I have been a loyal follower of your product. I replaced the Wavac PR-T1 with Takumi K10 almost 2.5 years ago. There is no other solid state preamp that really moves me. FM Acoustics 268 MK2 is way too expensive for what it does although I have to admit there is certain quality in it that attracted me once. The 255, frankly speaking, is not comparable to the K10 at all, at least to my subjective music preferences.
I would have never though you could bring the art of preamplification to a new height by the introduction of K15. I am not a very good writer like other comrades here. But the K15 is just something else. The symphonic experiences demonstrate clearly what Uncle Ray has articulated so clearly about the depiction of "group dynamics". I am not saying other preamps can do but I don't know any others can do such a great job. The meaning of liveliness has taken to a new height. The Mercury recording of Henry Synerg's interpretation of Krisler's violin pieces simply blow me up as the "elasticity of string" as a result of transient energy requires at certain passages is just so articulated. With lesser control on transient high frequency energy, this recording easily sound harsh. But it is damn realistic at AE with Wadax Pre One mark 2 doing the job of phono amplification.
I am so gratified by what you have put forth into the audio reproduction art. I will be patiently waiting for my K15 to arrive. I understand that you are moving to a new factory soon. I still hope you can deliver it before Xmas this year.
Finally it was my turn to listen to the K15 on last Sat! Out of all the busy schedule, PT has deliberately asked me to come and listen to what K15 can perform in his showroom contrasting its projected performance in my system. In his setup, he uses the Zanden 7000-300B 8W driving the mega sized Cessaro Liszt and in my setup, I use the solid state 1000W Analog Domain driving the conventional Tidal Agoria. I am sure I will ask PT to come along to listen to how K15 perform in my system (and with my acoustics deficiency).
Whilst PT was busy changing vinyl records from his mega MVS system pairing with the Wadax digital phono, a question kept appearing in my mind: Why is it called K15 instead of K1 or K100? To me, it is certainly in another league exhibiting a clear distinction from K10 in many respects! It has much more live like dynamic, much more dimensionally transparent, much more layering on harmonics and spacial resolution. The amount of energy that I can feel even at the extreme ends of the frequency range is just enormous! I am not a ‘jazz’ person but when PT played a Jazz record, I was immediately drowned into the joyfulness of the Jazz band almost like seeing their cheerful expression while playing the music. On piano, cello and vocal music, the focus and contour of the image is not just the point (eg. Mouth) source of the sound, it is like the entire body of the person or the entire set of the piano/cello standing in front of me. The noise platform is extremely low to allow an absolutely crazy level of transparency within the soundstage. On orchestral music, using an analogy, if you have ever visited an aquarium watching different type of fishes moving in groups in different speed and different directions, this is what I feel where different groups of performers are having their own tempo and touchings and yet orchestrated by K15 to create a 'big picture' impacting the audience collectively not simply by adding up all the sound pressure together. Each group has its own space and liveliness....
Certainly, to be objective, it should not only be the K15 making up the entire performance, Zanden, Cessaro and many others are all playing a unequivocal role. The only fact that I cannot deny is, compared to last time, the differences are: (1) K15; (2) Zanden 7000-300B. I may be naturally biased to go in expecting such improvement made by K15, the perfect mating of the 8W Zanden power amp with the mega size Liszt comes as a pleasant surprise and really rock me out of the sofa!
The track record of raising the bar every time when I visit AE showroom still prevails!
Yes, indeed. K15 is just another incredibly ultra end preamp, when sitting side by side with Trinity Supreme, they simply come to a draw not outperforming one another no matter how I run them thru with various types of music. On some music, Trinity delivers a more crisp contour, one some music, K15 gives a more colorful tonality. Both of them are having a superb 3-d soundstage and wide dynamic range. Speedwise, if Trinity is McLaren, K15 is a 458....
It is just a few days and I am just obsessed by the musicality interpreted by Robert and presented in his masterpiece K15, it is just unique to this brand which I could only find something similar (but again not exactly the same) in DaVinci....
I left my listening experience on the LARS amp in AE showroom in another thread without mentioning too much about the K15. I feel I am not doing justice to K15. Objectively, each component in the system should play a role to contribute to the overall performance of the system, whether each one of them is having an equal share falls very much into the subjective domain. To me, I love preamps and I always see it as the soul of the system orchestrating the ultimate resolution and delineation of details and place them in the right place with the right tonality.
