Lab instruments?
I've been meaning to write about the DMC-30SV and DMA-400RS combination for some time now, but a few issues have been holding me back. These issues, as it turns out, were primarily my sources, which forced me to implement and write about the recent mods I've made to my arm and DAC (and other things I have not yet documented). The secondary issue has always been the integration of my REL subwoofer; to make a long story short, after numerous adjustments spaning over 9 months, I am now at a point where I always listen with it on, and it's hard to tell it apart from the speakers - it just took about 15 years to get here
So, where does the Spectral equipment fit into all of this? Simply, I feel it is the lab instrumentation-level and extreme quality and transparency of these two pieces that have exposed and *magninified* the issues I described, while helping me at the same time to fix them. None of the mods or adjustments that I made were issues I was not aware of, but they were more clearly exposed... most know that unstabilized unipivots have wobbling issues which cause tiny but compounding distortions - yet some on vpiforum.com have told they don't hear any; most know that DACs can carry very high frequency noise - yet some don't find any issues with digital; most know that subs are often hard to integrate - well, at least we probably all agree there. I have to believe everyone who can't hear what I hear, because we just don't have the same systems.
The arrival of the 30SV in my system a year ago, to pair with the 400RS, has been a perpetual and constant eye-opener. With an exceptionally low noise floor and almost unforgiving resolution, it becomes really easy to pick out the good things and the bad; thankfully, the good things vastly outnumber the bad; but again, the bad things are now more evident. Such is the price you pay for very high caliber electronics, and unfortunately, some would come to the conclusion that whatever issues one hears in a Spectral system they must be due to the Spectral electronics. I am sure we've all read some sort of criticism one way or another, as well as praise. For example, a lot of people find their sound sterile. Obviously, I am not sure what others have been hearing, but I've had other criticism of my own of previous offerings. Nonetheless, nothing is perfect, so any criticism has merit to one degree or another.
The obvious consequence of owning these electronics is that the sound can be all over; on bad recordings it's as bad as you would expect, but the good ones reward you really well with realism. So when I started thinking about this thread, the intention was to write the typical glorious things, with all the accolades and biased comments one can imagine... But there's already been plenty of that here, so then I changed my mind, and turned it into this "lab" report on how they've helped me improve my sound.
At the core of it, every small change is really easy to identify, at least to a fairly well trained ear. This is what I would expect from instrumentation-level equipment; yet, others might call this slicing and dicing, overly analytical, etc. Well, I would almost agree, except that when things really align well the results can be extra-ordinary. When you get to a point where really good recordings do sound really good in one's room, you know you are on the right track. Having gone through the Spectral exercise for over 20 years, my confidence that they are on the right track to offering extremely transparent and neutral electronics has never been higher - aided by the excellent MIT Oracle cables.
My excitement the last year or so has not only been over the great sound these electronics render on the right recordings, but the ease with which they've guided me to tune the system elsewhere as well. It is quite easy - and unfortunately haphazard at the same time - to criticize anything that exposes your shortcomings; but once you realize you are really mostly talking about your own shortcomings and stop blaming the messenger, then things take a different turn. Personally, it's getting ever harder to identify shortcomings in these two messengers, apart perhaps from ultimate dynamics. But even there, the exciting news is that 30SV behaves like a headroom control as opposed to a volume control; this was true with the 30SS S2 to a certain degree and I believe I wrote about that years ago, but the 30SV is in a completely different league, offering extreme dynamic constrasts, for much truer dynamic expression. Yet again, though, this reflects back to the sources. If I had a more capable system, it might have been easier to identify other shortcomings, but I don't.
Time now to render some self-criticism, stealing the thunder from those about to hit Reply: one might say I have a "lab" of a system, unappealing to those who think music should be rendered completely differently... yeap, I think I do, and it may not be for you!
Finally, if there is one thing I've learned over the last year is to no longer look at my Spectral amplification as potential room for immediate upgrade - the focus has shifted elsewhere. While I am sure Spectral will bring to market more exciting amps and preamps, to me the 30SV/400RS combination is a classic in solid state amplification, and I don't think I've used this word before.
Eager to hear from other owners on how these or other electronics might have helped them improve their sound elsewhere...
