NEODIO TMA: the transistor integrated that deserves to become a hit

By LeBeauSon.
Original article : https://www.lebeauson.fr/a-l-oreille/270-neodio-tma-integre-a-transistors-qui-merite-de-devenir-un-tube

Overall perception

Joy, serene authority, permanent availability, transparency, consistency of density regardless of dynamic variation… So many assets which make the new integrated from the Bordeaux manufacturer Neodio a must for satisfaction, made even more essential by a very low price! A little Diamond on the Sofa? Zou…
NB: Color code for this test bench: Orange (category from €3,200 to €6,500) – The TMA is offered at €4,900

Neodio, it seems like nothing, we must have known it for 15 years. I never knew how to count, I’m not going to start now. We appreciated his NR integrated amplifiers at the time and have since followed his abundant ideas with curiosity and often keen interest.

Especially since, for several years now, first with the Origine series and now the Blue Programme, Stéphane Even has been defending the idea of ​​a complete, complementary and coherent ecosystem. Not only by the sound reproduction, but also by the desire to respect the environment, sustainable products, attention paid to materials, short supply chains (manufacturing in France obviously) and to sustainability. In this regard, the device under test is guaranteed for 10 years.

The Blue Program for the moment is: an integrated one, the TMA (The Minimalist Amplifier), the subject of this test bench, an almost identical power amplifier, the HQA (High Quality Amplifier), a new series of cables, modulation, HP, sectors called Fractal, acoustic “purifiers”, the B2, and supports for “Harmonie” speakers.

As always with Neodio, the design of the device is neat, harmonious… and successful.

Black chassis and faceplate; the instrument is placed on three feet in Delrin, a material also used for the back. A thin strip of copper cuts the length of the front panel at the bottom quarter of the device encompassing a small button (the selector) and a larger one (the volume, manual).

The on/off switch is conveniently hidden under the device. In the front.

4 unbalanced line inputs (RCA) at the rear, the HP outputs only accessible via bananas. Period.

“For vegetables, I have everything you need”…

… shouts into his phone a gentleman who passes under my window. He talks so loudly that I guess he wants everyone to know, so I pass on the message: When it comes to vegetables, he’s got you covered.

Let’s start again: minimalist, the TMA? I don’t know, definitely sober.

Technically, on paper nothing revolutionary in favor of careful development based on decades of experience to create a device whose layout is stripped down (the quintessence of art?), designed to last, the components selected among the imperishable or easily replaceable by safe equivalents from the vast global drugstore. The work focused a lot on the power supply, a rethinking of the surprisingly high counter-reaction and a host of details including the mechanical behavior of the device as well as taking into account that of water molecules. Hence the Delrin for example.

“The TMA uses a classic 3-stage architecture with a high feedback rate. Counter-reaction is a very effective technique provided you pay attention to the practical details of its implementation. It took me 3 years to achieve the result I hoped for. A dynamic and controlled sound, typical of feedback, but without the stiffness and unnaturalness too often associated with this technique.”

That he says the gentleman.

But no, not the one that has everything you need for vegetables! But the designer, Stéphane Even.

Wide bandwidth and 2 x 80 w are the essential and sufficient data. No, but, oh…

445 x 390 x 130, 14 kg.

Listening carried out with: Atoll ST300 Signature, Lumin U2 + EERA Minuetto & Andante, Rockna WLS + Wavelight Pre/Dac, Dual platinum + Ortofon 2M Blue + Aurorasound Prima, Living Voice R25, T&T Extreme, hORNS Aria Monitor, 2 and 3 , Atlantis Lab AT18, Revival Atalante 5, Neodio, Wing and Legato cables.

Richness of timbres and tonal balance:

Magnificent introduction by a newly arrived “HR file”, the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra Opus 47 by Sibelius (and that of Prokofiev, the first, Opus 19) by Janine Jansen and Klaus Mäkelä and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.

If the Neodio TMA spontaneously portrays an orchestra with formally abundant and sumptuous tones, the enthusiasm of the musicians does not seem quite up to the level of the expansions of bravura thrown to our eager ears by the brilliant Dutchwoman (what a bewitching Cadence!) . More noticeable feeling in the 2nd movement where the accompanists don’t really seem to believe it anymore.

