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Review: Spectron Musician III Signature Edition Amplifier

Category: Amplifiers

This review is of the newly released Spectron Musician III "Signature Edition" MSRP $5995. The signature edition has improvements over the $4995 standard version (which is an exceptional amplifier as-is) that improve the specs and sound to the degree of making it a strong competitor to $20K-40K reference monoblocks. John Ulrick (former co-founder of Infinity and creator of the first digital amp in 1974) has really outdone himself with this new design. The Musician III Signature version is one of the most natural, detailed, robust and transparent amplifiers I have ever had the pleasure of listening to. The soundstage is so vast that when I closed my eyes, my once constricted sounding listening room sounded like someone snuck into my new home and added an extra room behind the speakers! Ok, I may be exaggerating about the stage a little bit but not about the clarity, detail and bass authority. This amp is POWERFUL and difficult loads do not even phase it. I have MBL 111E Omnidirectional speakers connected to it. I originally focused my attention on the ship anchor sized MBL 9011 monoblocks and fell in love with them at CES 2005. The Spectron was purchased to be a temporary place holder until I could afford the MBL giants. After purchasing this tiny, less than 60 lb. digital powerhouse, I have no desire to shell out for Monoblocks that cost as much as my new BMW 5. Everyone recognizes that the new digital designs are powerful and efficient but there exists an industry wide stigma about the musicality of most digital designs. Many inexpensively or poorly implemented digital chip based designs simply do not have the warmth and natural sound of the finest tube and class A solid state amps. The Spectron Musician III Signature is in a category all by itself. I enjoy listening to cello and piano. I ran through about 2 hours of "The Essential Yo Yo Ma" and was shocked. The Spectron revealed nuances and micro details that I never noticed previously on tracks that I listen to frequently. The bass is robust, strong and very controlled. The Spectron sounds nothing like many of the digital ice-power or tripath based designs. The Spectron is very transparent. What comes out of it is exactly what you put into it. Use a great power cord and exceptional source equipment and you cannot lose with this amp. Other Spectron owners tell me that tube preamps such as BAT are a perfect companion for the Spectron. If you are considering purchasing a new amplifier in the $10000+ category, you owe it to yourself, and your wallet, to give the Musician III Signature a listen. Be sure to have a pair of well respected tube or solid state amps that cost at least twice as much in the same room for A/B comparison. You will be amazed! The manufacturer burns in the amps for a week or so at the factory and informed me that I need to give it at least a week of burn-in at home to fully appreciate it. After a few hours of warm up, right out of the box, it sounded great. I am on day 4 of listening and it just keeps getting better.

Strengths: Powerful, Open Soundstage, Critical Midrange is natural and dynamic. Nice build quality. Pretty Face

Weakness: No rack mount option at this time.

Associated gear
Theta CBIII w/Extreme DACS running 2ch
Underwood Modded Denon 3910
MBL 111E Omnidirectional Speakers
PS Audio Duet
Mr.Cable Musician Power Cord

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Theta Enterprise
Pass X-600
Mark Levinson 331 x2
128x128sodapop
simontju
257 posts
 
Hello Guido,

OK, lets see what's are results: by using two ICE modules you can reduce your noise by square root of two or 41%. Sounds great but if your signal is about 110 dB and noise is 1 dB (barely audible and in most amps it is less) then it became 0.6 dB almost negligible difference. Also, your level of distortion will be lowered somewhat (say instead of 0.03% it becomes 0.02% - again, hardly noticeable)

Since ICE modules are produced in mass quantities they are inexpensive and I believe that Me. Rowland can justify their use in balanced mode with almost no positive results.
On the contrary, custom in-house build modules by John Ulrick or Bruno Putzeys are very expensive and instead of spending money to double cost of the digital modules they use this money in much more effective ways, say improving power supplies, output filter, RF filtering (enormously important in class D amps) etc etc etc. On other hand, when cheap modules are used the balanced operation is beneficial for marketing reasons mostly, I believe.
All The Best
guidocorona
4,114 posts
 