K15 has not disappointed me performing superbly well meeting the strictest requirements of PT in the AE showroom. Whilst the experience of listening to Dalby preamp is still an unforgettable one, the pairing of K15 with LARS is indeed a magical one leaving no trace of input output impedance mismatch, hum sound, etc! LARS together with the Lizst is a mirror reflecting the quality of the source plus the presentation skills of the preamp. Again, I feel the preamp has played a pivotal role in bridging the source stage and the amplification stage. K15 possesses the charisma to 'trap' me into the virtual space of the soundstage. Many, myself included, commented that the performance of the system in the AE Showroom has reached its another peak, I do believe K15 has played no less a role than any one of the super power in the chain.
AE is now an otherworldly experience. I cut 3 hours yesterday to audition the LARS. It is damn transparent as if no fucking power amps are in the chain of command. The meaning of "soulful resolution", I finally got it yesterday. Are the Lars designed specifically for Horny Ralph? That is definitely not a casual chat between the Lars and the Cessaro based on what I experienced.
The entire system was wired by Dalby power cables. Ground cables are all Dalby. The Goebel Larcorde Statement power cable feeding the amp to drive the Subwoofers is profund. The demo of the German cord in this part got me speechless. PT, damn you! I ended up bringing two german cords home.
How can you name yourself as "maestro" if you don't know the cutting edge? Just kidding.
After listening to K15, K10 sounds like "dynamically constipated". K10 sounds smooth and coherent, and that's really about it. Dynamic and transient resolution of K15 is a few planets away.
Our resident electronics expert - Marvel - should be able to tell you more. He is known as a preamp freak. He owns both K15 and Trinity
Glad that you are joining the Takumi camp. Months ago before the advent of K15, PT shown me a photo of the volume control of the K15 being built.. It has immediately caught my interest by its sophisticated build and the price tag: USD10K. K10 left my system gloriously only losing to Trinity preamp on the speed and dynamic. The kind of smoothness and coherence exhibited by K10 lingered me once in a while after it has gone. I am sure Robert has a very acute and distinctive sense and interpretation on what musicality means. A lot of attention and design, I believe, go into ensuring the musical flow and integration is ‘edgeless’. It is also my speculation that K10 was originally designed based on the impedance requirement of the K70 forming a perfect couple in the amplification stage. However at some point when I switched to use Analog Domain pairing with K10, I felt that its power to control and drive the AD is not as good as the time when I was using the K70. Can it really feed well and team the ‘beast’?
This is also this question forming part of the ‘excuse’ for me to go into the Trinity camp. That also bought me some time till the arrival of K15. I think I have compared the difference between Trinity and K15 in another thread but in a nutshell, I am swap using them at the moment in my system enjoying every minute and second when one of them is in service and the expectancy of when I would swap back to the other one….the kind of Chinese slang; ‘one leg stepping on two boats’….
Back to the difference between K10 and K15. I think the fundamental improvement is on the compatibility with other power amps not just the K70, K15 really makes my Analog Domain fly with the Agoria bursting out fireworks one after the other. The dynamic range that K15 allows the music to swing between is huge making the music extremely lively and detail at any volume. PT always like to rock his room with high volume, it is a way to demonstrate the quality level of his gears and room tuning but equally if one can hear a lot of microdynamics and minor twists here and there at a lower volume, it is also a strong manifestation on the ultra quality of the system. K15 can do both ends very well, likewise, the Trinity preamp. They are on par on this front.
S/N ratio should have been improved drastically leading to a very dark background and much 3-dimensionality which also marks a major difference between K15 and its predecessor. It is more apparent to me when I playback music on live concert where I can hear more ambience of the crowd, the surrounding, etc.
To me, what constitutes a ‘state-of-the-art’ piece of component is the character of being nobody. K10, to me, colorates in the midrange in a very subtle way like Da Vinci. It provides a seductive and mellow midrange but frankly it does not score very high on piano music which to me is very challenging to playback well. K15, in this repsect, is more ‘flat’ in all frequency responses and coupled with its extended dynamic range, it passes on piano music playback with flying colors. Every keynote spring out with its individual ripples and harmonics, one after the other without any chaos.
In terms of connectivity, due to its true differential balanced design, K15 provides more balanced inputs than K10…one last thing which makes K10 and K15 the same, is the plastic feet which I sincerely hope Robert will come out and tell the world this is in fact the icing of the cake to do the final bit of the tuning as for a skeptical audiophile like me, I always put the Dalby feet underneath.
