My hunt for a stereo amp - exploration notes and advice sought..

Update - End of hunt with the Trigon Exceed integrated amp

Hi all,

Just to update you guys that a few days ago (after quite a wait), Jochen delivered the new amp to my place. Here is a brief summary of my impressions so far.

Looks and build quality:
Well packed and heavy, the amp came with the a German manual (English version yet to be prepared), power cable and the 'Director Premium' remote. A no frills packaging style for a no frills product.

The amp is very well built and finished, as is the remote. Aesthetically, I like the minimal look of the amp and I am glad I chose the silver front as opposed to an all black look as it makes the amp pop out a bit. After having lived with the Rega with its smallish volume, I liked the clean and ergonomic volume knob on the Trigon. There is also a softness to the amp, thanks to the fillet on the edges. The matching input control knob adds to the balance of the facade and is visually consonant

The elements, I feel, that could be improved are the touch sensitive buttons for the menu/speaker off/mono, where the feedback is not palpable enough and feels very digital-ish. Also, the digital interface can be so much better, as it currently is very functional and visually/usability challenged. The amount of information on the screen, readability, the grid placement, the menu interaction and the task-flow all appear to be designed by a fresh-out-of-college engineer, who wanted to hastily finish the task before rushing to his German EDM festival. All in all, being an UX person myself, not very pleased with the interface panel.

The remote control is an aluminum carved out block with rather small buttons and icons which are not intuitively identifiable. Again, they could have been so much more creative and thoughtful in the design.

Right, my designer hat is off now and on to the more important things...

Listening impressions:
Bang out of the box, the amp was unimpressive. The sound stage seemed compressed, the mids were recessed and the lower end was loose and boomy. I was a worried man. Jochen didn't seem too worried and asked me to be patient.

Thankfully, I heeded his advice (not that I had a choice) and slowly, but steadily the amp started mutating. After about 40 hours now and reverting back to my old speaker cables fro the new QED XT40s, the amp seems to have come out of its cocoon. Having heard the Rega Brio-r all my life, I started understanding what neutral sounds like with the Trigon. I am actually not sure if it is completely neutral or slightly coloured in general, but against the Rega, it seems so.

It certainly sounds so much more balanced, involving and refined than Rega. The sound stage has now opened up and though it is not as wide or deep as say the Xindaks I had heard, you cannot fault it. Compared to the Rega, it is also fast and energetic, so much so that I realised that some of the songs seemed in a different tempo. I hope it is a feature, not a flaw. I will need more listening to ascertain this.

Another important improvement is the control of the volume knob. Having gotten used to the Rega's volume controls which I couldn't increase beyond 10'o for my digital input, restricting the controls for lower volumes to just 10% of the dial. Trigon lets you control the volume so much better. The increments are smaller till 11'o clock and then the sweet zone is between 11 and 2'o clock. This meant that even in the lower volumes the details were available and could be better controlled. I am burning the amp in constantly and can see the progressive improvements and am much happier than I was a couple of days ago.

In summary, Trigon Exceed is a no nonsense, functional and practical amp, which seems like it enjoys doing its job better than looking fancy (Can I say very German, without sounding prejudiced?). I do enjoy an aesthetic product (like the Leben or the Accuphase), but what I am enjoying is that the Harbeths are not just singing, they are starting to truly perform now, which is perhaps more significant.

Some images:
 
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Oh lovely. Congratulations. The QED cables did not sound as good?

MaSh

Sent from my Redmi Note 3

Hi Mash,

Thanks.
Yes, for some reason the new QED XT40s didn't seem to be doing justice to the setup. I had to revert back to my old QED Profile Silver 12 Bi-Wires. Though the XT40s have better bass control, they seemed to drag down the music in all other ranges. I know they are good cables, but I somehow prefer my older QEDs.

Will possibly put the new cables for sale on the forum soon.

Ta!
 
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