Zoran Karapandzic Hi-Fi Reviews
Zoran Karapandzic Hi-Fi Reviews
Submitted on: 25 Dec 25
Category: Amplifiers,Digital recorders/players
Website Rating:
The name T+A comes from “Theory and Application”. The company has existed since 1978, and its founder and owner is a physicist. After all these years in Hi-Fi, I can say that this may be exactly why you can see a difference compared to most other manufacturers: T+A clearly has a strong and coherent vision, rather than a different one focused exclusively on money. They do not engage in experiments or frequent excursions into various design trends; instead, when they find something that seems like a winning formula, they stick to it.
As an example, just take a look at their components today and those from twenty years ago, and you will see how similar they look on the outside. Everything is there—in its place—yet still familiar. It is as if they are saying: “This is the interface we want to offer our customers; we believe it is optimal, and that’s it.”
T+A is a well-known German company worldwide, yet here it has a relatively limited number of followers. Why is that? I don’t know. It may be that the design itself is the problem: their CD players look like peas in a pod and appear very high-quality, yet modest and ordinary on the outside. But once you open them up, the inside is literally another dimension.
If you place one of these players next to the famous Sony ES “sevens,” it may seem that T+A doesn’t belong there at all—it simply looks like a premature baby. But the truth is completely different: of all the Sony “sevens” I have owned, I have never heard a single one—even with the Swoboda 2+ modification—that plays as beautifully and musically as, for example, the T+A CD1240. I should note that I am a great admirer of most of what Sony produced in the ES series.
Let’s return to T+A: I have owned or still own several of their devices from different eras, and while I appreciated some, others did not appeal to me sonically.
What they all had in common was that they were built extremely honestly, considering the price category they belonged to. And T+A makes devices that are far from cheap, mass-market commercial products—they are a high-end manufacturer—but with T+A there were no tricks, unlike with some others.
And so we come to the hero of this story: the T+A Music Receiver. At first glance similar to their amplifiers and players, this is an all-in-one device. It includes a CD player, Internet, LAN and USB streamer/player, FM radio, and multiple digital and analog inputs.
It’s easier to say what it does not have: a USB Type-B input and a phono preamp. Practically everything else is there.
It appeared on the market around 2012, if my data is correct. At that time, streamers were still in their infancy and plagued by teething problems, even among major mainstream manufacturers. Its price was a not-insignificant €3,300, and for that money one could find respectable and expensive separate components.
In fact, the E-series represented the more affordable models in the lineup, and the Music Receiver was created by combining and simplifying their amplifier (the Power Plant model) and streamer (the Music Player model). I didn’t have the opportunity to compare the service manuals of all three devices, but when opened they look quite similar.
Lovers of good sound often dislike all-in-one units because you can’t, for example, replace the player with a new one and experiment. Besides, it’s somehow sexier to show another enthusiast 40 kilograms of metal stacked over a meter high than a relatively modest device that has everything packed into it.
There is another side of the coin: manufacturers often put their cheapest offerings into all-in-one components, and as soon as you open such a device, you can see where corners were cut, how it could have been done much better, and how the asking price is still too high for what you get. The target market is people who don’t want to deal with components, cables, heat, space, and everything else. And perhaps they don’t even need truly good sound—just something acceptable. The key word here is: perhaps.
Personally, I like all-in-one devices, but only those that provide sound I can live with—and there are very few of those. Over the years I’ve owned several models while pursuing this hobby: Naim, Primare, and others, and today I still have a Naim Uniti Atom in my collection, an excellent little device I’ve written about. I almost forgot: I also have the musical Metz 10HE11, which is actually the first version of the T+A K1.
That’s why I was very curious to hear how the T+A Music Receiver really sounds and works. I acquired the black version—the silver one is much nicer to me—but I didn’t have a choice.
The chassis of this receiver is manufactured with absolute precision, something I had already seen with my former PA1530R amplifier. I didn’t open it, although I usually open every device; honestly, I was just too lazy. I found photos of the inside and wrote to T+A asking for the service manual—and they sent it immediately. Try that with Naim, for example.
I don’t want this to turn into an endless text about buttons and controls. I’ll just say that the interface design and the way the device is used feel very much like an engineering-driven rather than marketing-driven approach: no flashy, unnecessary glowing elements, nothing meant to dazzle the user. But everything is there—large display indicators, buffer status during streaming, and textual “please wait” messages instead of spinning donuts or, worse, poorly executed graphic animations. That’s why T+A has a kind of timeless design; its lack of color doesn’t age… because there is none. The display is monochrome, VFD-type.