The Neodio TMA, through its finesse of analysis which we will detail later, explains the reason to us: it is not so much that the orchestra and the conductor are less inspired (on the contrary, all things considered, the music stands are clearly excellent and committed), but that the capture is odd, not exactly distant but stuck in the reverberation and distension of a foggy shed, confused, not easy to clear, while the violinist above ground, inhabited, passionate, launched into a fierce lyricism, seems cajoled, not to say transcended, by the microphone and the TMA who, like old accomplices, let burst forth a thousand colors, nuances, pranks, eloquence and brilliance…

This shady sound recording of the deserving phalanx is all the more regrettable as the desire for balance between orchestra and soloist is clearly very well maintained by the young Mäkelä in a diabolical and yet subtly swaying ostinato.

I read somewhere that this youthful conductor was particularly attentive to the recording and mixing of his work! Ah good ? So some advice, dear Master: change your speakers. Or amp.

Decca has accustomed us to better; what a shame, because the musical prowess is unassailable.

Intrigued about this, I decided to attempt an equally fresh interpretation of a work that I don’t usually excite: Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, Opus 56, Nicola Benedetti (more celestial than ever), Benjamin Grosvenor ( with the seriousness of a Pope), Sheku Kanneh-Masson (humbly up to the task), the Philharmonia conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali, at Decca therefore.

A reading that I really enjoyed, in the end, under the meticulous guidance of the integrated Neodio; if only because no soloist ever pulls the rug for himself while the talented trio delivers such a perfect performance in front of an orchestra with ample motility, that one would believe we are dealing with chamber musicians inserted in the cocoon of a generous multitude.The technical production, more plenary than detailed, is very homogeneous, the size of the soloists in their place in front of the orchestra without being isolated, the strings (the double basses!!!) of a supple consistency, the woodwinds very distinctly differentiated despite ( is it sure) of an insensible harmonic delimitation; and if we can regret that the brass and timpani are a little drowned out, we clearly hear that it is a desire of the Finnish conductor to play integration in a setting offered to the stars.

There is no doubt about the little Neodio who seems to appreciate the orchestral masses, deciphering their pictorial enigmas, flavors and aromas just as much as following their impeccable flow.

Vast expanse of bandwidth (and colorimetric gradients) in PHILOPHOBIA by Martha Da’Ro, whose R&B-like production is like a staging, a soundtrack to a film without images. A universe crossed or entangled with changing rhythms, opposing a form of implacable coldness of sepulchral and dark percussions (sometimes) to the warmth of a soft voice full of meaning, unusual dissonances between uncertain but complex instrumental colors, disturbing, dark, sometimes distant, sometimes intensely present and the slightly cracked, contrasting, often vulnerable phrasing and timbre of the song, all carried by a slow intoxicating groove…

The TMA clearly exhibits a wide ambitus and bandwidth, ideally balanced, in register as well as in enthusiasm, even if, on certain rather pointed speakers, we can lack a little body (it’s worth seeing, I makes the remark while listening to possibly overrated speakers out of context, expensive but not necessarily exquisite due to their tendency to favor only the wave fronts)

Tonal balance: ******
Richness of stamps: ****** (+*?)

Sound stage:

Immutable and profound, this is what the Beethoven Triple Concerto by Rouvali also told us. And the TMA. With Living Voice R25s.

Just like the gripping version of a work not so often recorded: The Wooden Prince by Bartók by Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish SO, a score apparently reworked by Bartók for more than ten years, of which the Danish conductor gives us the ‘ultimate version, a first…

A work undoubtedly a little uneven which knits together mixed, not to say contrary, feelings; Dausgaard’s reading is less detailed or animated than that of Boulez (Chicago) of the 1917 score, which the Dane compensates for with an exhilarating plasticity served by a very convincing orchestra, whose music stands are very distinctly arranged in space by the TMA, even while having fun raising the level on demanding speakers: no dropout, no projection, no loss of resolution or stability, not much to report, except perhaps a tiny trend to combine the instruments in their music stand, not quite ideally letting the air circulate between the speakers. Yeah good. Who knows how to do it?

