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'Broken' the other way? Once T4+ had become my status quo because I'd acclimated to it on its very own terms without by habit referencing it to anything else, would my prior reference setup of Bakoon AMP-12R and Audeze LCD-2 sound broken? Not really. But it certainly was very different. Where my rig represents a vintage Sonus faber sound with a seamlessly integrated true infrasonic subwoofer, T4+ was EnigmAcoustics' brilliant Mythology 1 monitor with Sopranino super tweeter driven from Goldmund's affordable Job225 wide-bandwidth DC-coupled amp. One was voluptuous, dense, warm and thick-ish—think Bailey's Chocolat Luxe Irish cream liquor with Belgian chocolate—the other effervescent, thinner, quickened and much finer like a very good Champagne Brut. Definitely worlds apart and in very relevant ways black and white. And both very good.


To talk brass tacks, the Mythology 1 in our large space is solid to 45Hz. It has sufficient reach below to make Zu's Submission sub far from necessary. Yet adding the sub with a 20Hz 4th-order low-pass at very low amplitude not only adds bass weight, it injects perceived mass and warmth for all the bandwidth.


Ditto T4+. Its bass is that of a very good 6-inch monitor - articulate, quick, very cleanly delineated but shy on shove and full reach to the very bottom. On the other extreme a Sennheiser HD800 is more extended, lit up and energetic. On pure bandwidth the TakeT thus is no ultimate proposition. "World's best headphone" as some have called it even without the benefit of a custom amp—cough!—doesn't apply if you have sufficient context.

Where "world's best" does enter in more meaningful ways—for full context one really ought to A/B Stax electrostats and also the top current Fostex neither of which I had—is the down-to-the-bone resolution. It unclogs the finest arteries which competitors seem to suffer by direct contrast for lazier blood flow. This returns me to the Mythology 1. Whilst the H2+ treble isn't as illuminated, the overall effect of a super tweeter on transient precision which strips out the cobwebs is very similar. It injects white into the colour palette and with it great separation. Think of photographing an open concert grand directly from above. Shot sufficiently close, you'll see all of its strings as individual lines. Move farther back or shrink the image and the thinnest strings begin to clump together. That's because there aren't sufficient pixels to maintain blank space between 'em. Reduce image size again and even the thicker paralleled strings in the bass section begin to blur or fade together. T4+ looks at the giant piano of the musical action whilst perfectly separating its thinnest most closely spaced strings.


That level of separation or resolution lends itself to a different kind of listening. I call it fugue mode. If you've ever listened to a complex Bach fugue where the same motif staggered in time appears in more and more parallel lines, you know how quickly one loses track. So one stops looking at the architectural aspect of how the fugue is put together. With T4+ one can more easily enter into this inside-out listening mode. It's the inner game of hearing. It's as though one were the composer and knew exactly what came next. Of course we don't really know. By hearing it all, it simply seems as though we did. It's the possibility of partaking in a huge swath of musical data from very close up because nothing clumps together to get confused. From that perspective, the H2+ as driven from the Serbian custom amp could well be the current best or most extreme.


Just as the Mythology 1 (very wide bandwidth on top) driven with the very wide-bandwidth direct-coupled Goldmund amp can get too white, fast, lean and skeletal—all speed, no curves—so a first encounter with the TakeT H2+ coming from the blackness of an Audeze LCD-2 and dense amp could cause some 'squinting'. There's so much light and lightness. The difference in articulation and visibility is quite large. So is the extent of whiteness and contrast. Again, I don't think this could be an only or everyday headphone. It's a bit too specialized and also too clean for Rock 'n' Roll's grunge factor. But for those occasions which match it, I currently don't know of anything else that can match it. Those willing to customize it by reaching for software-based equalization of course can. Plenty of plug-ins for PureMusic, Audirvana & Co. exist to enable it.

The end of a circuitous tale? In many ways this review was prompted by a circle of individuals. Mjutaba Hussain of Norway's Moiz Audio had chanced upon the original TakeT even before their matching transformers. Sasa Cokic whose Trafomatic Audio gear he imports had crossed paths with the H2+ during a Moiz hifi meet. Known for his willingness and ability to design custom electronics, he got involved. Fred Crane of StereoDesk got turned on to TakeT by Moiz too. As Crayon Audio's US importer—and dealer for Trafomatic—he got Roland Krammer involved to author a special edition of Crayon's CHA-1 headphone amp; and was after Audience for a custom cable. In Takei-San's headfi piezo tech all of them heard something very special to get drawn in. This collaborative effort also shows that despite brilliant promise some work remained. With Sasa's custom amp—single-ended pentode with special 1:1-ratio output transformers and impedance-compensation network—the biggest challenge of actually using the H2+ properly has now been met for the first time. It's likely however that this story could have a final chapter once Takei-San hears his own creation on Sasa's amp; and perhaps Audience design a very special headphone cable to complement it. Here it's fair to add how the latest Audeze X models have worked out minor imbalances of the originals. That's a reminder how R&D towards perfection tends to take longer than the launch model's first iteration particularly where new tech is involved.

As a finish demonstrator for the Serbian team's Milorad Despotovic, the T2+ amp's white paint skins over its stacked Plywood enclosure showcase a truly superior level of manufacture. Our man has clearly taken his relationship with the medium to the next level As a wickedly custom circuit without any input from the headphone's designer, the T2+ amp—as though we needed any—is yet further proof that Sasa Cokic is an unusually resourceful gifted valve electronics man with a special mind for custom transformers. As an international if impromptu statement effort, T4+ as the combination of Serbian amp and Japanese headphone succeeds quite spectacularly with the small proviso that like any highly specialized effort, the very process and focus of specialization imply the opposite of a Jack of all trades or perfect balance. Especially for headfi freaks who already own numerous cans, the T4+ proposition is a can't miss because it goes places we've not quite been to before. As a sole headfi solution, I'd view the ideal owner as someone fond of or perhaps actually owning electrostatic loudspeakers who favours acoustic over amplified music and has a particular love of chamber music. It's all about ultimate sophistication and finesse. Tanglewood or Yoshi's, not the Fillmore or the Crocodile Café.
 
TakeT website
Trafomatic Audio website