T+A HA 200 Headphone Amp and Solitaire P Headphones

VITAL STATS – HEADPHONE AMP

Model	HA 200
Class A Operation	Up to 700 mA
Frequency Response	0.1 Hz to 200 kHz
Signal to Noise Ratio	>110/114 dB
Channel Separation	>108 dB
Analogue Inputs	High level RCA Balanced XLR
Digital Inputs	1 x AES-EBU 32-192 kHz / 16-24 bit S/P-DIF: 2 x Standard Coax 2 x optical TOS-Link 32-192 kHz / 16-24 bit 1 x BNC 32-192 kHz / 16-24 bit 2 x USB DAC
Connectivity	2 x HDMI IN, 1 x HDMI OUT with ARC (as an option) Bluetooth via A2DP (Audio), AVRCP 1.4 (Control) / aptX® HD , SBC, AAC Bluetooth via A2DP (Audio), AVRCP 1.4 (Control) / aptX® HD , SBC, AAC
Dimensions (HxWxD)	100x320x340 cm
Weight	6.5 kg
Verdict	For the dedicated.

 

VITAL STATS – HEADPHONES

Model	Solitaire P
Impedance	80 Ohms
Frequency Response	5 Hz to 54 kHz
Distortion	0.015% @ 100 dB
Construction	open, over ear, 110×80 mm transducer
Max SPL	130 dB
Connectivity	Unbalanced cable with 6.3 mm connector and balanced cable 4-pin XLR connector
Weight	530 g
Verdict	Also for the dedicated!

 

PRICE +/- R 300k for the pair (dollar priced)

SUPPLIED BY ElectroAcoustik (Mark Chewins 083 399-8383)

WEBSITE  www.elektroakustik.co.za

This is a case of defining specialism. After all, isn’t the definition of a specialist being someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing?

The T+A kit on review might be unfairly accused of demonstrating how the narrowing focus on just one thing, namely delivering music to headphones, reveals the specialist nature of the beast. There is one key exception, however, in that this delivery is not decreasing the listening experience.

It is blowing it apart.

One might expect that you do get something out of the outlay of $9,650 for the amp and $6,900 for the headphones. Call it around R300k for the pair. This isn’t chump change for a headphone experience. But as we will read, what you do get is quite possibly the most immersive headphone experience that might yet surprise you to the point of swiping ‘that’ card that your spouse doesn’t know about…

That said, let me clarify that it would be a mistake to expect to become isolated into a black box world similar to that of sensory chamber deprivation. These are not some black magic-out-of-body-transformative magic bean toys. These are not those just to temper any potential disappointments. This is a combination that requires you to listen first, digest and then slowly unravel what it is you’re hearing.

 

Not knowing the price before I began, I can report that from unboxing these components you can tell right away that these are high end quality components. The look and feel of the headphones in their presentation box is nothing short of stunning, and lifting them with their hefty half kg weight every touch point oozes quality. Putting them on your head is a cosseting sensation and they are so comfortable that you just don’t want to take them off. These are qualities that come with thought and design and the result is that they feel expensive. Plugging the cables into the headphones completes the picture in that this is a physically satisfying exercise that gives you complete confidence that there is no potential for loss via a less than perfect connection.

The same goes for the amp. It’s 6.5 kg of hefty build that leaves zero wiggle room around the doubt of the quality of the switch-gear, the componentry, the physical connections. It’s all there and and it too, feels good. This is high end precision and you will not be left wondering about any of it. Maybe as a designer I would construct the remote with the size and weight of a brick to simply make the point of attachment. It is not thankfully under the sphere of my influence and the remote included is probably overkill given that you’re likely to be using it less and less because you want to feel and touch the HA 200 more and more.

The scene is then set for a blow your socks off experience and the concomitant expectation thereof. With some interest I lined up my first few tracks on the system. Before the first notes hit however, the sensation of open design headphones sets a scene with background noises and voices apparent, as they would be on a traditional hi-fi setup with speakers. Then those first notes hit and not knowing what sound pressure levels to expect I had set the volume pretty low with a sense of self preservation for my ear canals. But I needn’t have worried.