My friend who is a hardcore Conrad Johnson Art 2 preamp was also amazed by the ultra density and coherence of the Takumi K15 preamp. He also bite the bullet. He has not changed preamp in the past 12 years until the Takumk K15. In his own words, "The K15's delivery of bass harmonics and control renders a very live feeling akin to the real thing". Coherence of notes does not compromise thundering dynamics as in the case of K10. The transient resolution is crazy. The elasticity of the piano keys is very nice to listen to. Likewise, the expressiveness of electric guitar is very passionate. Mid range dynamic is awesome with real tonal color.
I am using Goebel speaker cables also bi-wiring with the Tim Reference. I recall the first day when I switched to Goebel, the energy contour had raised tremendously...
Comments
I have been a loyal follower of your product. I replaced the Wavac PR-T1 with Takumi K10 almost 2.5 years ago. There is no other solid state preamp that really moves me. FM Acoustics 268 MK2 is way too expensive for what it does although I have to admit there is certain quality in it that attracted me once. The 255, frankly speaking, is not comparable to the K10 at all, at least to my subjective music preferences.
I would have never though you could bring the art of preamplification to a new height by the introduction of K15. I am not a very good writer like other comrades here. But the K15 is just something else. The symphonic experiences demonstrate clearly what Uncle Ray has articulated so clearly about the depiction of "group dynamics". I am not saying other preamps can do but I don't know any others can do such a great job. The meaning of liveliness has taken to a new height. The Mercury recording of Henry Synerg's interpretation of Krisler's violin pieces simply blow me up as the "elasticity of string" as a result of transient energy requires at certain passages is just so articulated. With lesser control on transient high frequency energy, this recording easily sound harsh. But it is damn realistic at AE with Wadax Pre One mark 2 doing the job of phono amplification.
I am so gratified by what you have put forth into the audio reproduction art. I will be patiently waiting for my K15 to arrive. I understand that you are moving to a new factory soon. I still hope you can deliver it before Xmas this year.
Great job.
Wchow
Whilst PT was busy changing vinyl records from his mega MVS system pairing with the Wadax digital phono, a question kept appearing in my mind: Why is it called K15 instead of K1 or K100? To me, it is certainly in another league exhibiting a clear distinction from K10 in many respects! It has much more live like dynamic, much more dimensionally transparent, much more layering on harmonics and spacial resolution. The amount of energy that I can feel even at the extreme ends of the frequency range is just enormous! I am not a ‘jazz’ person but when PT played a Jazz record, I was immediately drowned into the joyfulness of the Jazz band almost like seeing their cheerful expression while playing the music. On piano, cello and vocal music, the focus and contour of the image is not just the point (eg. Mouth) source of the sound, it is like the entire body of the person or the entire set of the piano/cello standing in front of me. The noise platform is extremely low to allow an absolutely crazy level of transparency within the soundstage. On orchestral music, using an analogy, if you have ever visited an aquarium watching different type of fishes moving in groups in different speed and different directions, this is what I feel where different groups of performers are having their own tempo and touchings and yet orchestrated by K15 to create a 'big picture' impacting the audience collectively not simply by adding up all the sound pressure together. Each group has its own space and liveliness....
Certainly, to be objective, it should not only be the K15 making up the entire performance, Zanden, Cessaro and many others are all playing a unequivocal role. The only fact that I cannot deny is, compared to last time, the differences are: (1) K15; (2) Zanden 7000-300B. I may be naturally biased to go in expecting such improvement made by K15, the perfect mating of the 8W Zanden power amp with the mega size Liszt comes as a pleasant surprise and really rock me out of the sofa!
The track record of raising the bar every time when I visit AE showroom still prevails!
Yes, indeed. K15 is just another incredibly ultra end preamp, when sitting side by side with Trinity Supreme, they simply come to a draw not outperforming one another no matter how I run them thru with various types of music. On some music, Trinity delivers a more crisp contour, one some music, K15 gives a more colorful tonality. Both of them are having a superb 3-d soundstage and wide dynamic range. Speedwise, if Trinity is McLaren, K15 is a 458....
It is just a few days and I am just obsessed by the musicality interpreted by Robert and presented in his masterpiece K15, it is just unique to this brand which I could only find something similar (but again not exactly the same) in DaVinci....