Simon, You are clearly very proud of the Spectron amp, and I respect that. If Spectron engineering opted for a designed which is balanced in the input stage and single ended in the output stage, I am comfortable believing that they made the best decision for the device, based on sonic goals, underlying technology, constraining assumptions, design experience, etc. . .
Similarly, I am equally comfortable believing that a designer of the stature and profound experience of Jeff Rowland opted for a fully balanced design in the 312 through a similar rational process based on technology and engineering principles.
I know for a fact that Jeff shies from commenting on devices which are not of his own creation, preferring to discuss and highlight the engineering rationale behind his own products. I kind of like that. It is essentially the way I have been taught to operate by my employer for the last 25 years, and by my father for another 25 years before that. And that is why I appreciate very much the opportunity to learn about the Spectron Signature's design merits from someone clearly in the know who may even be an insider, but I find myself somewhat less favorably impressed whenever I read rash assumptions on the competition from the same party.
Yet, in spite of my slight but growing misgivings, I am still looking forward to auditioning the Spectron Sig.
sodapop's avatar
sodapop OP
9 posts
 
Simon and Guido,

Both of you bring up very vaild points. Your recent posts have educated me further on the design of both the Spectron Musician III Signature and the Rowland 312.

I have great respect for many of the designs by Jeff Rowland, Nelson Pass and John Ulrick. Everyone engineer has his/her place(s) in the market and their own design visions and implementations based on available parts, imagination, skill, creativity, expertise, knowledge and price point.

I respect all of these designers for their contributions to the audiophile community. I am not currently an employee for Spectron, JRDG or any other audio company. I am in the sodapop business and I am passionate about quality audio. I am not an engineer, but I do understand a bit about electronics and I am impressed with the large recent improvements and acceptance of Digital Class D designs. I enjoy reviews and comments in the forums and love attending CES.

What I can share and contribute are comments about my spectron amp with my current setup. I can tell you that the Musician III Signature just keeps getting better everytime I listen to it. I find myself pulling out music that I have not listened to in years just so that I can hear what I was missing with the equipment that I owned a decade ago or more.

I am incredibly impressed with the Spectron on my MBL Speakers. Guidocorona, I am not sure what source equipment or speakers you use, but I hope you will take the opportunity to try the M III Sig. sometime soon. I am very interested to hear your opinions. I have a strong feeling that with your ears as your guide, you will be as impressed as I am. I honestly have never heard anything like this before.

Happy Listening.... Soda
simontju
257 posts
 
Hello Guido,
I am not "may be " insider. In one of my first posts on this amp I stated in my disclaimer:
( http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1180897750&openflup&8&4#8 )
that I am in audio engineering consulting business and I participated in the design of Musician Signature (specifically reconstruction filter).
All opinions, I express here of this or that companies engineering design I consulted for are mine and not their.
I repeat my main point and it is my point not anybody else. To take two cheap modules in balanced mode to push already low noise, typically less then 1 dB slightly more down and same with distortions when they are at very low level - is marketing gimmick (or distortions and noise are really that high that anything goes!). I better use the same money to use to improve power supplies, input stage if you have access to module to improve most important part of class D amplifier, reconstruction filter. I am very glad that leading US designers of class D amp like Bruno Putzey and John Ulrick going after "intelligent design" concept.
Once more - this is my own private thoughts.
Prove, however, is in the pudding. Taste one and taste another and taste third and then make your learned conclusions.
I was my pleasure to discuss with you, Guido, and I appreciate the forum giving us opportunity to talk about our obsession: music and music reproduction.
All The Best in your Search for the "Audio Truth"
simontju
257 posts
 
P

====================
Positives of Balanced Design
===========================
Hello Guido and Hello Sodapop. I think it would be unfair for me to ignore some positive aspects of balanced approach.

When you use balanced approach in preamp you reject common noise and hum coming to you from upstream. Obviously, its very useful.

When you use balanced output of your preamp and TRUE (!!!) balanced input of your power amp, to quote Victor Khomenco from BAT - you "respect signal integrity"

For example, in Spectron where its true balanced input, it takes both phases, summated them into double signal if you wish, reject additional noise and hum which could originate on the interconnect and thus its useful, particularly in professional applications where long interconnects with non-zero reactive and resistive impedance is used.

After that, inside power amp? I already stated so - exception is again very, very noisy and distorted signals - tube circuits, I feel, could be main beneficiary.
All The Best.
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