Basic operation is not difficult, but as with the all-in-one K1, I strongly recommend reading the user manual first and only then experimenting: T+A controls are often hidden in the sense that a single button has two functions—one for a short press and another when held down. The device itself offers several options for storing favorite radio stations and similar settings, making everyday use easier for the owner—something that is not at all obvious at first glance.
I would have preferred a rotary volume knob instead of +/- buttons, but that’s just my personal preference.
The app, for such an old device, works flawlessly. It has roughly three different control screens, one of which is almost a copy of the remote control. The list of tracks shown from a USB flash drive could be longer, and that is generally my only complaint. Actually, there’s one more: you cannot turn the device on via the app (there is no Wake-on-LAN), but once it’s on, you can turn it off from your phone.
The remote control even has two types of smiley faces on it—a “smiley” and a “sad emoticon”—I’ve never seen that before, haha.
Although it looks ordinary, it is so massive that it could be used as a self-defense weapon. Still, I recommend using it with the user manual. The device picks up remote signals from incredible, possible and impossible angles; I even checked whether it was infrared or radio-based, since T+A also made RF remotes. In this case, it’s infrared.
There is also a bidirectional remote control with a display that shows information, but I didn’t get that one—it was optional.
I noticed that the display itself had started to show slight signs of wear, so I wrote to the company asking about a replacement display and a remote-control cover whose retaining tab had broken, forcing me to use tape.
Here is a photo of the display—it looks much more worn than it actually is, with brightness set to 50% of maximum.
What can I say? I pestered Mr. Bernd, the head of service, who patiently explained everything to me (and had already sent me the service manual earlier). I received the remote-control cover as a gift (!!!), and I bought the display for around €80 plus shipping. On top of that came the usual “rat costs” of bank and international transfer fees, forwarding, customs duties, and taxes (and tax on customs…), so the part ended up costing more than twice as much. What can you say without bursting into tears…
One more important thing: I performed a firmware update. I prepared the appropriate USB stick, copied the files, and succeeded on the second attempt. Then I realized I could have done it over the Internet, effortlessly…
This firmware was crucial because the company that had provided Internet streaming services for T+A ceased to exist, and Music Receivers worldwide could no longer access Internet radio stations.
Believe me, most companies would have told customers: “Well, bad luck, sorry… but you can buy our new player…”—and hope you won’t get screwed again after spending thousands of euros.
But not T+A. The company says it fully understands that people buy a device, grow attached to it, and don’t want to replace it. I understand that too. According to them, they maintain a large stock of spare parts and successfully repair over 90% of the devices sent in for service, except for some of the very oldest ones, where the spare-parts stock has been completely exhausted.
In short, within a couple of months T+A signed a contract with a new provider and developed and tested new firmware, which they made available free of charge to users whose devices (like the Music Receiver) are 12–13 years old, so that Internet radio would work again.
Where will you find this today? Very rarely, almost nowhere—read my experience with the Naim ND XS streamer, which after €2,400 in expenses and just over two years from purchase, I wanted to turn into a doorstep for my caravan and film myself stepping on it every time I entered.
The Music Receiver uses the well-known WM8805 digital chip as a transceiver for digital signals coming from the coaxial and optical inputs. Signals from the USB ports and CD player follow a different path.
What’s important is that analog signals entering the receiver via analog RCA inputs are not converted to digital, as in A/V receivers. This avoids A/D and subsequent D/A conversion, which undeniably affect sound quality. Thus, the analog signal remains analog all the way to the output.
The aforementioned digital S/PDIF signals (from optical and coaxial inputs) are routed to the DAC section. It consists of two Burr-Brown PCM1795 D/A converters, each operating in dual differential mode. This means that each PCM1795, instead of reproducing two channels (as it’s a stereo DAC), reproduces one channel in balanced form, resulting in lower noise and distortion. After conversion, the signal is converted to single-ended, since the Music Receiver does not use a balanced amplifier topology.
Throughout the device, you can find quality Burr-Brown OPA2134 operational amplifiers. They are not the very best on the market, but they are quite good in audio applications and were used in top-tier equipment—and remain popular today.
Interestingly, the CD player has its own story: the conversion section is handled by the SAA7824 chip, which integrates a CD audio decoder, a digital servo section for laser and motor control, and… a DAC. It even includes a headphone amplifier for medium-impedance headphones and an additional line input to feed the headphone output. In other words, a highly integrated solution.
While studying the schematic from the service manual, I initially concluded—incorrectly—that the SAA7824 was used as the DAC for the CD section instead of the PCM1795-based section. Since I was already corresponding with Mr. Bernd regarding the replacement display, I asked him to clarify. He kindly explained that the PCM1795-based DAC section is also used for the CD section, and that the SAA7824 only transports the signal digitally to it.
