Spectron Musician 3 First Impressions?

Hello Guido,

We can do internal connection of input(s): XLR and/or RCA - its not a big deal for production - provided its ordered prior to amplifiers assembly.

However, the end user must realize that going from stereo to monoblock mode (by any manufacturer) does require INTERNAL or EXTERNAL connection and then question arise - who will do it - manufacturer internally and for modest fee or user, externally, by adding additional pair of interconnects. On the surface, the answer is simple: manufacturer. However, as the rule, we do not use input wire - from inputs the signal goes directly to the boards, thus, we introduce our own hook up wire for this connection, and its OBVIOUS that the sound quality will be better if all input wires will be the same i.e. two pairs of interconnects - rather then pair of interconnects made of silver wire and our connection made of different metal or alloy.

Another negative against manufacturer's solution is loss of flexibility - If you use two pair of interconnects then your amp can go from stereo to mono and... back anytime you choose. If we use internal connection then this input can be used ONLY as monoblock (well there is another input you still can use in stereo).

In summary, if someone is ordering monoblocks and want to make us internal connection we will gladly do it. I spoke a while ago with production and arranged it including the small fee for material and additional labor.

Yet, nobody who ordered monoblocks and talked to me about alternatives - ordered internal connection - everybody wanted to have flexibility and choice of their wire.... so far including even iSanchez.

I hope that you will not ask us to adjust gain, flip phase switch etc.

My philosophy is to give the end user as much freedom as possible but if somebody knows what he wants and want to exchange some degree of freedom for convenience - its fine with me too.

As a rule, I want to work with our users.

Hope it helps.

Spectron,

Thanks for explaining the pros and cons of the different mono-block configurations. The only thing I wasn't aware of, or didn't remember, was how the internal wiring is done to bridge the amps internally, as opposed of doing this eternally by the end user via an extra pair of ICs. It's clear now that the external connection will be the obvious one here.

I decided on not using internal connections mostly because of flexibility. I thought that I could have assemble a simple system in my office with the other amp, or if something ever happens to one amp, which I much doubt considering the built quality, I can keep going with one while the other one is out.

I'm not an engineer so I may be wrong here, but my reading of this is that the internal wiring will add to the signal path, whereas the use of the extra interconnect will not change anything internally for the signal, hence producing a shorter way for the signal to travel. Now that this is more clear to me, I'm even happier with my decision.

One thing that still puzzles me, and perhaps Spectron can answer, is why there is so much improvement with these amps in balanced mode. I know that based on the specs the power triples and the headroom doubles. In my experience with other brands however, more power alone and more headroom alone do not guarantee better and/or more efficient performance. I've heard another brand of amps in a similar configuration and I remember hearing more noise when the amps doubled, and a quieter sound with half the power. With the M3 SE, I hear the opposite. The sound is better timed, which yields better control of the silence between musical notes.

iSanchez,

Its true balanced mode and if I recall correctly, rejection of noise and buzz was measured as more then 60 dB (don't hold me to this number!). Plus, amplifier intrinsic distortions, as small as they are now have opposed signs and thus largely canceled.

If you would look on our web site - John Ulrick and I wrote the article (http://spectronaudio.com/tech1.htm) representing my and his philosophy - you start building the amp first by understanding your engineering goals and then by achieving the best specs you can possibly to achieve. Then and only then you can think about "soul" of music and go from engineering into music - if you recall I am also concert pianist by education and it helps me immensely but ONLY after engineeringly we are both happy.

So, in this article, we proposed that amplifier distortion, as pleasant for the ear it could be (e.g. poorly designed tube amplifier produce huge euphonic 2nd order harmonics) - is not only "pleasant" garbage and irritant - to my ears at least (and I am a tube-man!!!) but also is a murky ugly veil between you and music.

Now, you removed largely whatever distortion Musician had and window into music is opened wider - you can hear its sweetness, detail etc of music, blackness between notes etc etc.

That was (part of the) theory and as I understand from you and few other early adoptees of the monoblock approach - it seems to work.

I hope I am right. However, even if I am wrong I am immensely happy with early reports I have.

Best Regards,
Simon

Hi Simon, now I understand. Would a board-level topology redesign let you optimize a model for mono operation instead? I am concerned that the addition of a 'Y" splitter may also cause some degradation because of the additional connector. One more solution is to ask the manufacturer of the ICs from Pre to amp to create a long "Y" split wire that would split just at the connector plugged into the pre. . . no extra connectors that way, but this may add some semi-significant cost to the setup. G.

Dear Guido,

As I wrote above it is my belief that there is no free lunch, still...

I have had interesting discussion, yesterday, with the buyer (D.Y. New York) who was ordering monoblocks and did not want to spent a fortune to pay for the second pair of his very expensive interconnects. Nor did he wanted to use "Y" connector since, in his opinion, additional termination would degrade sound.

We agreed that the optimum solution is for us to make connection between XLR inputs making the monoblock for XLR yet keep RCA inputs disconnected keeping them in stereo mode.

The advantages in this solution is that if he cannot use one amplifier for one or another reason then he always can use the second one in stereo mode.
Secondly, our policy today is that vast majority of repairs (nearly 95%) do not require sending the entire amplifier to us - amp is modular, and most of the user can un-plug modules and ship them to us by air. Another change in policy is that factory repair takes precedence over production - thus we fix it almost same day and ship back by air, and when user receive them, in a few days, he plug them in and end of the story... so disadvantage of having hardwired connections can be felt only for a few days at most.

Finally, I have had, yesterday, additional discussion with production (as you know I am not production engineer) and now, when requested, we can remove this connection without much "danger" to amplifier itself.

I think that our approach to yesterday's D.Y. request is the best illustration of our philosophy to work with each user individually (when needed, of course) until non-superficial solution is reached.

Thank you - I hope I explained our minimalistic approach to this kind of problems.

Simon