Uros
I'm having fun watch you explore your new options. I'm particularly interested to see what you think of the Tara 30A. But since you like the NAT Symbiosis, I'm curious if you are also considering the NAT Magnetostat SE preamp? The Tara 30A and NAT Magnetostat appear to be two top tier tube/transformer-based preamps made in Serbia! Who's going to be able to check them out and compare them reliably for us, if not you?
Marty
Hey Marty!
I spoke to Saša not two days ago. My Tara 30A is painted, all the parts assembled and now the guys need to come back from vacation to put it all together! So we’re getting close!
As it so happens by the way, I own the NAT Magnetostat SE preamp and have lived with several iterations of it that Dejan was continually upgrading for me for years. Ultimately, it gave way to Trafomatic Lara.
Why?
First up, Magnetostat SE is in purely technical terms a better match (no surprises there) with the NAT Symbiosis New amps. The principal reason being that the amps have an incredibly low input Z of 2,5k Ohms so they require a preamp with very low output impedance. Magnetostat in SE mode has the output Z of roughly around 50 ohms. This is great. Should provide more dynamics and higher extension in both lows and highs with the amps.*
This preamp literally breathes life into any solid state gear I’ve tried/owned. It did so with the D’Agostino Momentums as effectively as it did with the Soulution 710, Pass Labs or any number of other amps I’ve either listened to or tried it with.
But, there are drawbacks. The design itself feels overly complicated to me. The tiny tubes are soldered to the output board (autobias was introduced in later revisions, and they had a habit of getting out of whack), the controls are digital and the preamp is battery powered. In an attempt to achieve the best possible tone, I think Dejan went a bit overboard in his attempts. So the plus side of breathing life into solid state gear is also a drawback as it ultimately colors the sound and makes it slightly more veiled than I’d like my preamp to sound. Also, all the drawbacks of battery powered gear apply.
In stark contrast to that, Trafomatic’s Lara is a relatively simple design, a two box solution mind you, but the devil is in the details — the wiring they use, of course the transformers, the careful impedance matching, etc.
The end result is a slightly less “tubey” sound, but with more clarity, delineation of instruments and voices as well as a bigger sound stage.
Don’t get me wrong, both preamps are good — but Lara’s build quality, combined with (to me) superior looks as well as the sound signature I want to get out of a preamp made me switch to it and never look back. Lara is quite simply a more mature and well rounded hi fi product.
Consequently, Tara 30A (aside from the steep price jump) is a no brainer. Technically it’s better matched with the NAT amps (output Z of a mere 25 ohms), it’s got DHT tubes (still miss my WE 300B from the Lampi Golden Gate 2); it’s just better in every way. And A LOT more expensive … sigh. In addition, Saša will add some custom output gain options for my Tara 30A which should offer better gain matching with my gear. Tremendously important to have a good gain structure when mixing and matching components so that’s a very nice gesture from Saša.
That said, I treat Tara 30A as the “end game” pre. Oh and btw, I’ve tried running Horizon as the preamp for the NAT Symbiosis New. While Horizon was able to sound more articulate and in many ways better with NAT Magma Evos as compared to running them with Magnetostat SE, the situation is fully reversed with Symbiosis New (think input Z). Horizon as a pre sounds like crap. Inserting Lara into the signal path literally does wonders. So I can only imagine what Tara 30A will do.
*In practice, I don’t hear that though when comparing with Trafomatic Lara.
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