T+A elektroakustik GmbH & Co. brought the A-Team to AXPONA 2022, including US Representative Senior Vice President of Sales and Operations David Schultz, Chief Operations Officer (and heir apparent) Conradin Amft, and Founder and CEO Siegfried Amft. Over a light Saturday breakfast in the T+A Great Hall, the Amft elder informed the stereophilic the T+A status and projects team; expect big announcements at High End Munich later this month.
At AXPONA, T+A had most of its lines (perhaps all of them; I’m not sure) on passive screen – the massive and impressive HV series, the sleek, mid-range R series and the new 200 series, which stuffs much of the quality of the HV series, including the higher rail voltage, into a smaller, cheaper package. The 200 series was the focus of the Amft presentation and was the heart of the active system here. T+A’s 200 Series consists of four components: the MP 200 Multisource Streamer/CD Player ($5,700), the 200 D/A DAC/Preamplifier ($6,900), the A 200 Stereo Power Amplifier (4 $900) and the HA 200 DAC/headphone amplifier ($9500). There is also an HDMI module ($600), which can be added to the DAC 200 or HA 200.
The MP 200 does something I wish more 21st century source components did: it brings all the digital sources (CD transport, streaming and other digital inputs) into a single chassis, which then sends its data (digital only output) to a separate, self-contained DAC.
The MP 200, however, adds a twist: terrestrial FM radio, including HD FM (and DAB for those in Europe). (Recall that the HV series equivalent of the MP200, the MP3100 HV, which I received in 2020, also includes this surprise feature.) For streaming (wi-fi and Ethernet), the MP 200 is Roon Ready and supports popular streaming services including Tidal, Qobuz and Deezer. The MP 200 also includes the usual digital inputs – S/PDIF (coax and optical) – and supports Bluetooth.
The DAC 200 looks a lot like the HA 200. Both are beauties, with sleek dB-meters behind slightly domed glass, reminiscent of a fine watch. The features are impressive: Via the USB input, the DAC accepts PCM data up to 768kHz and DSD up to DSD1024, with totally separate processing paths for DSD and PCM. Conversion is dual differential with four parallel 32-bit sigma-delta DACs per channel for PCM; DSD processing is true 1-bit, with native DSD and DoP support. There is selectable oversampling, including optional NOS.
The A 200 power amplifier uses Purifi’s Eigentakt Class D technology. It delivers 250W of continuous output power per channel into 4 ohms (half into 8 ohms) with the S/N and distortion specifications you expect from Purifi modules, including an S/N ratio of 113 dB. At 800 the damping factor is so high that there is a switch to reduce it to 70 for better sound with some speakers.
The A 200 power amplifier drove the Talis S300 speakers ($17,500), but despite spending a lot of time in the T+A room, I didn’t listen much. When briefly listening from a less than optimal location in the room, I was struck by how well this compact system – even the speakers were quite small – filled the room.
During the presentation, Siegfried Amft shared the company’s new marketing slogan: “Engineering Emotion”. Isn’t that exactly what hi-fi is?
