 or the DMC-20 is the ss cousin of the CAT.

Then we took the DMC-20 to my friend's house who owns a heavily modified Audio Research SP-6A. What I can tell you is that the SP-6A held up remarkably well to the DMC-20. The SP-6A has a very beautiful bloomy midrange & those of you who have owned any of the SP series preamps know what I'm talking about re. the bloomy midrange. If the DMC-20 was slightly lean in the mids vs. the CAT then it was much more lean vs. the SP-6A. At this pt. many of you must be saying that I must be smoking some sort of weed! I reassure you that I'm not & I know what I'm talking about! This SP-6A was brought up to spec. by Richard Gray & then K&K Audio upgraded the power supply caps to computer grade Panasonics & the coupling caps to Kimber. Now, this preamp will hold its ground even to a DMC-20 type pre. It is stunning to realize this & one has to hear this SP-6A to believe it.

Anyway, the DMC-20 has more extended highs & a better control of the bass but it loses the midrange hands down to the SP-6A. The owner of the SP-6A & I agreed that the DMC-20 high freq & better bass was not worth the large price differential esp. since my friend was able to get the SP-6A in stock condition for a pittance & paid a very reasonable amt. for the upgrades. We played a bunch of music - Alison Kraus "Live", Grateful Dead "American Beauty", some bluegrass music, various Jazz vinyl. The vinyl was piped out of the SP-6A from the tape-out & fed into the DMC-20 & into my friend's BelCanto SET40. When we played the vinyl, it was very diff. to ascertain the DMC-20 signature so all my comments above refer to when we switched to CD & used only the DMC-20 as the preamp.

Anyway, today was very nice day comparing preamps. I am mighty fortunate & pleased to have listened to the DMC-20 for it is one of the most musical ss preamps I have heard in a very long time. The designer has done a splendid job of giving its ss heart a lot of soul. I can see, now, how you owners enjoy its musicality. If I had to chose a ss preamp one day (I hope that day is far, far away!) then the DMC-20 would be on my very, very shortlist. Good choice guys!

Bombaywalla: I started out with an ARC SP8 and ARC D115.2 with the Acoustat 2+2 and enjoyed the system for years. I also had a DMC10 and a pair of DMA50s also. I would mix and match various combos to see which would work. However about three years ago (place blame on Audiogon!) I got worked up about buying a new system, I was in near sticker shock at first, but also because of Audiogon I was fortunate enough to put together a very decent system. The center piece of the electronics was the DMC30sl. I think it serves its purpose quite well. In regards to the ARC preamps, I still like them, in particular their very seductive midrange, and upper bass regions. Everybody seems to think that ss preamps
get shrill in the treble region or at least grainy. In most cases they are correct in that assumption, however, the Spectral seems to be lacking in this aspect; it is smooth all the way to the top of the frequency range. I just think in general it is harder to make a very good ss preamp( ditto ss amps) than tube (pre)amps. I have no plans to change or get up tight about my system with a ss preamp or ss amp. I just enjoy it for what it is: a window to sound reproduction.

Shubertmaniac,

Thanks for the feedback. You are right - all this expensive gear is a window into sound reproduction, which is hopefully getting us closer to a real-life event. Good to read that you're enjoying the music. That's the spirit!

BTW, I hear that the DMC-30SL is a 1-box pre that costs more than the DMC-20 2-box pre! I thought that Spectral finally got it right in keeping the power supply out of the pre electronics! With the DMC-30 they are back to a 1-box pre, which should have continued to be a 2-box pre, IMHO. It would seem to me that, even tho the DMC-20 is older, I'd pay to get a 2-box pre than a 1-box pre. What am I missing here?

You would be missing the ~ 8 dB better SNR of the dmc30 series over the dmc20's. I haven't taken a dmc30sl apart to analyze the power system but the manual states that the internal transformer is designed with a wider than normal separation between the input and output transformer windings to decouple the input to output noise transfer.

I've owned several of these preamps and heard all of both series. The dmc30sl is superior to the dmc20 series in every way.