T+A R 2500 R multisource receiver

The hi-fi receiver has been many different things. Early examples, like the Harman Kardon “Stereo Festival” TA-230 from 1958 (said by modern-day Harman/Samsung to be the first stereo receiver; footnote 1), featured separate FM and AM monophonic tuners that could assign a speaker to each if you wanted to listen to what was then a fad: stereo broadcasts over two stations (left channel over FM, right over AM, for instance). Standardized FM stereo broadcasting began in 1961, and by then, receivers had evolved into large, complex, nearly complete stereo systems; an example of that was the Fisher 800 (footnote 2).

By the 1970s, the focus of receiver development and manufacturing had shifted to Japan. The era of features-laden “Silverface” receivers peaked with the massive Technics SA-1000 (footnote 3). That behemoth was just over 2′ wide, nearly 2′ deep, about 7.5″ tall, and weighed 87lb. It was capable of 330Wpc into either 4 or 8 ohms, and its linear power supply sported four specially made 18,000µF filter capacitors. Among its many innovative features were LED level meters (the newest thing in 1977) and a parametric midrange control. Technics claimed a frequency range of 5Hz to 91kHz and a signal/noise ratio of 115dB, A-weighted. In short, the SA-1000 was the king of the Silverface mountain.

The point of a receiver has always been to combine as many music-listening sources in a single chassis as possible—with preamp functions and amplification. Back in analog days, that meant on-board FM and usually AM; a phono preamp (sometimes two); occasionally a tape-head preamp; full input switching, volume control, and tone controls, akin to what you’d find in a standalone preamplifier; and a power amplifier, often with outputs for two sets of speakers. Back then, buyers brought a “record player” (turntable, tonearm, and cartridge—sometimes a record-wrecking changer) and maybe a tape machine to the party, plus speakers. All other sources and functions were in the receiver.

We of a certain vintage remember how important FM radio was in the days before it was conglomeratized, genericized, automated, and ruined. In recent years, streaming has replaced a lot of radio listening. (In fact, we can stream many of the world’s remaining radio stations via the interwebs, no longer slave to conglomerate ownership of the local airwaves or the vagaries of antennas and lines of sight to towers.) In place of a collection of records, one might have a network-attached server (NAS) with a digital library, or a portable SSD or thumb drive—or merely a playlist set up on one of the major music-streaming services. It might be nice if the receiver can connect to a modern TV, which will have either TosLink or HDMI-ARC output, or both. For those of us who still own a bunch of CDs, we might as well include a robust DAC—and maybe even a built-in CD transport.

The R 2500 R

Throw in FM analog and digital tuners, and voilà, you have the R 2500 R, the “21st Century Receiver” from T+A Elektroakustik of Herford, Germany, southwest of Hanover. T+A (footnote 4) is a full-line company with some 100 employees and annual sales of €15–€20 million, according to American press-relations man Jim Shannon. T+A makes everything from turntables to headphones and loudspeakers and all the electronics in between including amplifiers, disc players, turntables, streamers, and DACs. As the name implies, the R 2500 R is in the R Series, which sits just under the top-line HV Series.

Interesting aside: Shannon told me his father’s Fisher 800B receiver was his gateway into a lifetime of loving music and hi-fi gear. The R 2500 R device has a dense feature set, a complex wireless remote control, and a robust phone/tablet app. It may take a buyer weeks or months to check out everything it does and every way to tweak the output sound. If you have no vinyl, the R 2500 R is all you need—just add speakers, and make them full-range and high-fidelity because (though I’m getting ahead of myself ) the R 2500 R excels in all its audio duties. It will set you back $18,880; with an optional phono preamp (either MM or MC), make it $19,800 (footnote 5).

To summarize, here is everything you can listen to using the R 2500 R: radio (FM, digital FM, internet-streaming), CDs (through the slot-loading built-in player), computer audio (through the built-in USB DAC), streaming services (via hard-wired Ethernet or Wi-Fi), TV sound (optical or HDMI-ARC digital through the DAC or through one of the three analog inputs), digital files from a thumb drive or hard drive (connected via USB), or vinyl (using an external preamp into one of the analog inputs or with the optional MM or MC phono preamp, not included in the review unit). You can use it as a computer “soundcard” via a USB connection and T+A’s software driver (not necessary on Apple devices). Analog components like external phono preamps or tape machines can plug in balanced or single-ended. The R 2500 R is controlled (somewhat, with a lot of menu scrolling) by the front panel, or by its sturdy metal many-buttoned remote, or, perhaps optimally, via the T+A Navigator G3 phone/tablet app. With so many modes, sound sources, and options, the phone’s touchscreen is the ideal user interface.

Visually, this is a smart-looking aluminum-cased component with front-panel power-level meters and a display that shows which input and what music is playing (artist and song-title information for streaming from internet services or NAS-based or USB-drive files). The rear-panel connections are clearly labeled and easily accessible. The top panel has a circular glass “portal” to see a portion of the inner circuitry. The two “mini traffic cone”-shaped Wi-Fi/Bluetooth antennas can be placed on top of the R 2500 R or on a shelf above; they include a foot or so of wire to allow some flexibility. Included in the box is a T-shaped FM antenna and an adapter for the 75 ohm socket on the back of the unit. Also in the box is a complete printed manual.