I couldn’t help but play us the Dorati version with the LSO, Mercury, on vinyl (Philips 1966 pressing), where the Magyar influences are more assertive, intensified. This page of history also marks a not easy test for Hififi (wow): the 3-microphone sound recording dear to Bob Fine and Wilma Cozart is thin (don’t judge by the cleverly body-built HR remastering), the Room reverberations don’t help, and the period engraving is a little thin.No matter: the spectacle is admirable and undoubtedly the deployment of the scene, certainly in a more reduced depth, is still more natural than that of Dausgaard; and then there is the interpretation of a subtly disenchanted pantomime which, although it reveals some flaws in the score, gives off masterful fragrances of sensitivity.

TMA does a great job of revealing who does what, how and where, doesn’t embellish anything, doesn’t make anything worse: it respects what comes from the source! He gets the job done, though this is typically a record where a challenger stuffed with a bit of fatness or laziness could appear superior.

No more honest though: Pantagruel is not a sportsman.

No gift either for David Bowie’s Blackstar, whose stage soup is swampy, unfortunately damaging the artistic splendor that the TMA deciphers at best, digging meticulously into this paste; which immediately makes you want to listen again to Earthling (1997, co-produced by Reeves Gabrels), including Battle for Britain where TMA provides irrefutable and fateful proof that the brilliant Zachary Alford and the crazy Mike Garson, Nietzschean, very very busy, very very concentrated, very very eloquent, forge a cool-headed structure that would secure the Eiffel Tower during a magnitude 10 earthquake!

In this work written for the fiftieth anniversary of the Shining Star, the production assigns the marks on the ground of each speaker with a line, only playing with the phase shift on the synthetic entertainment.

The TMA happily excels in respecting this July 14 martial parade embellished with the fireworks of the same evening.

Considering the sound scene, few belligerents do better, possibly hoping for a more open vastness, increased breathing…

At this price ? Not sure.

Sound stage: ******

Realism of details:

The transparency, as one will have guessed above, is remarkable, especially since it never upsets a meritorious sense of modulations, whatever the layers.

Chamber music is an interesting indicator of this point of view.

The panel of works covering several centuries of music (from Haydn to Oscar Escudero born in 1992, via Schubert and Bartok or Bertelsmeier) in Krise Crisis (2022) puts any reproduction system to a severe test, through the stylistic diversity of the Kuss Quartet in the juxtaposition of extracts from works with no other link than a theme, possibly far-fetched.

The sound production, very successful, leans more towards the flexible than the incisive, which does not prevent the TMA from sailing as close as possible to the rosin, refusing the shadow, and sometimes even the chiaroscuro, to the detriment of ‘a grain that we have known to be crisper.

Indeed, if the rise of the woods is simply beautiful, we still note an intrinsic tendency to purify or sharpen the features, conceptualize them noticeably, frank attacks of note but slightly simplified envelopes, slight insistence of the rise of the front of wave to the ethereal detriment of the height of the sustain which does not appear in large orchestral masses.A very pleasant character trait to boost a somewhat amorphous speaker which contributes to the general sensation of high-end transparency.

ET: quasi-systematic phenomenon with fast transistor amplifiers developing comfortable power, or perhaps MOS transistors, with the big difference, as written in the introduction, that, with regard to the TMA, this singularity does not taint in no way a great flexibility and richness of melodic undulations, which one could wish for a little more oiled. Which doesn’t mean “slow” or sluggish. Let’s say: more fulfilled.

The correlative acuity of the valiant Neodio obviously helps to unravel muddy speakers or foggy music, without however clumsily digging to the bone or dynamically unbalancing the tonal balance.

Nothing in the volubility of the Neodio TMA is therefore ever unpleasant, truncated, excessive, and, in music as dense, audacious, breathable and without the slightest breathlessness while sometimes modeled by shadows close to silence, such as No Rush! of Andy Emler’s MegaOctet, we greatly appreciated the concise readability of the TMA which phlegmatically expresses the groove, particularly of a brass section never short of inspiration, and preserves sensuality within clever, incessant, destabilizing textural permutations , systematically deepened, supported by the solid assiduity of scattered rhythms devoted to Eric Echampard, François Verly and Claude Tchamichian, between clarity and obscurity.

