Наушники — T+A Solitaire P

T+A of Herford, Germany, builds the Solitaire P as an over-ear model with an open rear, and it uses a planar-magnetostatic transducer that the company designs and builds in-house at its Herford facility. It sits in the Solitaire headphone family next to the Solitaire P-SE, and it is offered in black and silver at GBP 5,000 in the UK and USD 8,290 in the US.

Key specs that matter

T+A designates the driver TPM 3100, with an elliptic membrane measuring 110 x 80 mm. The specified response covers 5 Hz to 54 kHz and an impedance of 80 ohms. Sensitivity is 101 dB at 1 kHz with 1 V, maximum level exceeds 130 dB SPL, and distortion stays below 0.015% at 100 dB. The headphone weighs 530 g without its cable. The housing combines aluminium and steel, while the ear and head cushions are handmade by a specialist company in Germany from allergen-free synthetic leather and Alcantara.

Engineering and use context

The magnet system consists of rod-shaped high-performance neodymium magnets of varying length with a specific pole geometry. They sit in a precisely machined mount that positions them to within a few hundredths of a millimetre, which T+A says produces a totally linear magnetic field across the membrane. The diaphragm itself is only a few micrometres thick and consists of a structurally stable high-tech polymer. An array of very light conductors, also only micrometres thick, is applied to it by a photo-chemical process, so that the drive force is spread over the whole surface and the membrane moves uniformly. The yokes and their joints are machined from solid aluminium, and all sub-assemblies attach to solid machined aluminium cups for a light yet rigid structure. The 3 m cable is detachable, plugs into the headphone through military-grade two-pole connectors, and has a symmetrical build with very low inductance and capacitance. Two versions are sold. One comes with an unbalanced 6.3 mm plug plus a balanced 4.4 mm Pentaconn plug, the other with a 6.3 mm plug plus a balanced four-pin XLR connector.

Pairing

The two cable sets let the Solitaire P run from a single-ended headphone socket or from a balanced output. Being sensitive and an easy load, it does not need a very high-voltage amplifier, and T+A itself offers the HA 200 headphone amplifier as a matching source within its own catalogue.

Alternatives

The Solitaire P-SE is the other open-back planar-magnetostatic model in the range, using the TPM 2500 transducer with a 45 ohm impedance and an 8 Hz to 45 kHz response.