SPL’s Phonitor and Auditor
It was in 2008 that we started hearing about the SPL Phonitor, a high end headphone amplifier developed by professional recording equipment company SPL in Germany. (Click to read more)…
ESI Audiotrak Dr. DAC Prime Review
The rising trend of computers as transports makes all-in-one standalone external audio devices a very lucrative market. The Dr. DAC Prime amplifier and DAC combo unit is a new offering from ESI with 192 kHz upsampling and 24/96 native USB input. ESI is probably not a widely known name in the casual consumer market at least for now but this German manufacturer has been producing professional audio gears and soundcards for quite some time. Now let us find out in this review whether their new excursion is successful or not.
Sophia Princess Upgrade for the WooAudio6
Though the WooAudio6 is a very good amp for the price, people are constantly looking for ways to upgrade its performance. One way to upgrade the WooAudio6 is by replacing the stock rectifier to the Sophia Princess Rectifier, which WooAudio sells for $150. (Click to read more)…
Stax SRD-7
The SRD-7 energizer works differently than a regular Stax amplifier. It requires to be piggy-backed to a standard speaker amplifier, where it takes the current from the speaker amplifier and convert it to the necessary high voltage power for driving Stax Electrostatic headphones. It remains a popular choice among Stax users as a cheaper alternative than a standard electrostatic amplifiers. 2nd hand units sells for roughly $200 and less, and it runs great out of any vintage stereo receivers. (Click to read more)…
Bravo Hybrid Tube Amplifier
I love it when small amplifiers sounds good and big! From the look of it, the Bravo amplifier looks more like a desktop accessory than a proper amplifier. It is nicely packaged, and the dimension is tiny for a desktop amplifier. What do you expect from a miniature amplifier like this. People probably buy them for gifts and stuff. Not to mention that the Bravo amplifier is being sold at an eBay store. The seller ships the Bravo from Hong Kong, and so it’s probably manufactured in China, which is the reason to why it sells so cheap, for merely $59.99.
Shadow, TTVJ, or Rx?
We have been talking about the three newly released amplifiers, but I have never really done a direct comparison between them. All three amplifiers no longer use conventional potentiometers, but rather a digital volume control or a stepped attenuator. This results in a clean and well controlled sound that gives an impression of speed, and also good separation between the instruments. In this regard, these new amplifiers are superior to most older designed amplifiers which use conventional potentiometers. (Click to read more)…
TTVJ & TTVJ
When I received the TTVJ Slim, I was curious on how it would compare to the TTVJ Millet Hybrid Portable. Conveniently enough, Todd had also shipped me the TTVJ Millet Hybrid so I can do a comparison to the new one side by side.
Although quite different in their topology, both TTVJ amplifiers definitely have the same house sound sound. You can tell that both are developed by the same person with a good ear for musicality. The TTVJ Slim may be a solid state design, but it is far from sounding like a dry solid state. As a matter of fact, it not only matches the musicality of the Hybrid Tube TTVJ portable amplifier, but it actually outdoes the Hybrid’s Sound Quality. (Click to read more)…
HeadAmp Gilmore Lite
Say hello to one of the most well known entry level amplifiers in the industry. Most people will be shocked to find how small the Gilmore Lite really is. The shocker is when you realize that an amplifier this small can deliver such a clean and powerful sound. Physically, it is smaller than a typical paperback book, yet it has enough juice even for the Sennheiser HD800. The gain is quite monstrous too, and at 12 O’clock, I find the HD800 to be really loud on the Gilmore. This gain level is more suitable for full size headphones, as it doesn’t give you enough conntrol when using sensitive IEMs. But in most cases, we wouldn’t be using a desktop amplifier for IEMs. (Click to read more)…
ALO Rx High Gain
The ALO Rx turns out to have a gain switch hidden behind the front face plate. All you have to do is get a suitable hex key and open the front faceplate. Then the gain switch can be found under the PCB, below the power switch. In high gain, the Rx was able to drive the HD800 to ear deafening volume levels. I didn’t find out how loud it can go, because the set up has a potential to do some permanent hearing damage. (Click to read more)…
RSA Tiny Amps: The Shadow or The Mustang
After coming out with the RSA Shadow, people started asking question if it’s worth selling their P51 Mustangs to get the newer Shadow amp. We did a short comparison to find out. (Click to read more)…
GoVibe Sharps
With the Sharps amplifier, GoVibe has successfully created a portable amp that manages to go head to head with the venerable Ray Samuels SR-71a. People wanting to get a powerful portable amplifier can rejoice now, as the Sharps manages to offer just as much power and punch as the SR-71a at a significantly lower price of $350.
