What is on my program today ... the Solitaire P by T + A . What a horrible name for such a very well thought-out construction.
Yes dear Joe ... dear Sankar .... this point goes to Gemany. After Meze Audio the second manufacturer (newcomer) who shows how to do it. You need the right skilled people for this.
But the construction, workmanship and comfort, which are really great with this headphone from Herford, are not everything.
Having 3400 tracks available, I have not found a single one on my Astell & Kern, which the Solitaire does exceptionally well, or at least partly as good or better as an Utopia / Diana Phi / Zmf Verite / Clear. No matter whether I use Solitaire in combination with my A&K Player, the TT2 or the Questyle CMA 12 Master.
I save myself the comparison with my marble stone HE1.
So what is wrong? Quite simply, it is the sound signature offered by this headphone.
Regarding bass there is nothing to complain about, but regarding mids and highs, there something which does sounds not right. It does not Sound sharp or sibilant, but somewhere in the mids and highs there is a real roller coaster, which even I only know from one Company
Do I think to have the wrong headphone amps with Chord's TT2 or Questyle's 12 Master? No, I certainly do not to worry in this regard.
In this Case...i think T&A's upcoming headphone amp will not be able to breathe an audiophile sound signature into this model.
Is it only whining at a high level? I can also say no, my personal expectations to this headphone model have been missed so far. Does my Golden Ear tell me something wrong? In the end, the measurements probably will show how far I am correct and how far wrong.
Kudos to the designer and for the effort that was made here, but looked at from the acoustic side ... Sorry i can not recoment it for this price
NOMAX
P.S. Am I too critical? Decide for yourself in case you get the chance to test this model and compare it to other headphones.
Thanks for a very early impression. I would say if you already purchased the Solitaire P, give it more time and play around with it. You might discover why it sounds that way.
Personally, i would say this hobby needs an open mind and great endurance. Why? Most of the High-End Equipments sound terrible when you bring them to your home. The reason is that we, as an ordinary consumer, don't have enough knowledge to gain full control of these equipments. To truly let these equipments shine, it takes lot of time, effort and, of course, lots of money. Maybe this is what makes this hobby fun for the hardcore player. I will tell you all a story of when i bought the Focal Utopia.
Last time, i purchased a Focal Utopia around 4 years ago blindly because there's no distributor in my country for demonstration. When i first put them on my head and listened to several song out of my rig, i was truly disappointed. This "high-end" headphone sounds way so "small", "why on earth its soundstage is too small and flat", "congested", "muddy midrange", "sibilance" "its mid-high register sounds wrong". However, i have an "upgrade cable" that i ordered together with the Utopia as an "internet friend" of mind suggested - The Siltech Duchess Crown. I quickly changed the cable and things got a little better. However, the soundstage is still too small, forward and "big" midrange that occupies most of the space, sibilance is still there. After trying to listen for about half an hour, i gave up as i felt too dizzy to continue. My system at that time is Macbook Pro (Audirvana) -> Exogal Comet Plus DAC -> LTA Microzotl 2 headphone amp with upgraded tube and PSU. Later, i spent more than 6 months trying different ways and invest around $8,000 more to let the Utopia truly shine. At its best, Utopia soundstage very holographic, precise and what truly stunned me is its dynamics especially with some classical tracks which is totally different from when i first listen to them. At night, when the AC Main get the least noise, i even felt i was listening to a big floor-stand speakers in great acoustic environment as the stage is just "massive" and kind of "embracing" me. I won't go into details what i did because there were many things to do and things got a little complicated.
I also have a friend who invested a speaker system worth nearly $1,000,000 in retail price and it sounds so terrible that he said to me "sometime, i felt so irritated that i wanted to throw all the system out of the window". He even emailed dCS asking why his limited edition dCS Vivaldi One ($70,000) sound worse than the $6,000 T+A MP 1000E. Finally, it takes him more than 2 years and he partially managed to "understand" the system. He is very happy now with that system and listen all day in this "social distancing" situation.