Marvel
K15 has not disappointed me performing superbly well meeting the strictest requirements of PT in the AE showroom. Whilst the experience of listening to Dalby preamp is still an unforgettable one, the pairing of K15 with LARS is indeed a magical one leaving no trace of input output impedance mismatch, hum sound, etc! LARS together with the Lizst is a mirror reflecting the quality of the source plus the presentation skills of the preamp. Again, I feel the preamp has played a pivotal role in bridging the source stage and the amplification stage. K15 possesses the charisma to 'trap' me into the virtual space of the soundstage. Many, myself included, commented that the performance of the system in the AE Showroom has reached its another peak, I do believe K15 has played no less a role than any one of the super power in the chain.
Marvel
AE is now an otherworldly experience. I cut 3 hours yesterday to audition the LARS. It is damn transparent as if no fucking power amps are in the chain of command. The meaning of "soulful resolution", I finally got it yesterday. Are the Lars designed specifically for Horny Ralph? That is definitely not a casual chat between the Lars and the Cessaro based on what I experienced.
The entire system was wired by Dalby power cables. Ground cables are all Dalby. The Goebel Larcorde Statement power cable feeding the amp to drive the Subwoofers is profund. The demo of the German cord in this part got me speechless. PT, damn you! I ended up bringing two german cords home.
After listening to K15, K10 sounds like "dynamically constipated". K10 sounds smooth and coherent, and that's really about it. Dynamic and transient resolution of K15 is a few planets away.
Our resident electronics expert - Marvel - should be able to tell you more. He is known as a preamp freak. He owns both K15 and Trinity
Marvel, can you kindly elaborate on K-10 vs K-15 kindly?
Glad that you are joining the Takumi camp. Months ago before the advent of K15, PT shown me a photo of the volume control of the K15 being built.. It has immediately caught my interest by its sophisticated build and the price tag: USD10K. K10 left my system gloriously only losing to Trinity preamp on the speed and dynamic. The kind of smoothness and coherence exhibited by K10 lingered me once in a while after it has gone. I am sure Robert has a very acute and distinctive sense and interpretation on what musicality means. A lot of attention and design, I believe, go into ensuring the musical flow and integration is ‘edgeless’. It is also my speculation that K10 was originally designed based on the impedance requirement of the K70 forming a perfect couple in the amplification stage. However at some point when I switched to use Analog Domain pairing with K10, I felt that its power to control and drive the AD is not as good as the time when I was using the K70. Can it really feed well and team the ‘beast’?
This is also this question forming part of the ‘excuse’ for me to go into the Trinity camp. That also bought me some time till the arrival of K15. I think I have compared the difference between Trinity and K15 in another thread but in a nutshell, I am swap using them at the moment in my system enjoying every minute and second when one of them is in service and the expectancy of when I would swap back to the other one….the kind of Chinese slang; ‘one leg stepping on two boats’….
Back to the difference between K10 and K15. I think the fundamental improvement is on the compatibility with other power amps not just the K70, K15 really makes my Analog Domain fly with the Agoria bursting out fireworks one after the other. The dynamic range that K15 allows the music to swing between is huge making the music extremely lively and detail at any volume. PT always like to rock his room with high volume, it is a way to demonstrate the quality level of his gears and room tuning but equally if one can hear a lot of microdynamics and minor twists here and there at a lower volume, it is also a strong manifestation on the ultra quality of the system. K15 can do both ends very well, likewise, the Trinity preamp. They are on par on this front.
S/N ratio should have been improved drastically leading to a very dark background and much 3-dimensionality which also marks a major difference between K15 and its predecessor. It is more apparent to me when I playback music on live concert where I can hear more ambience of the crowd, the surrounding, etc.
To me, what constitutes a ‘state-of-the-art’ piece of component is the character of being nobody. K10, to me, colorates in the midrange in a very subtle way like Da Vinci. It provides a seductive and mellow midrange but frankly it does not score very high on piano music which to me is very challenging to playback well. K15, in this repsect, is more ‘flat’ in all frequency responses and coupled with its extended dynamic range, it passes on piano music playback with flying colors. Every keynote spring out with its individual ripples and harmonics, one after the other without any chaos.
In terms of connectivity, due to its true differential balanced design, K15 provides more balanced inputs than K10…one last thing which makes K10 and K15 the same, is the plastic feet which I sincerely hope Robert will come out and tell the world this is in fact the icing of the cake to do the final bit of the tuning as for a skeptical audiophile like me, I always put the Dalby feet underneath.
Marvel
I am using Goebel speaker cables also bi-wiring with the Tim Reference. I recall the first day when I switched to Goebel, the energy contour had raised tremendously...