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The Best Tube Amplifiers vs Spectron ?

Before I bought Spectron stereo amp for my Watt/Puppy 8 I used McIntosh 2202, excellent tube amp and one of the best I ever owned. However, Spectron was better or even much better in all respects, most interesting - harmonic richness of midrange closely approximated the real music. The key is that this amp need very long time to fully break-in.

Today, I have read the latest Spectron's review (see http://spectronaudio.com/reviews.htm) where reviewer preferred Spectrons over state-of-the-art $50k VTL Siegfrieds!!! Amazingly, he wrote "The Musician III Mk II monoblocks have a crystalline purity in the reproduction of every voice and instrument that sounds more to me like the essence of live, unamplified music -- which I attend, on average, more than once a week year-round -- than any other amplifiers -- at any cost, based on any technology-- that I have ever heard."

I must agree with him (plus with Spectron you have no output tube maintenance, no heat, no huge weight) and I wonder if others have similar experience.

Mike.
michael_moskowich

Showing 2 responses by mrtennis

mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
comparisons between live and recorded music are in valid and hence unreliable. audible memory is very short.

if you want to come close(R) to a maningful comparison, you will have to make a recording yourself in your listening room asnd then substitute amps.

i suspect that amomg serious listeners there will be disagreement as to which amp minimizes inaccuracy. there are many variables entailed in the notion of accuracy and thus such comparisons are dubious, at best.
mrtennis
3,295 posts
 
i made a suggestion for comparing amplifiers, namely making a recording of a live performance and then comparing the live performance to that which is genenerated by a stereo system,. this is a three part experimenet. live, stereo system with spectron amp and stereo system with some other amp. it would seem that this empirical approach makes more sense than the pronouncement of experts. i still maintain that the multi-dimensional nature of live music makes it difficult to compare live vs a reproduced music.

but i agree that one can select a favorite amplifier and enjoy the music regradless of the inaccuracies.
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