Broad ambience and detailed extraction, we will have an additional demonstration of this with St. Vincent and the… the incandescent?All Born Screaming which Lady Clark, this time, produced entirely in person (assisted by Cate Le-Bon)!

Excellent initiative: I’m not far from thinking that this is his best album (mmhhh, not easy to determine on reflection)… paradoxical, in “randomly structured” movements of muscular oxymorons as we love them (and what sense swing!), in flashes of accompaniment or rhythmic writing immediately chased away by new bursts. Album perfectly ordered around diffuse scenes, all carried by the inimitable and astonishing feline and grooving, intimidating and erotic, vigorous or vibrant phrasing of Annie Clark, wandering in varied universes, sometimes as planned as Morphological Urban Planning, strong as a hungry grizzly bear, engaging and transversal as the carnivorous smiles of Grace Jones, twisted or violently anguished as the wanderings of Trent Reznor whose petulant Lady Supreme metamorphoses the sticky universe…

After what could be considered a slight drop in tension (pressure?) in the 3rd quarter, the eponymous final track, beginning with a light and engaging pop and, without transition, evolving into a chanting in an obsessive canon of confusing, fascinating progression , powerful, purely brilliant, asserts itself to be both bewitching and chilling, planting a sunny knife in the hearts of those who doubted for a single moment the ability of the goddess Annie Clark to master her subject from start to finish.

42 minutes way too short, so intense and cannibalistic!

The production, applied while firing on all cylinders (and brass in this case, the singular introduction of Violent Times), the herculean strikes of Dave Grohl (or Josh Freese, not a coward either), the imaginative touches of Mark Guiliana or Stella Mozgawa, the layers of infra-layers and a colossal dynamic perfectly exploited to deepen the dramatization or moan a hidden pain, make this moment an Artistic Monument pure and simple, dedicated to destabilization, to intelligence, to the storm prolix, to a form of uninhibited madness; and the Neodio TMA? well, he cherishes this tortuous and conquering enjoyment, delights in revealing its turns and torments, the controlled slippages and exuberant excesses without adorning the colors, the flavor of a Saucier sauce dosed with witchy ingredients, honest butler who never disputes and poetically transcribes the Chef’s choices.

Battle between art and technique which makes me realize an important point: by expecting too much (Excellence!) from a device whose price requires more tolerance, we could forget to put our values ​​into perspective!

The question therefore arises: who does it better and how much does it cost?

******

Quality of swing, vitality, dynamics:

The swing infused by the TMA is an excellent surprise, on the one hand because it is often lacking in hi-fi – so abysmal that I wonder who understands the meaning of it among the creators of Low-Fi – but also because that, when meeting the Origine amp in its time, it was not what struck us the most.

Thus the upstart Laufey (Lín Jónsdóttir) and her album Bewitched where she seems – after pop and jazzy alternations in her previous motifs – to have chosen her camp by opting for a mix of jazz brushes drawing widely from a palette soaked in the past, harmonies, choirs, syrupy strings of the Philharmonia, and even his phrasing or that of the piano, share with us the swinging variants of his contrary feelings, from tender hilarity to the melancholy which can only be that of youth.

The suave leaps or crocodile tears skip or languish without any restriction under the affectionate gaze of the Neodio amp whose vitality is a proven strong point.

Without the slightest hesitation, the TMA respects, even emphasizes, the range of emotions in all music, failing to ideally convey its intimate, tactile, carnal perception.

There follows a musical assault that I could just as easily have used in the Realism of Details section: the sequence Beauty + die Befindlichkeit des Landes, live from 2000 in Brussels by Einstürzende Neubauten.

The mysterious atmosphere of the introduction, Beauty, a worldly scientific-ironic dialogue between Bargeld and one of his accomplices against the backdrop of an undulating tablecloth and the engaged, almost palpable presence of the public, transmutes, brutally (die Befindlichkeit des Landes), by a sudden coalescence of wandering molecules by solidifying their indistinct form, astonishing the spectator then assailed with a hammering of ictus blasted by Alexander Hacke’s bass, buttressed on the flashy and manic arsenal of shattering house percussions, building a shelter atomic bomb while simultaneously creating the impression of destroying it with jackhammers and targeted blasting.

