As one of the few and proud T+A dealers we would love to respond.
Lostbears, I find your comments rather confusing, there are very few T+A dealers with current product on display. T+A's older products were good, but not amazing, which I would agree with,
The new HV series products that T+A is currently making are the products that are truly fantastic and could be considered game changing products: that includes the new R series which is based on HV technology and of course the HV series reference gear and the DAC 8 DSD, and i know that none of the current T+A dealers carry Pass Labs, Sim Audio, and T+A.
Pass Labs tends to sound warm, Sim sound clean and a bit dry like Ayre, so that fact that you like both of these different sounding brands sounds very confusing. You may like Pass and Sim amplifiers but unless you compare them side to side to the HV products how do you know which one is better sounding?
We like Pass Labs, never been partial to Sim. what it interesting is one of the Audiogon posters, Musicfx, compared a T+A R 2500 a 140 watt $11k integrated vs the $12k Pass Labs integrated and chose the T+A over the Pass and has been ecstatic over the sound quality between his Wilson Sasha and the R 2500!
In terms of technology T+A is the first company to implement this High Voltage design concept which runs solid state devices at tube devices high voltage rails.
The T+A engineers theorized that the reason tube components sound so musical was not even order harmonic distortion rather it was the greater linearity of the devices transfer function which occurs at higher voltages so if you build a solid state device and ramp up the rail voltages it starts to sound like a tube!
We have a full compliment of the HV series gear on display and the gear is just remarkable, we have compared T+A to amplifiers that were $120k and the T+A PA 3000 power amp plus supply a $32k combo just wiped the floor with that amplifier.
We have also compared the T+A gear to CJ, Thrax, Electrocompaniet, Ypsilon, MBL, Krell, and Devialet and in every case the T+A gear was more magical and way more musical.
Other people reviewer Allan Taffel compared a $18k PA 3000 HV integrated amp to $120k worth of Ch Precision gear and as mentioned Musifix compared a $11k R series integrated vs Prima Luna and Pass Labs.
In Positive Feedback the reviewer compared the PA 3100 HV integrated $22k to a $45k Dagastino integrated.
The interesting factoid is when people compare the T+A gear to products 2-5 times the price most people come up with the same conclusion that the more expensive gear is very good just not necessarily worth twice the price in the case of the Dagastino integrated, over 5 times the price CH Precision stack.
Are we saying T+A is the greatest gear on the planet? No we are not, what we are saying is you can compare some of their products to dramatically more expensive components and many people will prefer or will find that T+A compares with gear 2-5 times its price.
The HV series gives people the chance to move into the uber reference level of sound quality comparable to CH Precision, Solution, Vitus, D'agastino and many of the worlds best sounding and extremely expensive brands for much lower cost.
I would say that is you compare Pass Labs and SIm both make good products but I have never seen their products being touted in the same way as being able to compare to the world's best yet costing a fraction of the price. Sim and Pass Labs both make excellent products but value oriented I don't see it.
In the case of the R series integrated they seem expensive for the power
R 2500 140 watt $11k
R 2000 80 watts $9k
but if you hear one you will be blown away, the sound is in a different league vs Hegel, Luxman, Devialet, Esoteric, we sold all three of those brands.
If you want to know why these products are so magical think of the best qualities of many manufacturers and combine them into one and you have the T+A House sound:
The R 2500 huge sound stage width and depth
warm midrange
PRAT pace, rhythm, and timing
excellent detail retrieval
warm punchy bass
totally silent
engaging.
runs warm not hot
practical size and weight
stunning good looks
German build quality
We had a 2500 for evaluation for a week and it was extremely hard to have to send it back and we have some fantastic gear on display in our second sound room, the R 2500 was just so good sounding.
As per the E series that is a different matter, we have so far 0 experience with the E which uses digital amplification. In Europe the E series is considered more of a lifestyle product built to compare with the Naim Uniti kinds of products so the E is reported to be very good product it does not have the lofty goals of the R and HV series.
We hope this helps and if you are on the East Coast give us a call and take a listen for yourself.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