It was all a little underwhelming. Adjusting the volume up to normal listening levels, even for supposedly experienced people (and I consider myself to have been around the block a few times), is not as easy as you might think because your brain is telling you it’s not as loud as it really is. And that’s the point of ‘underwhelming’. I think that even for experienced headphoners it will take a few hours to come to terms with what it is you are actually being served with. Yes, it wasn’t quite what I had been anticipating in all honesty, with my knee jerk first reaction to be to reach for the volume knob to crank it up a good few notches. It says more about my own internal prejudices if I’m honest as to what I was expecting but didn’t get.

I was expecting more drama.

The fact that I didn’t get it only happens rarely. It’s when a system is clean with such an undetectable noise floor, with zero measurable distortion that you are tempted to add more and more volume until your head implodes without you noticing. But it is also just the level of detail that takes the time to get to grips with. Your (my) brain can’t keep up and so it just leaves it all out. The neutral, revealing presentation is subtly nuanced with the result that the more you listen the more you hear. There is just so much audible information on hand that frankly it takes your brain a little while to sort it all out. If, as our evolution might dictate, our hearing could be the difference between life and death then these are the headphones that will separate you from being lunch to a sabre toothed tiger.

The upside is that the longer you travel down the wormhole that is this combination, the downside that is the sheer price becomes annoyingly less and less objectionable. It’s a lethally toxic combination and I think that the truth of these two working in tandem is that whilst they won’t explode your mind in the first few seconds they will ruin it for anything else that follows. It is the high end curse.

Physically the headphones themselves are open design planar, which means that what you have is a conductive diaphragm located in between an array of magnets that creates the planar driver. This design is said to have less distortion and a faster response but comes with added weight and typically also a need for quite a bit of power. Happily there are no problems there with 700 mA on tap from the amp translating into head implosion territory should you actually max these things. There is no need to translate into watts – headphones such as these don’t need to be bench marked on watts.

The headphones are heavy but the comfort level in wearing them is desirable – I didn’t want to take them off. They feel good when positioned correctly and the padding and adjustments you can make will take care of all but the most fastidious of us. Once they’re playing of course, all creature considerations can safely be tossed out of the window because the music takes over.

Setup of the amp is fiddly until you’ve done it for the first time. The inputs are configurable and this makes the amp versatile in that you can customise what you want coming in, what happens to it and then where it goes. At this pricing point there is nothing missing and once you’ve had it set to your wants and needs chances are you won’t need to consult the manual ever again. The tactility of luxury of use extends as much to the amp as it does from the headphones and underscores the nature of the high end combination.

Speed is one thing, clarity and transparency, which seem to flow naturally together are another thing entirely. Streaming lossless (and you can use the onboard headphone DAC for your translation)  and letting the headphones settle will see you right. I used my Node for the source in an attempt to benchmark from a reference basis but in all honesty it is extremely hard to reference this pair against a solid benchmark because high end head phones are rare.

So with everything set up and as neutral as possible the delicate task of listening over a few days was undertaken. I have listened to all manner of headphones over the years but the very first time I ever heard CD being played was on headphones. This was the birth of my interest in high fidelity, way back in nineteen something or other. At the time it was only a friend’s doctor who could afford a player, much alone the discs themselves. The experience back then was transformative and it was to that moment that this exact pair of audio crown jewels transported me.

Back then it was the clarity, the absence of noise and the detail of CD that blew tape and vinyl into the history books. In 2024 it was the same things that triggered my emotive memory banks. Now however the performance has to be about as big a jump in today’s terms as it was way back when. It lies as much in the subtlety and balance of neutrality that echoes in every chord, in every note played. As far as planar tech goes then you can consider me as sold. The breadth of uniform response I felt was flat lined across the frequency range and I’d love to see some graphs to back my ears, as much as I have studiously avoided trying to decipher technical performance against how a system makes me feel through my ears.

I got a few distinct surprises in listening across music that I thought I knew particularly well. Granted some I haven’t listened to in a while, but there were instances when music would sound less boisterous than I recall, but that some cymbal clashes felt more imposing. What I was expecting that did happen is that poor recordings are rapidly shredded by this high end pair. Tread warily into this arena!

We call performance at this level as a ‘reference’ level of reproduction. You don’t really get terribly much higher praise than that. I wasn’t expecting music to be expressed as neutrally understated as this but it is correct. It makes the listening experience absolute, and compellingly addictive. If you ever do get a chance to listen to these I urge and encourage you to take a step into a whole new world.

William Kelly