I've been meaning to write about the DMC-30SV and DMA-400RS combination for some time now, but a few issues have been holding me back. These issues, as it turns out, were primarily my sources, which forced me to implement and write about the recent mods I've made to my arm and DAC (and other things I have not yet documented). The secondary issue has always been the integration of my REL subwoofer; to make a long story short, after numerous adjustments spaning over 9 months, I am now at a point where I always listen with it on, and it's hard to tell it apart from the speakers - it just took about 15 years to get here
So, where does the Spectral equipment fit into all of this? Simply, I feel it is the lab instrumentation-level and extreme quality and transparency of these two pieces that have exposed and *magninified* the issues I described, while helping me at the same time to fix them. None of the mods or adjustments that I made were issues I was not aware of, but they were more clearly exposed... most know that unstabilized unipivots have wobbling issues which cause tiny but compounding distortions - yet some on vpiforum.com have told they don't hear any; most know that DACs can carry very high frequency noise - yet some don't find any issues with digital; most know that subs are often hard to integrate - well, at least we probably all agree there. I have to believe everyone who can't hear what I hear, because we just don't have the same systems.
The arrival of the 30SV in my system a year ago, to pair with the 400RS, has been a perpetual and constant eye-opener. With an exceptionally low noise floor and almost unforgiving resolution, it becomes really easy to pick out the good things and the bad; thankfully, the good things vastly outnumber the bad; but again, the bad things are now more evident. Such is the price you pay for very high caliber electronics, and unfortunately, some would come to the conclusion that whatever issues one hears in a Spectral system they must be due to the Spectral electronics. I am sure we've all read some sort of criticism one way or another, as well as praise. For example, a lot of people find their sound sterile. Obviously, I am not sure what others have been hearing, but I've had other criticism of my own of previous offerings. Nonetheless, nothing is perfect, so any criticism has merit to one degree or another.
The obvious consequence of owning these electronics is that the sound can be all over; on bad recordings it's as bad as you would expect, but the good ones reward you really well with realism. So when I started thinking about this thread, the intention was to write the typical glorious things, with all the accolades and biased comments one can imagine... But there's already been plenty of that here, so then I changed my mind, and turned it into this "lab" report on how they've helped me improve my sound.
At the core of it, every small change is really easy to identify, at least to a fairly well trained ear. This is what I would expect from instrumentation-level equipment; yet, others might call this slicing and dicing, overly analytical, etc. Well, I would almost agree, except that when things really align well the results can be extra-ordinary. When you get to a point where really good recordings do sound really good in one's room, you know you are on the right track. Having gone through the Spectral exercise for over 20 years, my confidence that they are on the right track to offering extremely transparent and neutral electronics has never been higher - aided by the excellent MIT Oracle cables.
My excitement the last year or so has not only been over the great sound these electronics render on the right recordings, but the ease with which they've guided me to tune the system elsewhere as well. It is quite easy - and unfortunately haphazard at the same time - to criticize anything that exposes your shortcomings; but once you realize you are really mostly talking about your own shortcomings and stop blaming the messenger, then things take a different turn. Personally, it's getting ever harder to identify shortcomings in these two messengers, apart perhaps from ultimate dynamics. But even there, the exciting news is that 30SV behaves like a headroom control as opposed to a volume control; this was true with the 30SS S2 to a certain degree and I believe I wrote about that years ago, but the 30SV is in a completely different league, offering extreme dynamic constrasts, for much truer dynamic expression. Yet again, though, this reflects back to the sources. If I had a more capable system, it might have been easier to identify other shortcomings, but I don't.
Time now to render some self-criticism, stealing the thunder from those about to hit Reply: one might say I have a "lab" of a system, unappealing to those who think music should be rendered completely differently... yeap, I think I do, and it may not be for you!
Finally, if there is one thing I've learned over the last year is to no longer look at my Spectral amplification as potential room for immediate upgrade - the focus has shifted elsewhere. While I am sure Spectral will bring to market more exciting amps and preamps, to me the 30SV/400RS combination is a classic in solid state amplification, and I don't think I've used this word before.
Eager to hear from other owners on how these or other electronics might have helped them improve their sound elsewhere...