At the multi thousand dollars price bracket, there is no bad amplifiers. - Mike

Famous last words.

Should pose an entertaining read.

http://www.headfonia.com/true-beauty-wooaudio-wa5-headphone-amplifier/

WTF?  This article is like a million years old and who cares?

Exactly, everybody knows headphonia, 6moons, hifi+ and all the others are just garbage written by people who couldn't even buy a clue. 

At least Srajen makes his bs creative on 6moons. I wouldn't be surprised if he invented the useless term PRat.

Unlikely given http://www.tnt-audio.com/edcorner/prat_e.html

Double post

Edited April 7, 201412 yr by Grahame

To truly experience prat, you have to be one.

He reposted these on facebook, as i had never seen this post before, for a moment i thought they were new.

Anyone have thoughs on the new Chord Hugo portable dac/amp?

http://www.t3.com/reviews/chord-hugo-review

2.4K USD. Holy christ, and the people at headfi says its better than the M8. I wonder if someone comes out with a 10kUSD portable dac, will they say its better than the NAD M51.

Edited April 7, 201412 yr by Rotijon

why don't you buy one, and then listen, and let us know your thoughts on it.  

Never been wow'd by any Chords past DAC's and fairly disappointed with the 64 performance to the asking price ratio so have high doubts the Hugo is that "good" (after you minus all the BS on the other site etc etc).

ok, so who gives a fuck then?

oh, my bad, I thought you were the one who'd made the initial inquiry. *nm*

I hope his hearing is better than his grammar

 

 

At the multi thousand dollars price bracket, there is no bad amplifiers. - Mike

Famous last words.

Should pose an entertaining read.

http://www.headfonia.com/true-beauty-wooaudio-wa5-headphone-amplifier/

 

Yep adjectives like dry and sterile come to mind when I listened to the Chord 64

 

DefQon, on 07 Apr 2014 - 1:17 PM, said:

Never been wow'd by any Chords past DAC's and fairly disappointed with the 64 performance to the asking price ratio so have high doubts the Hugo is that "good" (after you minus all the BS on the other site etc etc).

Edited April 7, 201412 yr by complin

I have read some of headfonia's reviews, they are the worst I have ever read .

Amazing how any self proclaimed expert can babble some crap and have lots of readers.

But again, it is the same for anything in the internet. Lots of "experts" on just about anything.

The Hugo is probably a pretty decent deal compared to what Astell & Kern is charging for the AK240.

DAC vs DAP though. Although I haven't heard the AK240 I can't see it justify the asking price. Not as bad as the Tera player though, overpriced POS at best.

This thread really sucks.

Goes hand in hand with the two entities in the title... 

Goes hand in hand with the two entities in the title... 

 

Speaking of one of the entities in the title...what are your thoughts of the WA5? The case work is pretty snazzy, but I'm not sure about the design of the amp? Thanks!

Power supply technically doesn't work (look at all that rectifier tube rolling) and the amp circuit is terrible so not something I've ever recommend.  For me it ticks most of the "fuck it, let's just make some money" boxes.  6SN7's driving 300B's is always going to suck but marrying it to cheap as dirt iron from China with a PSU which breaks all the rules for tube rectified PSU's just takes the cake.  There are also small issues such as how the filaments are done (AC with a hum pot... in a headphone amp) and the Woo spirit of slapping on some upgraded parts that don't matter. 

 

Same can be said about the DNA amps, they are pretty much terrible and again, dirt cheap transformers and fucked filament supplies/PSU.  I'm well aware how expensive iron is but opting for the cheapest off the shelf Edcor unit is just fucked.  Alo Studio Six is also guilty of this as well as one of the worst tube amp designs I've ever seen. 

Excellent. Thanks for that! 

I've always looked at Woo as nice looking and excellent quality chassis and build quality, but subpar sound performance and questionable designs (Spritzer has only covered the icing of the cake with the problems). A few Woo amps I've heard had some background noise and humming issues.

 

I liked the Stratus on the other hand with my old modded HD800's. Haven't heard enough amp's to criticise DNA's construction, internal build and design ethics.

Edited April 9, 201412 yr by DefQon

The thing with Woo is that the higher up in their lineup you go, the worse it gets.  Something like a bog standard WA2 or a WA6 would be a pretty good choice for the money but nobody would go for them.  Something like the WES is just fucked, they can't even get the bias and the ballast resistors for the bias right.  This is crucial for something like the HE90 so I for one would never connect a HE90 into a WES.  The risk is simply too great that the amp is slowly chewing up the 7k$ drivers... 

It took me quite a bit of tweaking to get my WA3 quiet.....then I dumped current sources in the follower.