One feature not available at the time of review was Roon certification. The manual and website state that the unit is “Roon Ready,” but pull-down text on the website indicates, “As the Roon certification process is not yet complete, the R 2500 R cannot be operated via your Roon system at the moment.” Roon control will be helpful to at least some potential buyers, because the T+A app isn’t made up of the most user-friendly code ever written (more on that later).

Controls and circuits

In the analog domain, there are bass and treble controls, accessed from menus via the front panel or remote and included in the app. Both are broad-spectrum (low-Q). The bass control is centered at 300Hz, treble at 3kHz. Their range (–6dB to +8dB) is moderate compared to some tone-control schemes (footnote 6).

The volume control is an analog, stepped resistor/relay design with uniform 1dB steps from 0 (no signal) to 85 (maximum output level). There is an analog low-pass filter on the output, switchable between 60kHz and 120kHz. I admit not hearing any differences between the two filters. Shannon recommended 120kHz, so that’s where I kept it.

The digital circuitry is mostly T+A designed and built. The DACs for PCM and DSD bitstreams are independent. The DSD DAC is T+A designed and made. Shannon described the PCM DAC like this: “[It] utilizes a dual/quadruple set of Burr Brown delta sigma processors but bypasses most of the functions, other than the true digital conversion. After working with the Burr Brown engineering group for nearly 30 years, we have learned to use the Burr Brown chips’ Operation Mode, conversion only, which allows us to perform all high-speed upsampling, filtering, and input handling in our application-specific signal processing architecture. This processor is the center of the digital system and takes the data from the various external and internal digital sources and either passes it on unprocessed as a native DSD bitstream to the True One Bit converter or passes PCM data on to the Quadruple Converter after processing by our proprietary oversampling algorithms.”

The R 2500 R offers six digital-filter options for PCM and two for DSD, all designed and implemented by T+A. JA’s testing will illustrate some or all of them. I found the “Bezier” oversampling filter best for PCM; it’s described in the manual as “offering perfect ‘timing’ and dynamics.” With DSD streaming, both filters sounded about the same, with maybe a slight edge to “DSD2,” which is described as “two shorter filters operat(ing) in parallel,” which “produce even lower distortion than DSD1 mode.” Switching between filters can be done via menus using the remote control and front-panel display, or with less effort using the app.

As I referred to the manual to harvest filter descriptions, I was reminded again how many controls and features the R 2500 R includes. This is praise; a receiver of any era should be nearly or entirely a full-featured audio system in a well-built single component. There is not enough space in this review to go into every nook and cranny of the R 2500 R’s capabilities, so I strongly urge would-be buyers to explore the website and download the user manual (link on the webpage; tinyurl.com/3fmmhhc4).

The power amplifier in the R 2500 R is class-AB. Shannon’s description: “Our R series is now over 25 years old, and this is the most recently refined iteration of a fully discrete (no op-amps), very wide bandwidth (linear to over 100kHz), dual mono, fully balanced, temperature compensated (using thermal sensors to raise and lower bias voltage to keep everything in the most linear, low distortion portion of the circuit’s performance) amplifier. The amp is powered by a T+A-designed fully discrete switching power supply. We feel that we can get higher current and power (into) a relatively small chassis using a switching supply, but the available OEM supplies are all designed for computer use and far too noisy for audio applications. We spent a few years developing a discrete switching circuit that develops very high current with very low noise and offers stable power-factor correction for excellent performance in nearly any AC grid.”

Unpacking and setting up: a process

So far in my young career as a Stereophile reviewer, this unboxing and setup was the most complex I’ve experienced. The R 2500 R is double-boxed, with several pieces of packing material between the inner box lid and the somewhat large and heavy receiver, which is in a fabric bag. It was awkward for one person to remove and unbag it without tipping it over. Then there’s a sub-box full of accessories: the two Wi-Fi/Bluetooth antennas; remote control and batteries; heavy-gauge power cable; and FM T-antenna (the manual clearly states that if you’re serious about FM, you’ll want a better antenna, but this will get you started).

Once free of its packaging, the all-metal, all-black box practically screamed “solidly built!” The fit and finish are refined and look modern-functional. The front panel’s buttons and knobs feel and act like they’ll hold up to a lifetime of use. The rear panel connectors are topnotch.

Footnote 1: See tinyurl.com/2p9drpur and tinyurl.com/3t8d7cc3.

Footnote 2: The Fisher 800C, from 1962, included most of the features that came to be associated with top-line stereo receivers for decades to come. See tinyurl.com/7ws4wefz.

Footnote 3: See tinyurl.com/2db3aymx.

Footnote 4: That’s a plus sign and not, please notice, an and; the company can be a little touchy about that, and who could blame them?

Footnote 5: If that seems like a big number, consider that in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation, when it was new, the Technics SA-1000 cost roughly half as much as the T+A does.

Footnote 6: See tinyurl.com/237h5pm6. The PDF at the link shows the relationship between audio frequencies, instruments, and tone bands (bass, midrange, treble, etc.).

NEXT: Page 2 »

COMPANY INFO

T+A elektroakustik GmbH & Co. KG
Planckstrasse 9-11
D-32052 Herford
Germany
info@ta-hifi.de
+49 (0) 5221-7676-0
ta-hifi.de/en

ARTICLE CONTENTS

Page 1
Page 2
Specifications
Associated Equipment
Measurements
Measurements Page 2

Click Here: Netherlands football tracksuit