The Symphonia offers 125 Wpc of world-leading class-D amplification.
T+A's new Symphonia brings everything to the table
Some of you, just like a few of the more hardcore audio nuts here at Upscale, might look at the Symphonia, above, and think, 'No, too fussy.' Too many controls. Unnecessary frills such as VU meters. "I bet it sacrifices sound quality."
We 'signal path forever' audiophiles have made this mistake before with T+A, most recently with the DAC 200, and earlier with the DAC 8 and R series receiver. We believe in blank boxes with nothing more than a power switch and maybe a volume knob, and only the purest, most direct signal paths. And yet, when you listen to a T+A with its menus, meters, and options, the purity of the sound matches and exceeds even the most pared down separates from similarly priced models. It's a headscratcher that surprises you every time.
Thus, with its goal of "engineering emotion", T+A gives audiophiles permission to enjoy frills and ornamentation while knowing they are not giving up on sound quality. After all, few people are immune to the allure of dancing VU meters. We find that they take us back to the first time we got a vehicle with an RPM gauge, and we'd blip the throttle just to watch that needle track the engine's song.
The One Box Symphonia
Fully contained loudspeakers are nice, but sometimes you want to showcase audio electronics, but without going into multiple shelves. The Symphonia offers this: a beautiful credenza-top control piece that needs just two loudspeakers to complete the system.
T+A's sound is musical, detailed, high-bandwidth, and technically neutral while being naturally warm. What we mean is that it doesn't color the sound, but presents the harmonics with great weight and emotion.
There are plenty of inputs, and the power supply of the Symphonia separates analog and digital realms.
The back of the Symphonia shows how it's designed to become the heart of a living room, with digital inputs including ARC, analog inputs, pre out for optional power amps, wireless, and subwoofer outs.Inside, a huge amount of engineering has gone into the power supply, totally separating digital and analog realms. The new design produces a pure sine wave and operates at a frequency more than twice as high as traditional power supplies. T+A's engineers are especially proud of their new development: capacitors that recharge 100,000 times per second. This is 2,000 times higher than conventional systems.
Amplification uses the world's best class-D modules, with in-house customizations. Purifi Eigentakt technology had changed all expectations from class-D, and when you pair them with a fast, low-noise power supply housed in such a beautiful case, you have to agree with T+A when they call the Symphonia the "future of retro."