However, even in this picturesque case, we perceive impeccably, thanks to the herald Neodio, the voluntary shifts in the rhythmic placements of sweeping musicians which create a swing harmoniously manipulating the apparent mechanical cargo.

The direct, uncompromising, not to say violent, energy promptly deployed by the TMA – after all not displaying the size of a hitter – leaves one speechless on speakers whose output was nevertheless low (85 dB) at that moment, injecting them with enough speed to send an entire band of Hell’s Angels on a warlike expedition.

Useful clarification: if the TMA seems to prefer to be requested, a little pushed, it listens very well at low levels, preserving speed, density and verve.

The stubborn work carried out by the designer on the counter-reaction gives its full measure here.

Note that the same disc passed via transducers with very high efficiency and naturally reactive is suddenly muzzled and loses a large part of its interest. Something we see with other “short leash” amplifiers, our reference Accuphase for example. Undoubtedly the price of this “hyper-control”

Expressiveness:

That we listened to Laufey’s Bewitched in its entirety alongside the Neodio TMA says a lot about expressiveness.

The TMA delights us with the delicious vibrato of the Icelander (you have to know. That she is Icelandic), her timbre knowingly distorted by a clone of a microphone from the fifties, her silky illuminations like the velvet which dresses all the engram arrangements of the past of each of the strolls lavished in various cadences, so rigorously transposed in the piece, that a lament which does not upset the hierarchies nevertheless exudes the deep mood of an eternal romanticism, whatever the fleeting reservations emitted here and there in my CR.

The Neodio TMA playing Sample the Earth by Laura Misch, a sort of lightened cover (regrown) of Sample the Sky (stuff for the boss, that) sketches inhabited silhouettes, in an almost hyperrealistic way, where the sax, the harp or the voice angelic and sensual alternate in what sometimes resemble specters, large softened bodies, made almost metaphysically insubstantial by the fog. It’s disturbing, fascinating…

Undoubtedly, thanks to the TMA a kind of magic happens that leads us to spend a lot of time in the company of Marina Viotti in the anachronistic Mezzo Mozart, accompanied by Gli Angeli Genève and Stephan McLeod.

Beyond a consistent range of tessitura (some harshness in the treble… Her? The sound recording?), a great inventiveness of ornamentation, a contained power (too much?… when we know what Ms. Viotti is capable, yes, sometimes perhaps) and with a ductile ease, the admirable and surprising Diva devoid of caprice (I understand that she had tried her hand at Death Metal in her youth) embodies the titles with an ease that gives goosebumps, even though his presence draws more towards the incarnadin than the incarnate through the intercession of the TMA.

So what is missing to make everything perfect?

A slightly more organic connection?

Pleasure ? Perhaps, provided that it does not turn into complacency…

Frankly, we are incapable of an irrevocable judgment. Who is right, who is wrong ?

Expressivity is definitely a complex factor.

The TMA is perhaps not the paragon but, in the overall hierarchy of machines of this price, those which approach it suffer from as many limits or concessions as virtues.

The TMA is therefore – in our opinion and our crass intransigence – one of the rare instruments achieving an ideal balance between often incompatible data.

*****, in absolute

******, compared to the price and overall performance elsewhere:

Subjective pleasure:

It is systematically there, even more so when you integrate it into its ecosystem, in particular the new series of HP Fractal cables with an astonishing quality/price ratio.

Its eagerness, its joie de vivre, its permanent availability and its constancy of density over any dynamic gap whatsoever make it a must.

Totally universal? Not really: speakers who call freedom wild won’t appreciate its pedagogical foundations. The others (99%?) will give him the praise due to his ability as a professor of the Circle of Dead Poets (Peter Weir 1990), at the risk of having to confess their Janotism.

I can live with that, and that’s the whole point of subjective objectivity.

******

Value for money:

A must I say? Even more so considering the price!

He deserves a Diamond on Canapé.

I know what the boss is going to say: we’re giving away a little too much. Yes, but we have also decided, for the moment, to only review objects that genuinely excite us, so well…

********