It’s not a work that’s short of recordings and pretty much every cellist with a recording contract has attacked it at one time or another – not least because of the virtuoso performance it demands from the soloist. But what sets this performance apart – and what is so clearly revealed by the TMA – is the sense of the work as a whole, the balance of solo part and orchestration, the central core of musical purpose. Kobekina’s reading has quickly become a favourite, not least because of the clarity with which the TMA (the first amplifier I played it through) captured and presented its holistic integrity and innate musical balance. I love the way in which the little Neodio preserves both the body of the cello and the attack and energy in the playing. Normally, amps at this price level struggle to do both, generally settling for one or the other. Playing the disc on the main system clearly reveals greater focus, dimensionality and resolution, more texture and harmonic development, richer colours and a broader palette. If you want lush rounded colours and sumptuous warmth you can sink into, that isn’t what the TMA delivers. Instead it offers the bones and body of the performance, rather than the clothes hanging from the frame. And just like clothes, remove that frame and they fall in a shapeless heap – just like music played through warm and woolly amps devoid of temporal and dynamic authority. It’s the shape and sense of the music that the TMA makes recognisable: and not just recognisable, but instantly so.
That’s what I mean when I refer to the amp’s presentation as ‘natural’. It has the stable perspective, the inherent balance of energy, freedom of pace, the expected scale and perspective I associate with live performances; foundation stones that make the performance being presented more convincing and more accessible. Everything falls into place – in both spatial and temporal terms. You stop worrying about what’s there and instead you relax, you start appreciating and enjoying what’s happening. And don’t underestimate the importance of stability in the picture as a whole. It’s what allows the clear definition of relative position and amplitude. It makes the whole picture and pattern of the music both more intelligible and more easily recognised.
As well as the Vienna Acoustics speakers, I ran the TMA with the more efficient Living Voice R25s (a speaker more in line with the Neodio musical philosophy) and the Raidho DT-1.2 stand-mounts – a match for size/domestic impact, if not price. In each case, the TMA rose willingly to the challenge, mating seamlessly with the load presented and bringing the best out of each speaker: colour, scale and dimensionality from the Vienna, crisp energy and vitality from the R25 and spatial and dynamic resolution from the Raidho. The TMA does seem to be both capable and a genuine all-rounder. At 80 W/Ch, you might want to watch out for really efficient speakers (the volume control really needs to advance past 9:00 o’clock to avoid dynamic compression) but even the r25’s were running around the 10:30 point…
