The Altmann Tera Player - Thread

[fiascogarcia]

 
Other products from Charles have similary crazy price:
 
- 10 Watt Amp  6000 EUR   http://www.mother-of-tone.com/byob.htm
- DA-Converter 6000 EUR   http://www.mother-of-tone.com/attraction.htm
- Audio AD-Converter 13000 EUR  http://www.mother-of-tone.com/creation.htm
 
I think, Charles wants to sell nothing

I think you are correct.  It appears that he just wants to quit manufacturing his products, unless someone is crazy enough to pay his price.

 

[musicday]

Then again i thik if he really wanted to make lots of money would have sold the Tera at 2000 Euros, as you will get more orders-more buyers- more profit then selling it to a very few at the asking price.
I am sure he knows what he knows and unfortunately we won't know.
The latest update included: double the RAM so faster access with slower cards, new random algorithm that works much better.
The blue access led light will come on during the insertion of an SD card with newer models at around 25/sec, compared to much quicker previously, seen them both and the extra RAM does make a big difference.
Gavin the guy behind Ref1 owns a Tera and really like it,so does Mike from Heafonia.
And not to mention all the reviews that are genuine as one is mine.
Some of those guys have big funds so they can buy pretty much anything audio they want,but many have stopped at the Tera once they heard it.
Read the reviews you will learn something new.
The Tera player is the only non-fatique player i have ever heard,used mine for 8 hours no break with no problems.
I know that it is very expensive and i don't agre with that,but where are the true Tera owners to come in and give their impressions.
Now this player has the most love/hate ratio from everything i heard of.
But is good,and i will try again soon against the top high end portable music players for my listening satisfaction

 

[flymetothemoon]

(1) Gavin the guy behind Ref1 owns a Tera and really like it,so does Mike from Heafonia.

(2) Read the reviews you will learn something new.
(3) The Tera player is the only non-fatigue player i have ever heard,used mine for 8 hours no break with no problems.
(4) I know that it is very expensive and i don't agree with that,but where are the true Tera owners to come in and give their impressions.
Now this player has the most love/hate ratio from everything i heard of.
But is good,and i will try again soon against the top high end portable music players for my listening satisfaction

(1) Gavin has a very short period of ownership of the Tera (as his unit was delivered few weeks behind mine) and AK240 was the replacement after the Tera era (of course he has moved on to something else after the AK240)...just for your information.
 
 
(2)/(4) Quite a number of previous owners (like me) have shared their opinions/impressions of the Tera and those are even more in-depth reviews as it went through a much longer period of time.  How they have overcome their own subjective opinions (as they were the one who decided to buy the Tera) and comments on the pros/cons of Tera against market current, IMHO, are of credible references.
 
(3) The Tera/Koss is not the only combo that allows non-fatigue all day listening.  I have the AK240/Tralucent Ref1/Uber listening during work days (Mon-Fri) with no less than 4-6 hours of non-stop audition daily...that should also qualified as non-fatigue listening, I think.  More importantly, it is the mix and match [of any combo] that would deliver no-spike decent sound to allow us to enjoy all-day music.  I can let you have my previous Sony EX1000 on Tera and you won't able to hang on for more than 2 hours.  
 
For 24/96 digital audio, it is almost impossible to derive analogue sound.  I bet there'll be a lot of audio shops still selling analogue system in the UK, especially in London, that you can get a sense of what exactly analogue sound means [to compare to your Tera] before comment further.  It [Tera] does, however, performs less digital when compare to many of the DAPs in the market but not necessarily "all".  We all need to accept that we are in the world of digital (that's why players now call DAPs) and digital audio still has a long way to go (as majority of the current digital sources derived/converted from CD masters, regardless of which formats that you've bought) from perfection.  The DSD (native DSD recordings) format in fact provides more analogue feel than that of the PCM should you keen on analogue sound...but warn you that only a very good stereo system can let you hear the difference between the two...I've found current DSD capable DAP (like my AK240) still fall short to deliver the benefits of DSD audio.
 
Hope this helps to get over the mental block of Tera.

 

[tgdinamo]

It's truly astonishing that he has raised the price to 10k euros. It's actually unbelievable. I would love to see the reaction of a normal person, seeing this price. It's his player to price as he pleases, but that price tag is laughable, to say the least. People defending it, is even more unbelievable.
 

 
There are two completely separate themes being discussed but some people seem to insist on linking them:
 
1. Price increases. I don't know ANYBODY who is defending the price increase. Can you please name anybody who has said EUR 10,000 or even 5,000 is reasonable? I have not seen it and have been reading Tera threads for a very long time. Last time I may have defended the price was when it was under EUR 2000 and I still feel that would be a price I would be happy to buy a new one if something happened to my current Tera.
 
