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The audition systems for the weekend centered on the relaunch of Trafomatic Audio whose cosmetics had undergone serious refinements in the wake of designer Sasa Cokic becoming WLM's electronics engineers at large. As it turned out, Sasa hadn't left the innards alone either and the new Experience One and Two integrateds with 2A3 and 300B power triodes respectively now benefit from lower noise, revised transformers and a simple but classy new remote control.
The big news for music lovers with conventional speakers as represented here by Usher and Gallo models was the new Experience Elegance integrated amplifier which Mutjaba had left with the Norwegian reviewer a day earlier. Standing in for the Bergen occasion was the Elegance power amp still in the previous cosmetics driven from the Experience Line One preamp also in the earlier finish (the current look can be ascertained on the Trafomatic Audio website).
Contrary to popular conception, Sasa explained how the 6550 and KT88 are not "the same" and how to his ears the former is quite superior when proper specimens are available. Not having heard Gallo's 88dB Reference 3.1 loudspeakers before, Sasa wasn't at all surprised that his 40-watt push/pull amplifier had no problems driving them with very good control over the 4-ohm sealed woofers.
Amongst the audience were two violin players, one with the Bergen Philharmonic, the other a session player specialized in Argentine tango. The gentleman talking to me had purchased the very pair of Overkill Audio Encores I'd reviewed in Arroyo Seco many years ago. Small world. In other snap shots, there's Ivette with Mica from Trafomatic, a lucky winner of John Blue AudioArt's new headphone amplifier with its Oslo importer Mutjaba and in general, men at—audiophile—work.
Sasa had also brought samples of his new Classic 500 and SM-60 powerline products.
The SM-60 is a clever 100-watt transistor amplifier that's loaded by a custom output transformer to generate perfectly stabilized, noise-filtered balanced power for two source components whose combined draw should not exceed 60 watts even though Sasa explained that 70 were still fine. "This is old military technology that works exceptionally well. It's simply been mostly forgotten again."
While it's the direct-heated power triodes which populate the lusty visions of audiophile wet dreams, it's the push/pull connected pentodes like 6550s and EL84s that have the far greater general relevance due to their higher power and lower harmonic distortion when properly implemented. Accordingly, Trafomatic's new Elegance integrated is in many ways the company's 'best' model to date and as the auditions proved, perfectly adequate for the usual speaker suspects.
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For those content with ca. 25 watts per side, there will be the new Kaivalya monoblocks which I commissioned from Sasa. Those are to run an ECC81 driver rectified by an EZ80 that is IT-coupled to four EL84s in push/pull rectified by a 5AR4. The development of this project is chronicled here. Sasa had some very attractive ideas for the final finish which I approved for my personal pair. I believe these cosmetics in fact will become the standard for a new upscale Trafomatic series with very ambitious sonics. The Kaivalya will simply end up having been the kick-off model. Sasa always has far more circuit and matching transformer ideas than money and time. Custom commissions can help jump-start a new project on the money side while for time, only burning the midnight oil beyond what's customary will do. Sasa's steady diet of coffee then becomes mandatory. |
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