WooAudio6 Tube Amplifier
A good friend of mine loaned his WooAudio6 to me during his time away for a business trip. The WooAudio6 is the entry level model of WooAudio’s transformer coupled tube amplifiers. It sells for $585 in stock configuration, but this one has the PDPS power supply upgrade that costs an additional $60. Another popular upgrade offered by WooAudio is the Sophia Princess rectifier tube, though this unit does not have it. (Click to read more)…
ALO Rx Headphone Amplifier
The ALO Rx comes equipped with a lot of tech packed into a slim box roughly the size of an Ipod Classic. ALO not only jumped on the digital/attenuator volume control wave, but they also added many other goodies to the Rx amplifier. It has dual Lithium Ion batteries, a battery monitoring charging circuit, and a digitally controlled dual stepped attenuator circuit. ALO claimed that the batteries last for 17-30 hours depending on volume, with only 2-4 hours of charging time. (Click to read more)…
TTVJ Slim: First Impression
TTVJ named the new portable amp the “TTVJ Portable Headphone Amplifier”. Since TTVJ already have a hybrid tube portable amplifier, I thought that calling the new amp as a “TTVJ Portable Headphone Amplifier” might get people confused. Some have been calling it the “TTVJ Portable with Stepped Attenuator”. Clear enough, but quite long to speak or to type out. I find “TTVJ Slim” as the best name the public have come out with for the amplifier, and that’s the name I’m going to use throughout this article. I hope Todd doesn’t mind. (Click to read more)…
RSA Shadow After 7×24 Hours
In the first part of the review, I wrote that the RSA Shadow really sounded great out of the box. However, the designer, Ray Samuels, wrote on the manual that 100 hours of burn in is required of the Shadow. I didn’t want to argue the man, so I decided to put it through some burn in, constantly monitoring if there are any changes in the sound. (Click to read more)…
Mr. Graham Slee on The Voyager
I’ve been talking to Graham Slee regarding the design of the Voyager that I reviewed, and through our conversation, he explained some information regarding his amplifiers. First is the auto-gain feature that would equalize the volume on headphones with different impedance ratings. (Click to read more)…
RSA Shadow: Out of the Box
The RSA Shadow is one of the most highly anticipated amplifier to be released to the headphone community. It all started back in May, with a little write up on Ray Samuels front page that reads:
Last year I received a PM from a head-fier gbx2006 who sent this link http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/volume.asp and asked me if I would consider digital volume control to make the P-51 even thinner. I told him I was already working on it but with a control with higher quality and usability for audio than in the link, and it was called The Shadow. (Click to read more)…
HeadAmp Pico
The Pico is a portable USB DAC/Amp that was released by HeadAmp at the end of 2008. It has a very small footprint making it the tiniest portable combo DAC/Amp among its competitors at the time of its release. Additionally, the Pico features a 24-bit/96kHz upsampling DAC through its USB input which is achieved using the Wolfson’s 24-bit WM8740 high-end chip. (Click to read more)…
GS Voyager Portable Amplifier
If an amplifier is supposed to amplify the signal feed to it while preserving its sound as pure as possible, Mr. Graham Slee for sure don’t hold that belief. The Graham Slee Voyager amplifier is one warm sounding amplifier with a very thick and lush sound. (Click to read more)…
