Recommend Upgrade from DMA-100S with Thiel

[drewant]

Soliciting the experience in this forum across the Spectral line-up, I wonder if anyone could say what would be the best upgrade from my DMA-100S to a mid-tier (or older high-tier) Spectral amp. I'm driving Thiel CS2.4's, which as a brand are notoriously power hungry, so I find myself wondering what moving up in power might bring me. Thiel is also notoriously bright, so a warmer amp might make sense --- or maybe moving away from Spectral makes more sense, since it's not a commonly recommended pairing.

Anyone have experience with the 100S to compare with the 150, 180, 200 etc.? Or experience with Spectral + Thiel?

 

[mullard88]

Hi drewant,

What is it about your combination that you do not like or find lacking in?

I had not heard a Spectral - Thiel combination in twenty some years. I did listen to various Spectral - Thiel combinations in the days of the Thiel 2 2, 3.6, 5, 0.5, and 1.5. My memories were just ok, neither good nor bad. The other amps I have tried on the Thiels at that time were the Jeff Rowland amps and the McCormack amps. At that time, my favorite Thiel speakers were the 0.5 and the 1.5. My favorite amplifier for the Thiels were the McCormacks.

I didn't warm up to the Spectral DMA 150 or DMA 180. The DMA 200, I liked with the Entec ribbon speakers.

I would keep both the Spectral DMA 100S and the Thiel. If you are very resourceful, you might consider searching for a used pair of the Entec 90 two way tower or a Metaphor to pair with the Spectral DMA 100S. For a more readily available speaker, my choice would be a Magnepan 1.6 to pair with the Spectral DMA 100S. For the Thiel CS 2.4, you might consider searching for the limited edition McCormack DNA 2.

I would keep both the Thiel and Spectral 100S.

 

[drewant]

Thanks for your reply. The most honest reason for my asking is for future reference for the upgrade bug. I managed to avoid it for many years, but I replaced my source last year from a Rotel cd player to an Apple TV feeding a Berkeley DAC. This was such a huge upgrade that I’m now always curious about what the next upgrade could bring.

Specific improvements I might want are less glare (vocals can sound like they’re screaming at times) and more richness from strings. I’m hoping these improvements might be had from upgrading my source away from the Apple TV and along with that, upgrading from a toslink feed to a quality AES/EBU cable.

I imagine improvements from a more powerful amp as being more bass & slam in the bottom end, more body & spacing to instruments, and greater ease & flow to the music. Those are based on intuition, not science.

The smartest thing to do is what you said – stick with the 100S. I just wanted to get some thoughts for when I get stupid & go chasing an upgrade.