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On voices the darkness of my loaners remained. The Luxmans drew forth far more presence. Anna Netrebko’s Russian Album sounded definitely colder with the Chords than any of my other amplifiers. Nevertheless image focus and soundstage sorting were astounding. The Chords definitely majored in ultra-sharp imaging no matter what. And due to their very calm civil treble, the voice of the Russian super soprano never veered into the aggressive and irritating. But as you'll have noted, I couldn't fully warm up to the SMP-6000 in my own system. For one more opportunity to shine, I brought them over to a friend of mine who owns MBL 101E, Quad 2905 and Magnepan 20.7. Hearing the biggest Maggies on that list was my plan.


The result was truly compelling. The dark character of the SPM-6000 disappeared completely and PRaT suddenly expressed itself in a very accurate manner. It goes without saying that image specificity and soundstaging were exact and enormous again. The laterally spacious spread was definitely sized XXL. At this stage anyone would know that the amps were finally matched just right to their loads. The Saint Saëns 3rd Symphony in C minor [BSO, Charles Munch] had grip, density and amazing tone for the organ, woodwinds and strings. I was astonished by this change on the Organ Symphony compared to what the Chords had done at home. With the North American panel speakers the Brits truly captured the aspect of live sound and did so with great authority and tacitness.


Female voices too exhibited more presence and humanity. They were impeccably defined and had perfect palpability and three-dimensionality. Frankly the Chords sounded like completely different amplifiers. Jocelyn B. Smith's voice on Live in Berlin too was more palpable and her small dynamic inflections and delivery variations were better highlighted. We also had time to compare the SPM-6000 to other big boys like my friend's VTL MB-1250 Wotan amplifiers (1250-watt valve monos in tetrode mode). Everyone with even a minimalist Magnepan background knows how they love and need plenty of power. My friend preferred the sound of his VTL statement amplifiers but was really impressed with the Chords. As a solid statesman I personally preferred the Chords but this was purely a question of taste considering the very fine performance of each pair in absolute terms.


By comparison with the Wotans, the SPM-6000 were very silent. Consequently their resolution's noise floor appeared to be exceedingly low. Whilst micro-dynamic resolution was in the same league, it perhaps was a bit more convincing with the Chords. Ideally I should have wanted the VTLs to have a complete change of all their forty-eight 6550 bottles for the fairest basis of comparison. Anyway, on the Maggies the Chords proved themselves to be utterly transparent and fast while tonal sumptuousness still clocked in favor of the VTL. Bass performance with the SPM-6000 was under complete control however and hit desired bottom-end extension without any kind of slop. The ability of the my amp loaners to perfectly focus each instrument was outstanding once again.

Conclusion. The Chord SPM-6000 are an impressive technological achievement. At their price tag it’s simply more important than ever to choose the right amplifier for the job. There is such a thing as too much amp for a speaker! If you look for romance, harmonic sweetness, luster and airiness, these insanely expensive amps are undoubtedly not for you. They are dead neutral and I wouldn't think any particular association could be a total game changer on this count. They don't provide the tonal richness one can obtain with pure class A machines or valve amplifiers. They also put some distance between the listener and the virtual events. Considering the elevated sticker, the sole recommendation that comes to mind is to use them in the proper context and for what they were designed – to drive very difficult loads. They do not possess the versatility and openness of the Ayon Audio Orthos for instance. Driving big panels like Magnepan and Soundlab or huge ribbons like Apogee meanwhile transforms into one of the most suitable pairings whereby these Chords get to properly express their overwhelming neutrality and purity. As usual the best choice will be the one that best suits your speakers. The Chord SPM-6000 are no exception and their clear clinical sound cannot match all speakers. And of course there are other über amps on the planet to consider. Yet few should provide this much power with this little weight and such high power efficiency. If you need to have civilized monsters with apparently bullet-proof reliability and unconditional stability... these should probably be on your list of options.
Chord Electronics website