2. SQ. Quite a few Tera owners have tried other players and many don't agree there are sonically better alternatives out there. Why can't some people accept that instead of insisting that just because technology theoretically must move forward this should translate to Tera being outdated? This is in many ways similar to my other hobby where Canon and Nikon owners trash Leica because it's crazy expansive and lacks modern features while at the same time still can't touch it when it comes to image quality (ultimately the most important in photography at least imho).
 
Number 2 is the only place where we disagree. Unfortunatelly I get a feeling that some people are so outraged regarding #1 that they are looking for any reasons whatsoever to thrash Charles/Tera and even criticizing the stellar SQ.

 

[flymetothemoon]

   
There are two completely separate themes being discussed but some people seem to insist on linking them:
 
1. Price increases. I don't know ANYBODY who is defending the price increase. Can you please name anybody who has said EUR 10,000 or even 5,000 is reasonable? I have not seen it and have been reading Tera threads for a very long time. Last time I may have defended the price was when it was under EUR 2000 and I still feel that would be a price I would be happy to buy a new one if something happened to my current Tera.
 
2. SQ. Quite a few Tera owners have tried other players and many don't agree there are sonically better alternatives out there. Why can't some people accept that instead of insisting that just because technology theoretically must move forward this should translate to Tera being outdated? This is in many ways similar to my other hobby where Canon and Nikon owners trash Leica because it's crazy expansive and lacks modern features while at the same time still can't touch it when it comes to image quality (ultimately the most important in photography at least imho).
 
Number 2 is the only place where we disagree. Unfortunatelly I get a feeling that some people are so outraged regarding #1 that they are looking for any reasons whatsoever to thrash Charles/Tera and even criticizing the stellar SQ.

Yup...you are absolutely right...only applied to the Leica lenses, not their digital camera body though...as it relied on i/ censor technologies ii/ algorithm and these two [digital fronts] continuously improved.

 

[tgdinamo]

  Yup...you are absolutely right...only applied to the Leica lenses, not their digital camera body though...as it relied on i/ censor technologies ii/ algorithm and these two [digital fronts] continuously improved.

 
I agree about Leica lenses being the secret sauce. While people can take measurements and perform all kinds of sophisticated analysis in attempt to emulate them there is still that distinct 'Leica look' present in images - just like in my opinion there is something unique about Tera SQ - it comes accross as more effortless and there is the sense of air movement that I just dont experience with other dacs (of course only with perfectly matched phones like Tralucents or modified Koss Porta). I believe the Tera magic is more on the sofware implementation side, although the chip Charles chose has to be critical piece of the puzzle as well.

 

[flymetothemoon]

   
I agree about Leica lenses being the secret sauce. While people can take measurements and perform all kinds of sophisticated analysis in attempt to emulate them there is still that distinct 'Leica look' present in images - just like in my opinion there is something unique about Tera SQ - it comes accross as more effortless and there is the sense of air movement that I just dont experience with other dacs (of course only with perfectly matched phones like Tralucents or modified Koss Porta). I believe the Tera magic is more on the sofware implementation side, although the chip Charles chose has to be critical piece of the puzzle as well.

Do respect one's sound signature preference...there is no debate on this as it is personal.
 
Cheers

 

[warrior1975]

tgdinamo I apologize, you are correct, nobody that I recall has directly defended the price, I took that a little to far, definitely took it too far.

I've never said anything about the sq, which for me, would not matter as I don't care for that design. I need a GUI.

Anyway, if I offended anyone with my statements, I offer my sincerest apologies.

I hope everyone that owns the device truly enjoys it, as that's all that matters.

Cheers.

 

[tgdinamo]

@tgdinamo I apologize, you are correct, nobody that I recall has directly defended the price, I took that a little to far, definitely took it too far.

I've never said anything about the sq, which for me, would not matter as I don't care for that design. I need a GUI.

Anyway, if I offended anyone with my statements, I offer my sincerest apologies.

I hope everyone that owns the device truly enjoys it, as that's all that matters.

Cheers.

 
Not a problem at all as far as I'm concerned and no apologies are necessary. I love to hear strong opinions even if I don't always agree with all of them them (came to this forum to learn as there are quite a few knowledgeable people with interesting perspectives).
Also this particular thread tends to go very quite for long times and that's not good either.

