Sorry Audiozen, the Class D amp has been around long before 1968! Not knowing the age of your Godfather and perported "inventor" of Class D Amps, my guess is that he may have been an infant at best when Class D amps were first invented. Not that such a fact should interfer or negate his work with furthering Class D amplification.
Funny thing Audiozen, I am sure there are many BC owners that would make a similar statement; "you gotta be kidding me! comparing a Spectron to a Bel Canto". Both seem like awfully short-sighted, emotional comments. After all, there are those than can confirm with a high degree of certainty that a Honda minivan is a much better vehicle than a Corvette/Porsche/Viper/etc. . . my two dogs, both kids and camping gear would agree with that statement on a lot of days!
Michael_moskowich - those are pretty strong accusations you are making. The problem with your statement is that no such posting in your thread history confirms this statement about inquiring about Spectron amps (perhaps it was via another website). Yet Approximately one year earlier than this post, you do show up in another post waxing poetically about Spectron amps.
As an individual looking into Spectron and interested in gaining a better understanding about their peroformance and capabilities, one does get a feeling about the referenced "Spectron Police" based on the very limited number of extremely aggressive posters claiming they are the best amps possible. Yet with each upgrade and new version, the performance is astounding, mind boggling, "twice as good" (as one Spectron poster put it). This makes it all seem somewhat questionable. If the amp (before the upgrade) was purportedly the best and a simple upgrade from one model or version to the very next makes it twice as good, this raises suspicion.
One of the items that concerns me, as a prospective buyer (preferably used) is the upgrades and model changes. While I don't know the exact number of model changes, upgrades, and "doubling down" to mono that have been made in the past 7 years (in reading the threads, it seems like a lot). I am always a little concerned that buying such a piece of equipment needs what almost seems like annual upgrades, or worse, the need to add a second amp.
I must confess that I am a class A amp fan. I have tried A/B and also class D amps (was not impressed in enough areas then, 3 years ago). I have owned tubed and SS amps, SET amps and yes, even made the mistake of running multi-channel amps in bridging my HT and 2-channel needs (won't make that mistake again).
Please don't take the above comments wrong, I am very interested in trying the Spectron amps and will likely do so in the near term (and report my opinions after sufficient listening). Like every other component and brand out there, there are individuals who have bought and sold them, due to some failure (in the prior owners opinion) of the product. For those of us that are considering a new component, it is nice to be able to hear of the short comings as well as the attributes of any product. People by nature are suspicious of a product that has a very narrow band of hard core supporters that attack anybody who is contrary to their belief system (this is not just an audio issue). Unfortunately, such actions do more to discredit their beliefs than they do to discredit those who counter their belief system.
From the mouths of the fans of Spectron (those that own, not "professional" reviewers who I have little confidence in), they do sound like great amps and purportedly deliver much of what I am seeking. The build up of these amps by the supporters has greatly raised my expectations to that of a level of performance that will so blow away anything that I have heard that the difference will be immediately noticeable, apparent and unmistakeable. This can be a good thing and a bad thing, as the fact that they are light weight, run cool, use little energy are not factors in my equipment making decision. The sound performance and characteristics are what matters. I live in MI and sometimes a nice hot Class A amp is just what I am seeking on a warm night - even when not listening to music! ;)
What I would be interesting in learning, from both current owners and past owners of the Spectron amps is the following:
What are its greatest attributes?
At what points is its performance not notably better or worse than most other high quality amps?
What are its greatest weaknesses (FYI - none is not an acceptable answer as everything has a weakness)?
I would rather dampen my expectations a bit and become a bit more practical as to what the amps will deliver in more areas. Thanks in advance to any and all individuals who have owned, sold, and carefully auditioned these amps. Some reference as to system componentry would be a plus as a reference for me.
