Behind the prosaic name is a highly accomplished all-in-one, says Andrew Everard

The consumer electronics industry tends to saddle products with labels from the unfathomable – what is a UE46B8000, and how does it differ from a UE46D7000? – to the plain bizarre. Does anyone fancy a pair of Totem Element Fires or a Dr Feickert Analogue Woodpecker, for example?

So it’s a relief when a new product’s designation says just what it does, and that’s the case with the latest arrival from German audio company T+A. In fact, ‘Music Receiver’ rather understates matters: here we have amplifier, tuner, CD player and streaming music client in one impeccably finished slab.

Selling for £2690 through UK distributor Acoustic Brands Limited, the Music Receiver is, like T+A’s other products, made in Germany at the company’s own factory: there’s no outsourcing of production here, and a high degree of hand-working is involved.

Based in Herford, Eastern Westphalia, since 1978, T+A takes its name from ‘Theorie und Anwendung’, or ‘theory and application’, in electronic and acoustic design. Founded by physicist Siegfried Amft, who still runs it, it began as a speaker manufacturer, later moving on to electronics, and its products are all about simplicity, cleanness of lines, and quality.

Though relatively compact – especially when you consider what’s crammed inside, including an amp capable of almost 100W per channel – the Music Receiver arrived in a fairly huge double-skinned box, and even unboxing it showed how well-considered is every element of the company’s operation. It’s all about attention to detail, you see.

That’s immediately apparent in the fit and finish of the controls, and the quality of the casework. The chassis is heavy steel to damp out vibrations, aided by pressure-cast side panels and wraparound aluminium front panel and cover, giving the unit a feeling of being much more ‘of a piece’ than conventional ‘front, sides and lid’ designs.

You can have the product in black or silver, or black with silver side panels or vice versa, all at the same price.

As well as the front-loading CD mechanism, internal FM tuner and streaming/internet radio capability, the T+A is designed to function as a complete system hub: it has seven digital audio inputs, three analogue line-ins, and tape, line out, preamp out and two subwoofer outputs, plus a digital audio output.

Good quality speaker terminals, able to take banana plugs, bare wires or spades, sit on the end of amplification able to deliver 94W per channel into 8ohms, or 160Wpc into 4ohms.

The amplification uses the company’s Pulse Width Modulation output stage, which it says ‘which eliminates any problems caused by voltage fluctuations in the mains power supply, and thereby excludes the possibility of signal distortion induced by the power supply voltage’.

This combines with a high-power toroidal transformer and in-house switch-mode circuits using fast MOSFET transistors and high-energy intelligent driver modules to give an amplifier section designed to drive demanding speaker loads with ease.

The streaming board is a T+A original, handling music in MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG-Vorbis, FLAC  and WAV, with 96kHz/24-bit FLAC and WAV possible over wired Ethernet.

PERFORMANCE
While I had the T+A for review, I was asked ‘So what’s it up against?’. The most obvious rival seems to be the original NaimUniti, which also has streaming capability and a CD player.

On paper at least, the Music Receiver has its British rival beaten on input flexibility, not to mention amplifier power (in which respects it’s closer to the SuperUniti), while some buyers will find its styling more room-friendly than Naim’s purposeful matt black.

The whole enterprise has a feeling of precision and smoothness about it, the way controls operate and the logic of the menu system making using it a pleasure, while a comprehensive, no-nonsense instruction book makes it easy to understand.

The T+A provides both wireless and wired networking, the latter only available if there’s no Ethernet hook-up, which I think suggests wired operation is the preference. For stability that’s what I stuck to, although some brief listening sessions with wireless working showed no problems at all.

Having tried a variety of affordable speakers, I again settled with the compact PMC GB1 floorstanders I find work so well with many systems of this kind, even though an evening or two of listening demonstrated that the T+A was more than capable of driving the larger OB1 speakers, and controlling them well.

The sound is best described as big and bold, with warmth and finesse even with great sweeping pieces such as the Chandos recording of Herrmann’s Moby Dick. Instruments and voices are clean and precise, but with none of that slight sterility some (mistakenly) consider to be ‘the German sound’.

Instead the T+A can sound lush when required, that seemingly unburstable power allowing it to deliver large-scale orchestral music with almost disdainful ease and not a hint of hardening-up, while it’s also capable of driving rhythms really hard when the music demands, with an excellent snap and speed.

Indeed, the T+A is wonderfully expressive and free-flowing, and with  the right recordings can give a sense of focus and intimacy likely to elude all but the very best of its rivals. It’s a really exciting listen, but without any sense of impending disaster.

The Music Receiver lacks iOS or Android apps to drive it – I’m told one is on the way –, but can act as a UPnP receiver: using  the open source Kinsky software on my MacBook, or even an iPod Touch or iPad running Kinsky, Twonky or PlugPlayer, it was simple to build a playlist and ‘push’ music to it.

Add to that a large, clear white-on-black display, with highlighted information shown double-size to ensure legibility, and you have a big, impressive, confidence-inspiring addition to the streaming music arena. It’s well worth seeking out for a long, careful listen. 

Price £2690
Built-in sources CD player, FM/internet radio tuner, streaming client
Digital audio inputs Three electrical, two optical, two USB (for iOS devices and USB memory)
Digital audio output Electrical
Analogue audio inputs Two line, tape
Analogue audio outs Line, tape, preamplifier output, two subwoofer outs, one pair of speakers
Other connections Ethernet, Wi-Fi antenna, FM antenna, RS232
Power output 94Wpc into 8ohms, 160Wpc into 4ohms
Streaming formats MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG-Vorbis, FLAC (96/24 via LAN), WAV (96/24 via LAN)
Accessories supplied Remote handset, antennae
Dimensions (WxHxD) 44x12x39cm
www.ta-hifi.com