T+A Solitaire P planar magnetostatic on SOLARIS
So yesterday I unpacked my brandnew T+A Solitaire P headphones and had them burn... >>>T+A Solitaire P planar magnetostatic on SOLARIS
So yesterday I unpacked my brandnew T+A Solitaire P headphones and had them burn in a bit overnight.
I connected it to the Audiovalve Solaris headphones amplifier via a 4-pin XLR cable, have been listening for several hours today and can no longer get my lower jaw up.
Never before have I heard such a deep black, effortlessly precise, detailed, dynamic, spatial, holographic and at the same time natural sound image with headphones.
The information that is conveyed in the low range comes so seamlessly, the vibrations dissipate so etremely well controlled in the space, that I startle again and again (in a positive sense).
Relaxation begins immediately after sterting the listening session as the signal reproduction is timely and stress-free.
You can hear details from left, from right, from the top, from down, from the front and from the back and you discover minute details in the music signal that were previously unheard.
I listened to the fabulous Manger production "Music like from another star" again and again. Now I'm at (please forgive) The Eagles, "Hotel California" (r-master; I know every detail, at least I thought) and for the first time I hear a scratching string vibrato on a guitar slide of Glenn Frey. I catch myself turning the music down more and more because my ears literally grow into the music and the sensitivity of my hearing increases. The volume control is currently in the 09:30 position, gain is not switched on the Audiovalve Solaris leaving enormous power reserves in this setup.
I find the mechanics and comfort to be outstanding, after a few seconds I forgot that I was listening with headphones.
The cables are also excellent. They are light, not at all microphonic and they are extremely flexible. The cable feed is protruded. A rubberized, asymmetrically shaped sheathing of the connector housing ensures that there is no fear of a cable break even after years of use, even with mechanical stress.
Suspended on a headphone stand, the ear cups do not fold around wildly, but go inwards to their rest position.
The entire handling is uncomplicated, since the mechanics only allow sensible degrees of freedom for the ear cups.
The design language takes on the chamfered edges and corners of the legendary T+A R series electronics design, which many - wrongly – attribute to BRAUN / Dieter Rams.
It's all a lot of fun.
Over the last few weeks waiting for the Solitaire P to arrive I have a few times heard things like "as a T+A fan you are biased" or "the manufacturer has no experience in headphone making". I would want to flip this over. I am convinced of T+A because this conviction matured in my 30 years of perception of the company's products. There were never half-baked dishes, they never thoughtlessly dived after a sow in Herford that was once again driven through the hi-fi village, but carried out their development work carefully and presented the products when they were ripe for the market. They never developed down to a price stipulated by a marketing function, but rather based on technical consistency. For the individual device series, different approaches were chosen, especially in the mechanics, in order to remain within certain price brackets.
The founder and managing director of T+A, Dipl.-Physicist Siegfried Amft, already dealt with foil transducers during his studies in electroacoustics, among others with Professer Fritz Sennheiser (the first) and has already used them in several generations of his high-end loudspeakers. In the current T+A Solitaire CWT 1000-40 Anniversary Edition (65.000 USD), for example, an outstanding, almost 1 meter long electrostat is used in the high frequency range, which was completely developed by the company itself and is built in Herford.
May those who condescend to come to such hasty judgments without having ever heard the Solitaire P, stay with it and thus keep their inner peace. Progress inevitably happens even without it, its beneficiaries are those who grant such innovations access to their life.
In any case, this is my very own feeling - I have headphones on my ears that have never existed before, anything but a "me-too product" that are abundant in the headphone sector.
Outstanding sound qualities, developed in Germany, technically outstandingly constructed, made from the finest materials in Germany with a lot of love by hand in a house to which voodoo was always a stranger and which places science at the forefront in its actions.
I am convinced that the Guide Michelin, if headphones fell from its breviary, would come to the conclusion that a listening session with the T+A Solitaire P is not just worth a stop or a detour, but even a trip.
In my Wiesbaden, Germany based studio I offer a comparison to many other top headphones, the T+A Solitaire HA 200 headphone amplifier will arrive shortly and complement the Solitaire P to a perfect system.
As soon as the Corona Virus is contained and I am allowed to open my shop to the public again, I am pleased to be able to give many interested parties a hearing session.
Until then, the shipping route remains for those seriously interested.
Stay healthy!
Best wishes, Ingo <<<
