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If the H2+'s physical stature underwhelmed, the T2+ compensated in the other direction. This began with the packaging. From the outside in this consisted of a black plastic moisture-proof wrap, a wooden crate, a cardboard box, a molded expanded-foam clam shell, a plastic-foil wrap and final foam-paper paint protection. Once 'extruded' from the final wrap, the amp's paint finish quality showed that not just the logo had gone uptown. The matte white paint application was truly flawless and spectacular, the metal-work detailing even better than previous Trafomatic issue. Kudos to Milorad Despotovich, resident expert of Trafomatic enclosures. With the T2+ he just obtained his master's degree! On to sonics. To remind the reader that I'm discussing a very specific combination of amp+headphone where the choice of amp goes well beyond ordinary differences by including significant response correction, I'll call this product T4+ (two 'T' for TakeT and Trafomatic, 2 x 2+ in each model's name). It'll be a subliminal but ongoing reminder that without the Serbian amp, at least some of my comments couldn't possibly apply, at least not exactly. Another otherness pooling into this discussion is TakeT's driver geometry. Dynamic, magnetostatic and electrostatic drivers face our ears directly. TakeT's multi-folded film mostly faces itself whilst occurring perpendicular to the ear. Only the narrow bends and just on one end look at our own membranes. That's far less direct. It ought to set up a very different reflection/propagation pattern. This surely plays a role in the associated very different listening sensation.


If T4+ were neutral or uncoloured, every other headphone I'm familiar with wouldn't be. Since that's clearly impossible—and further discounted by what the same recordings sound like on loudspeakers as a second control group—T4+ is a decidedly nonlinear coloured proposition, albeit a very interesting one. At first it actually sounded 'broken'. That's how different it was. But our hearing is notoriously adaptive. We get used to things very quickly. Our brain interpolates surprisingly effectively. That said, there's an easy control observation. The more neutral the playback system, the more differences there are from one recording to the next. When playback personality (which doesn't change) dominates recorded personality (which changes from album to album and sometimes from track to track), a certain sameness persists. And that very much applied here. Whilst T4+ extends reasonably low, it has no real bass weight to speak of. It's electrostatic not dynamic bass. It has never encountered an Audeze in its life. To a lesser extent it's also subdued in the treble to result in a vintage Quad midrange focus. And just like a classic Quad was a champion also of microdynamic nuance but quite weak at larger-scale dynamic contrast, so is T4+.


Once you add to such a clear midrange centeredness superb microdynamic nuance, you arrive at the type of intelligibility which in human speech becomes articulate. When someone is articulate, we mean he is well-spoken—i.e. she chooses her words carefully to convey very precise meaning—and enunciates very clearly. Both are necessary for successful orators and anchormen. Articulation also extends to movement. A pantomime for example will exhibit over-articulated facial and body expressions. Combine the spoken and physical meanings of the word and you arrive at the special forté of T4+. It is exceptionally articulate and articulated. And it doesn't rely on loudness for definition. This quality of expert diction exerts itself at whisper levels already. It's an extreme form of intelligibility. It's thus related to what audiophilia calls transparency but not the same.


Because of the clear lack of bass weight, the dynamic jump factor centred on the power region was diluted. With it came diminished dynamic contrast. Turning up the wick had no effect on that. It's an innate function of the sour rather than smiley face response. A similar reduction of treble illumination showed up as overshadowed decays. Known triangle and cymbal fades vanished far sooner than usual. There was also a reduction or elimination of vocal fire. That's the intrinsic hoarseness which seems to be a function of 'interfering' higher harmonics. It's highly prized by Flamenco singers (though one fears it wears out their vocal cords well prematurely). But it's a signature trait of singers like Enrique Morente, Duquende, Camaron de la Isla & Co. When such voices suddenly sound more polished and civilized and their trademark rasp gone, you know something's off. Just exactly how that effect is achieved might take a bit of inspection. Here it was pretty clear. We're back at highly intelligible due to heightened microdynamics and midrange dominance. But we're not completely transparent. There's something obscured on top and bottom.


The same obscuration applies to shove, crackle and pow. Raunchy energetic rhythmically loaded fare sounds more civilized and a bit homogenized versus competing dynamic headphones. Their 'dynamic' tag really becomes descriptive by contrast. They might be coarser too, not as finely - well, articulated or defined. But they're more guttural and keyed into propulsion and energy. We're back at vintage Quads. What they did well they did so well that aficionados to this day think of them as unmatched references. What they didn't do well was so obvious particularly on modern bass-heavy grooving music that it eliminated them from the equation for those whose priorities didn't overlap. Here that applies too. Rock'n'Rollers these are not. Far from. Classic chamber music meanwhile—a very challenging musical style if you have live references—is right up their alley. Like a pantomime that's a bit of a caricature. But it does paint the picture.


Airiness to me relies on complete treble illumination which includes HF dynamics (many conventional tweeters sound compressed compared to a Gallo CDT3, German Physiks DDD or Raal ribbon). T4+ in that sense wasn't that airy. But airiness also bleeds into a sense of openness, of walk-in separation where rather than clumped together, all feels laid out, accessible, tune-in-able and there to inspect and fondle. In that sense of the word T4+ had loads of it. By obvious association the various qualities to do with spaciousness and teased-out strands of the musical fabric also clocked in very high. Once more we're back at electrostats whose 'lighter than air' responsiveness might lack the excursion and impact of dynamic designs but has other qualities where conventional speakers (or here headphones) tend to play catch-up.


To wrap up my first go-around impressions before prolonged exposure had predictably 'reset' my ear/brain to fully acclimate to the T4+ difference, closing off the TakeT with my hands incurred far grosser response variations than I've ever encountered with any other open-backed headphone. It thus appears that their enclosure—the precise width of its openings, the resonant signature of the casing and more—all must exert an even more profound effect on the final result than usual. Wouldn't it be very conceivable that the retuned performance of Sasa's amp could warrant a retuning of the enclosure too to fully mesh 'n' marry this combination?