Moving on: after digital-to-analog conversion, the signal reaches the digitally controlled TDA7313, a stereo audio signal processor that handles both incoming analog signals and converted digital (now analog) signals. In addition to input selection, it manages volume, balance, tone controls, and loudness. The TDA7313 has been popular for years due to its ease of use and good audio parameters, and is even used in Arduino projects.
From the TDA7313, the output signal is driven to the subwoofer by TL072 op-amps, and to the headphone and main output stages by separate OPA2134s.
The output stage is a T+A original design—not an off-the-shelf solution. It is based on the IRS2092 Class-D driver IC, paired with IRF14020H MOSFETs and an output LC filter. The manufacturer states that a small amount of feedback is used, but provides no further details.
Once again, I should say that I haven’t been satisfied with the sound of every T+A device I’ve heard. I won’t go into details, as that’s beyond the scope of this text, but I was prepared for the Music Receiver to perform in line with its price, while clearly hearing at least some flaws. I was surprised to find that one German magazine rated it as belonging to the high-end class—Germans don’t hand out such ratings lightly. Personally, I assumed it was bias.
I started by using a USB flash drive with a large number of tracks recorded in FLAC 16/44.1 format.
I must say, I heard one of the best presentations I’ve ever experienced from an audio device. The first thing that hits the listener is a very powerful, well-defined, yet controlled bass. T+A amplifiers generally have a high damping factor and keep speakers under iron control—some might even say too much at times. The Music Receiver is a master of loudspeakers: the bass never gets loose no matter how much you turn it up—strong, full (“fat,” as audiophiles would say), very deep and well defined, full of detail. In its price category, this is not always a given.
The detail in the midrange, human voice, and high frequencies is excellent. Dynamics are omnipresent, and this reproduction of mids and highs creates a soundstage that is almost unbelievable for an all-in-one device—and I like it more than that of the Naim Uniti Lite, UnitiQute, and the newer Uniti Atom. Every time the Music Receiver demonstrated how it places the space around musicians, the width of the stage fascinated me.
But that’s not all: one might think this is just a boring description and that the component is what I call a “demonstrator”—a device that aims to be a detail champion but lacks soul. Here, the result is the exact opposite! To my ears, and on my neutral Elac FS210A speakers, the T+A Music Receiver does not sound neutral; it leans toward warmth. The highs are never harsh or dry, never fatiguing—you can listen to the Music Receiver for hours and hours. Its character is quite specific: although I don’t like to describe sound in terms of technology, perhaps the easiest way to put it is that the Music Receiver sits halfway between solid-state and tube sound. Its highs and mids are silky, yet it is not a tube amp. Its bass is pure solid-state, yet it is not a typical transistor sound.
My humble opinion is that this is no coincidence: it’s possible that T+A carefully tuned the sound of the Music Receiver not only in the lab and according to measurements, but also during listening sessions. Of course, I have no proof—this is just my opinion.
I played the same tracks from the USB flash drive through the CD player, and the result on my system was identical. Differences appeared only when using analog outputs, due to the source itself—but T+A handled the job excellently.
The FM tuner is quite quiet and also delivers details I didn’t expect. The same applies to Internet streaming services, especially considering that they are not CD quality.
I didn’t connect an iPod/iPhone via the second USB connector—I didn’t have time to play with my old iPods.
It’s a pity that the T+A Music Receiver does not support DSD or MQA standards, nor Spotify and the like, but it is quite an old device. Still, even back then there were streamers/servers that supported DSD (for example, my faithful Sony HAP-Z1ES). T+A probably decided they had to save somewhere.
I also played a bit with the digital filter configuration; the Music Receiver has only two options, unlike the Music Player, which offers five.
The two available filters are the standard FIR filter and the impulse-optimized filter. The differences are small but audible, so you can have some fun while experimenting.
A phenomenal device for those who don’t care about flashy displays, “wow” effects, or retro fever. A true audiophile component for those who appreciate such things but didn’t want to spend much more money for the same or only marginally better sound.
Today, on the used market here, it costs only a fraction of the price of hyped components from other companies that it can easily cripple in a direct comparison… because it’s T+A and an all-in-one—an unfortunate combination for those with limited understanding or a big ego, but a winning one for sincere lovers of sound.
My warmest recommendation for this device. There is also a successor, very similar with some improvements. I considered buying it on eBay, but when I saw the prices, I gave up. I’ll wait another ten years, hahaha.
I hope I didn’t bore you with my humor :). Stay well.
© 2026 Zoki Audio – Hi-Fi Equipement Reviews. Powered by WordPress