 

[Ruben123]

Lol so reading about his state of the art amp it made me clear that maybe it is all a joke, and maybe he didn't want to sell anything at first. I see it as follows. He started diy'ing and made a couple of things like the amp and tera. Probably nothing to write home about but friends actually liked his efforts because they looked cool. Maybe he made some more amps and teras for his friends and thought "well let's look what confirmation bias could do by selling these diy things for premium quality. Because of the price and description on my site people would really expect great quality and because they expect that, they will hear it sounding great". Maybe he didn't want to sell anything at all but just look how many people would buy his eBay amp for great $$$ while it didn't cost him much at all. I mean, just look at the description of the amp! It's hilarious, you can't take that seriously even though it seems quite many did. He knows he's kidding and it should come to my surprise if he didn't know that and has been serious all the time.

 

[cedboe]

Lol so reading about his state of the art amp it made me clear that maybe it is all a joke, and maybe he didn't want to sell anything at first. I see it as follows. He started diy'ing and made a couple of things like the amp and tera. Probably nothing to write home about but friends actually liked his efforts because they looked cool. Maybe he made some more amps and teras for his friends and thought "well let's look what confirmation bias could do by selling these diy things for premium quality. Because of the price and description on my site people would really expect great quality and because they expect that, they will hear it sounding great". Maybe he didn't want to sell anything at all but just look how many people would buy his eBay amp for great $$$ while it didn't cost him much at all. I mean, just look at the description of the amp! It's hilarious, you can't take that seriously even though it seems quite many did. He knows he's kidding and it should come to my surprise if he didn't know that and has been serious all the time.

Being the happy owner of both Charles DAC and amp I can tell you that they sound as good as 10'000 or more amp and dacs around. But they used to sell for 700€ I believe (I got mine for this price second hand). So it wasn't a joke, at least in the beginning. Charles really did listen, and if you go to some hifi salon (like Munich or alike) you will hear that many multi K$ components just sound...bad. Why ? Because many people buy just to show off and believe the more you spend the better it sounds. So it was refreshing back then when Charles came with something that sounds amazing for less than 1K. And the fact he uses car batteries is just great, as these are pretty cheap and last very long. So his dac and his amp linked to my Grado HP2 is heaven on earth.
 
Sadly, it seems Charles is pretty tired to build and sell his gear, as he cannot justify the price increase. When you have a big fashion case, it can look like very expensive (and components can be very crappy, which sadly happens quite often), but he doesn't even bother. My guess is he doesn't have time for that anymore, but if someone is stooooooopid enough to spend 10K€ for a Tera Player he will happily sell it. So be it ! But what he builds does sound amazing for the first price that was asked back then.

 

[musicday]

I would love to have the opportunity to hear both the Altmann DAC and AMP.
If they sound similar to the Tera player is amazing. And i am sure they do, as Charles is an genius and brought us the Tera player that many who OWN one are very happy with it.

 

[swannie007]

What is extremely interesting about this thread is that contributors still owning Tera Players loudly laud the sound quality with an almost evangelical zeal, yet former owners who've sold their units (when they realised that this DAP has a serious sonic flaw, namely truncating frequency extremes) are quite content to occasionally chip in with polite suggestions for alternatives costing a mere fraction of the Tera Players frankly ludicrous cost. It's almost akin to convincing the diehard Tera Player fanatics that the world isn't flat!

For those contemplating buying a Tera Player consider these facts -

The first 10 introductory units were sold for 500 Euros each, I know this as I bought one from Charles at this price.
The price was then set at 840 Euros by Charles - remember that this was a commercial price at which he made a decent profit.
Then A&K introduced the AK... and Charles doubled the price overnight to 1680 Euros - so if he made a profit at 840 Euros what's the margin now?!?
Those A&K numbers kept increasing and so did the Tera Players cost, as now it'll cost you 3360 Euros. Can I hear someone laughing all the way to his bank?
Just to add insult to eccentricity our zany German friend decided to double up yet again, so before the last price hike you only had to spend 6720 Euros to buy a Tera Player.

Please remember that Charles was making a profit selling the Tera Player at 840 Euros. Now ask yourself, is a decent sounding DAP that many former owners have realised was fatally sonically flawed, worth thousands of units of your currency when arguably vastly superior more modern alternatives are available at far less coin?!?

This is taking the piss of the highest order! Damn you would have to be a total numpty to buy one at that price.To each his own I guess.

 

[musicday]

Anyone coming to the London audio show PM,we can meet and you get to hear the Tera Player

 

[sonickarma]

This price is TeraBill - (Terrible) -Sorry for the bad pun couldn't resist)