Trafomatic Primavera Initial Impressions

[normie610]

The tiny but formidable WE437A. Still hoping that one day a pair of EC8020 will pop up with a reasonable price, but WE will do for now.

 

[normie610]

wow. what a monster, over-the-top, complete overkill, headphone amp. it makes the feliks envy weighing a mere 33 lbs look small. i can only imagine how this thing sounds.

It is super heavy, weighing at 30 kg (66 lbs) according to Trafomatic's webpage. Shipping weight is 49 kg (108 lbs), so it had to take a long route in order to reduce the shipping costs.

 

[normie610]

The beast in B&W.

 

[DMITRIY R]

The beast in B&W.

Looks, costs and sounds (I believe) like a top-notch grand piano.

 

[normie610]

Looks, costs and sounds (I believe) like a top-notch grand piano.

You’re right on looks and sounds, but you can get more than 10 Primaveras for a Steinway grand concert piano

 

[tunes]

The VC sounds amazing with the Primavera. A great combo IMHO. I mainly use it with the Abyss TC so I eventually sold my VC to fund another toy.

Has anyone compared the Feliks audio ENVY to the Primavera? How do they differ with Susvara?

 

[normie610]

Today I did some tube rolling, replacing WE437A with Electro Harmonix 6C45Pi gold pins (the first time ever on my Primavera since I straightaway used the WE since new), and it's a no contest. The WE trumps EH in every possible way. The sound with EH feels too hollow, with exaggerated reverbs. Now it makes me very very curious on how the Telefunken EC8020 will sound on Primavera. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to find EC8020. Well somebody is selling a pair at around $7,000 on eBay, which is ridiculous.

Thomas Mayer (the man behind Elrog tubes) said that the WE437A is the closest in terms of sound to EC8020 but the latter is still better to his ears. Luckily he has collected quite a stash in the last few years to be used on his own pre-amp production.

A couple of good readings for those who are interested:

https://vinylsavor.blogspot.com/2011/04/tube-of-month-ec8020.html
https://www.phaedrus-audio.com/super_gm.htm

 

[normie610]

That beautiful VU meter orange glow!

 

[Sajid Amit]

Hello Friends!

Okay, so this question is going to be a bit out there, but has any of you, Primavera owners tried driving IEMs with it, using the low impedance setting?

 

[DMITRIY R]

Sajid. With all due respect, your proposed action is illogical.
This amplifier has a preset fixed gain of 33 dB. In some full size headphones you will hear background noise, not to mention IEMs.

p.s.
I don't own the amplifier, but the numbers speak for themselves.

 

[Sajid Amit]

Sajid. With all due respect, your proposed action is illogical.
This amplifier has a preset fixed gain of 33 dB. In some full size headphones you will hear background noise, not to mention IEMs.

p.s.
I don't own the amplifier, but the numbers speak for themselves.

Oh I didn’t know! Thanks for the info.

In light of this info, it does sound illogical.

 

[BlueEmperor]

So the quest to get the Telefunken EC8020 ended up in vain. However, I managed to find a matched pair of WE437A

No reason to be sad Telefunken EC8020 is pretty much unobtanium at this point and even when by some miracle someone sell them NOS price is out of this world. That said 437A is a super tube of nearly the same caliber both EC8020 and 437A are the most impressive marvels of tube engineering ever imo.

 

[jlbrach]

Hello Friends!

Okay, so this question is going to be a bit out there, but has any of you, Primavera owners tried driving IEMs with it, using the low impedance setting?

I think you are barking up the wrong tree...IEM's aint made for amps like this...I use my IEM's with my hugo 2

 

[Johnsmith55]

That beautiful VU meter orange glow!

I’m curious how this would compare with the Viva Egoista 845.

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

I’m curious how this would compare with the Viva Egoista 845.

And I am very curious how it compares with my Hifiman EF1000 with both connected to my Susvara headphones.

I have heard the Viva Egoista 845 connected to a Chord DAVE (same DAC as I have) and the Susvara and to my ears my EF1000 was a lot better sounding. I found the 845 a bit too warm for my liking although a very nice Amp. I don't know what tubes were in it though.