My friend Lordgorian,
[Who I think made a big mistake by liquidating his system, but alas he is young and has a lot of life ahead of him.]
I think the big question you have is: Does the Spectron or Tact regulate the volume of the signal in the Digital or Analogue domain?
If they do it in the digital domain (which my gut tells me they do, else they would probably be called integrated amps), the odds you are going to get the kinds of perfomance that you had before with your Capitole II are pretty slim. All sorts of information is lost when you start manipulating the digital signal to regulate volume.
Now if the amps regulate the volume in the analogue domain you could be in good.
I fear though these amps take in a digital signal -> process it digitally for volume -> send it the switched amplification. This would make the most sense if these amps truly could take in a digital signal. Else the digital signal would have to go through a D/A process then be atenuated for volume then through a A/D process and then to the switched amplifier. This would not make a lot of sense.
Thus, I would be willing to bet that these amps regulate the volume in the digital domain. And unless they have some revolutionary digital volume technology (which is doubtful), I doubt you will get better sound than you previously had.
Nevertheless, I would love to hear some folks who have experience with this situation come forward and report their findings.
Always remember: Sometimes the shortest signal path is not the best signal path. The parts and processes that a signal goes through many times matter a lot more than the actual distance of the signal path.
Sincerely,
KF
[Who I think made a big mistake by liquidating his system, but alas he is young and has a lot of life ahead of him.]
I think the big question you have is: Does the Spectron or Tact regulate the volume of the signal in the Digital or Analogue domain?
If they do it in the digital domain (which my gut tells me they do, else they would probably be called integrated amps), the odds you are going to get the kinds of perfomance that you had before with your Capitole II are pretty slim. All sorts of information is lost when you start manipulating the digital signal to regulate volume.
Now if the amps regulate the volume in the analogue domain you could be in good.
I fear though these amps take in a digital signal -> process it digitally for volume -> send it the switched amplification. This would make the most sense if these amps truly could take in a digital signal. Else the digital signal would have to go through a D/A process then be atenuated for volume then through a A/D process and then to the switched amplifier. This would not make a lot of sense.
Thus, I would be willing to bet that these amps regulate the volume in the digital domain. And unless they have some revolutionary digital volume technology (which is doubtful), I doubt you will get better sound than you previously had.
Nevertheless, I would love to hear some folks who have experience with this situation come forward and report their findings.
Always remember: Sometimes the shortest signal path is not the best signal path. The parts and processes that a signal goes through many times matter a lot more than the actual distance of the signal path.
Sincerely,
KF