I don't use this forum to promote my channel at all.
In fact, it is not even a review channel, I have a full time career completely unrelated.
This is a hobby, which I believe I'm allowed to have without your permission.
I'm actually surprised that my honest feedback as hit such a nerve.
Seems some Solitaire Ts fans are very delicate and have taken this personally, almost as if you've been paid by to promote these.
Look, I don't declare myself as a know it all and I was under the impression this is a information forum, where posts are intended for several reasons but also to learn and educate from various impressions and opinions.
Let me clarify, the sub bass didn't extend well in my opinion and the lack of deep bass inclined me to write and post my opinion.
The resolution on lossless tracks was also impressive, however again, in my opinion, not £1000+ worthy.
I'm stacking these up to the Focals Bathys and they're not even in the same league. The Bathys are better in every department and cost less.
So I was expecting a lot more for £1000+
It seems you've misread my signature and read partially what you wanted too, as the parts of my kit that I have declared, for some reason you missed.
It's clear to see you're a fan of these as many others are, however for me, they're a no.
But best of luck to you.
Unlike others, I was not going to, nor will I now, analyse your subjective opinions and (short) experiences regarding the T+A Solitaire T headphones.
Before I go further, I must at least point out that I do strongly disagree with your comments on build quality, and that is the only area where I am completely opposed to you in full.
However, the main reason why others have, essentially, balked at your opinions (as I have done) is simply due to lack of context, detail, and, moreover, essential clarity to how you came to your conclusions, and specifically the sonic impressions you have presented.
I never noted your posts as a review style, but just posting an opinion without structure, or how we, the readers, are able to at least have the opportunity to interpret your points caused owners and general readers to, unfortunately, not take your opinions seriously.
To put simply, most of those who have read your posts cannot read them as constructive criticisms simply due to the fact that they were not written as such, but as criticisms without context, borderline threadbare.
Even as an owner of these headphones and having both personal negative criticism and positive experiences, expressing these is key if any person wanted to take my opinions even remotely seriously, whether in short posts or long prose. This is something I have strived to do, and I have noted this from the day I got may pair (16 December 2023) to now.
I do not believe that you are being insincere, yet, your posts were of such a negative nature and wildly different to what owners and those who have demoed have experienced (and the seldom number of reviews available) that, with little to no context or fair reasoning as to your, sadly, negative views, you received negative replies.
That lack of detail also potentially rubbed people up the wrong way as well, as your posts seemed to show lack of respect to those who have experienced these headphones, or to any reader who may wish to try and understand what your posts mean.
It is your choice, but I would welcome you to, if you so wish, to perhaps write a post detailing your points again but with some extra details as to what you were expecting, music you tested, what you heard, comparisons to other headphones that you have used or are familiar with (if you can), and a short mention of gear used (not in a review style per se, but this added yet crucial pieces of information was missing in your earlier posts, which is why some members may have been colder or dismissive to you).
Of course, you do not need to do anything I have suggested, but I hope this clarifies why some of us took such a negative reception to your posts. Further, I do not speak for this group, but wanted to try and see your point of view as well.
Finally, here is a long-form example of my opinion regarding the bass region of the Solitaire T, which I hope helps you see where I am coming from. As this is a longer part of my post you can
skip this section, but I welcome you to
read at least the final paragraph:
One key area is my change of opinion regarding the bass region, and in both my short and long posts I indicated gear used and headphones I often listened to prior to acquiring the Solitaire T.
One factor to why I now enjoy the bass region of the Solitaire T is due to how much I used two of my previous major headphones, Focal Elear and Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 1, had influenced their sonic traits into my sonic profile. It took weeks of using the Solitaire T with, and later without, Bass Boost, to undo the previous headphones signatures, as the Solitaire T have a very neutral and natural sounding (but not flat frequency) sound profile.
Then I was able to realise how much of the sub-bass and bass detail, texture, and clarity I was missing with my aforementioned cans, but more importantly, how much of the mid-bass was revealed to me. I had not realised that my previous cans had smeared that region so much until I used the Solitaire T, and the clarity in this region further gave a positive impression of the bass to midrange transitions in whatever music I played (especially drums in rock music: Metallica, Radiohead, Queens of the Stone age, etc). For me, this was mind-blowing, as the difference to what I gained in this one region radically changed my experiences with music I enjoyed, be it The Chemical Brothers or Meute or Kelela or Joe Hisaishi pieces or Denzel Curry, and so on.
I still would like more bass simply because I love a bit more oomph, but I hardly ever
crave this now because, in my opinion, the bass response of the Solitaire T is very truthful and realistic; whenever I do add some more bass presence, it always comes at the sacrifice of mid-bass changes (smearing). That change to mid-bass I actively dislike, because to me the mid-bass and midrange are almost perfect to me tonality and sonically. Thus, adding more bass presence takes me out of enjoying my music in the long-run, as I am keenly aware of what the Solitaire T are capable of.
On the other hand, because the Solitaire T are so natural sounding, EQ'ing them is easy. Had I more bass-boosted cans, they would be harder to EQ than the Solitaire T as the boosted region would influence the mid-range and thus the entire frequency, as bass-boosted headphones are tuned as a whole, including the structure of the headphones themselves. Simply cutting the bass via EQ would not, in turn, just lower the bass response of bass-heavy cans, but instead could cause other issues simply due to changes in resonances that a headphone outputs by design. Now, this can be true for the Solitaire T as well, but here because the headphones were tuned to be more balanced overall frequency wise, resonances would also be affected to reflect this but at a lesser degree. Small bass boost might change some resonance, such as the mid-bass range (which I do not like), but not so much the entire headphone bandwidth, because the Solitaire T are not bass-tuned; the overall resonances would follow close to the default stock design with small bass boosts.
Lastly, it is so very common to purchase more (choose your preference) bassy/midrange focused/treble sparkly cans at any price range, but far, far harder to find a pair of hybrid wireless/wired headphones that are tuned balanced throughout the frequency spectrum.
The mainstream market is, mostly, predisposed to heavy bass-orientated or mid-range focused sound profiles, but
as long as the headphones are clear, they can be
amazing, such as Sony WH-1000XM5, Sennheiser Momentum 4, Focal Bathys, B&W PX8, etc. Yet headphones like Mark Levinson No. 5909 and T+A Solitaire T are much rarer as they provide
natural or balanced sounding traits.
Some audiophiles who want overear headphones similar to their desktop headphones, and want overear balanced sounding sonic profile in wireless or hybrid wireless/wired format, have far less choices, and at present T+A Solitaire T, and just under the Mark Levinson No. 5909 (in my opinion), provide said choices. There is nothing else at time of this post (noting that the more expensive HED Unity was only recently announced and demoed at NAMM 2023, but not out in the wild, yet, so cannot be compared to currently).
To put into a lazy context, consider Focal Clear/Clear MG headphones in wireless format. There was almost nothing on the market until the release of the No. 5909, and then later Solitaire T, which is why some people have gravitated towards such headphones, They are not for everyone, but they have their place.