A brief audition of the Spectral DMA-260 & Magico V3

So as mentioned here a couple of times, the word is that this is quite the stereo amplifier. Well, I got a taste of it myself, and it is glorious, and at $9K I think a bargain. While still short of its bigger brethren (the 360 monoblocs at more-than-twice the price) in terms of ultimate clarity and dynamic headroom, the 260 has the usual huge Spectral soundstage, very see-through transparency, incredible driver control, speed and bass performance - yes, deep bass out of the V3 to fill a huge room!

The set up included the SDR-4000S Pro CD player, the 30SS preamp, MIT Magnum MA speaker cables (I am not a big fan of those) and MIT Matrix HD interconnects. I played anything from small instrumental, to jazz to large scale classical, and the ease with which it drove the speakers was phenomenal. The lack of ultimate dynamic headroom compared with the monos is evident, but to some perhaps not significant.

Compared to the well respected DMA-250 that it replaces (and I had owned), the improvement is easily discernible, and I can see why Steve was thrilled when he heard the 260 with Sophia 3's recently. I think the new transformers Spectral put in there (claimed to be the best they have ever designed) are responsible for a large part of this improvement. I think we will be seeing quite a few DMA-250's on the used market...

Peter

Visually: nothing significant other than the Mundorf speaker terminals on the 260, same as the 360, Magicos, and many others.

Electronically, probably a lot: from the SHHA driver modules (same as in the 30 series preamps) - which also requires new topology, etc - the new transformers and I am not sure about the output section.

Sound wise: The 250 sounds fairly constricted and distant (but not veiled) when pushed, and would sometimes even clip; the 260 is phenomenally open, dynamic and much more low-level resolving; significantly greater dynamic headroom and low level resolution (attributed to greater speed) are the two biggest and most easily discernible differences I could hear. They also differ fundamentally wrt pace - the 250 simply had none (and I lived with it for 6 yrs), and I couldn't stop tapping my foot with the 260. The 250 also sounds a little electronic (hi-fi); on the other hand the 360 monos are a tantamount example of musicality, and I find the 260 very close to them.

Some may call the 260 reference quality for a stereo amp. My exposure wasn't long enough to ascertain that, but I didn't need too long a time either to proclaim that the 260 is a major improvement over the 250 and a stellar product. The curious can read the Spectral bulletin which goes into more detail about how they achieved greater speed and linearity.

Finally, rest assured that I pushed the amp really hard with my Sheffield o-Daiko drums CD, and it sent the V3 woofers running for cover...