Your story sounds a lot like mine. I dumped my third Spectron a few months ago in favor of a Rowland Continuum S2 to drive my Magnepan 3.7s.
This amp has been referred to in another thread as "Kryptobrand."
I started with a Musician II, used. It experienced issues over time, some of which included sparks and smoke. The right channel -- for whatever reasons -- has always been an issue in my amp and those of some others. Eventually, they convinced me to upgrade to the Hybrid. I got a year or two out of that before failures occurred, and it spent much time going to and from California.
They could never seem to articulate what the problems were...
Eventually I got weary of that, so upgraded to the MKIII se2 with all the bells and whistles. That worked for about two years before the right channel dropped out. After much diagnostic time and swapping of amp modules -- complicated by the fact that the problems were intermittent -- I sent it in, got it repaired, and decided I had had enough. Time to sell.
Also aiding my decision to sell is that all of the principles at Spectron passed away in the last year or two. John and Toni Ulrick are gone. Simon is gone. This leaves Manh the engineer holding the bag. Fortunately, I sold my relatively new Spectron to someone who is technical enough to deal with any issues that might come up, as he has worked closely with Spectron in the past. It found a good home.
I spent weeks testing various amps before settling on the Rowland integrated. It sounds great with the 3.7s. Also tried Bel Canto REF600M, Merrill Veritas, Sanders, and others.
My advice echoes others': Move along, and enjoy the process of finding your next amp.
This amp has been referred to in another thread as "Kryptobrand."
I started with a Musician II, used. It experienced issues over time, some of which included sparks and smoke. The right channel -- for whatever reasons -- has always been an issue in my amp and those of some others. Eventually, they convinced me to upgrade to the Hybrid. I got a year or two out of that before failures occurred, and it spent much time going to and from California.
They could never seem to articulate what the problems were...
Eventually I got weary of that, so upgraded to the MKIII se2 with all the bells and whistles. That worked for about two years before the right channel dropped out. After much diagnostic time and swapping of amp modules -- complicated by the fact that the problems were intermittent -- I sent it in, got it repaired, and decided I had had enough. Time to sell.
Also aiding my decision to sell is that all of the principles at Spectron passed away in the last year or two. John and Toni Ulrick are gone. Simon is gone. This leaves Manh the engineer holding the bag. Fortunately, I sold my relatively new Spectron to someone who is technical enough to deal with any issues that might come up, as he has worked closely with Spectron in the past. It found a good home.
I spent weeks testing various amps before settling on the Rowland integrated. It sounds great with the 3.7s. Also tried Bel Canto REF600M, Merrill Veritas, Sanders, and others.
My advice echoes others': Move along, and enjoy the process of finding your next amp.