Received my T8 yesterday and hooked it up for a brief listening sesson last night. Thought I'd post my initial thoughts after some low level listening to about 3 songs. (AKUS - Ghost in This House, Infected Mushroom - Avarantz and Dido White Flag) Hardly a long period to review something, but I was at least able to make sure it worked and see if I could notice any changes in sound.
First let me just say that Frank builds these things to withstand a nuclear bomb blast. Every knob has a solid and I do mean SOLID feel to it. All knobs are good size and have very positive detents including the volume knob which I didn't know it had. (Nice feature.) The knobs also have little knurls on them so your fingers don't slip off which is nice. For as much as is said about how much these things cost (audiophile labeled products), I can understand why to a point when you look at the quality of the machining and the feel of the unit compared to what I had been using previously. (Emotiva USP-1)
As far as listening, I was struck by three things immediately. First, the sound was oh so buttery. Everything just sounded much more relaxed than I remember it on the USP-1. With that said, it's not like I felt I was missing out on detail as everything seemed to be there that was there before. With higher volume levels this will be easier to pick out I'm sure. Second, the soundstage seemed to be quite a bit wider than what I had with the USP-1. Always seemed like with the Emo I struggled to hear things outside of the range of the speakers. I mean it was there at times, but not like last night where those sounds seemed to be there for each and every song. Third, I was pretty surprised by the amount of bass I was getting. This was one area I thought the T8 might stumble being tubes instead of SS, but the bass was LOW and tight especially on the IM selection.
I do notice a bit more hiss when no source material is being played through the speakers and I put my ear up to the tweeter, but the volume of the hiss doesn't change with the volume being increased on the unit so I think it is just tube noise. It's nothing you notice at all when music is being played and in fact you'd never notice it until you got your ear within a couple of inches of the tweeter when no material is being played so it's not a huge deal. I do think I'm going to try and obtain some shielded interconnects though just to see if that noise is cut down slightly.
Definitely looking forward to some listening sessions at increased volume and for longer periods of time.
