It's that time of year again, pondering over cool gifts for the audiophile or headphone enthusiast in your life can be a chore. Well, the InnerFidelity writers have just made your choosing a bit simpler by producing our Holiday Gift Guide for this year. Some really cool stuff in the guide this year. (I particularly liked Nate's DIY oscilloscope choiceman, what I woulda done to have one of those as a teen.)
So, peruse the gift guide for the next few pages and keep in mind those audio geeks you love, maybe that perfect gift will jump right out at you!
My previous review here on InnerFidelity was a large black box with a forest of vacuum tubes rising up from its surface, and nary a digital function to be found. Almost diametrically opposed to that, the Oppo HA-1 ($1199) took up residence immediately thereafter in my review cuegleaming silver, LCD display, remote control, and as modern an integrated DAC/Headphone amp as one could imagine. And yet at the risk of spoiling the surprise, or lack thereof, I will tell you that the Oppo is also outstanding, and represents somewhat of a bargain.
Attention audiophiles!!! The TTVJ Apex Teton is an amp built by and for audiophiles. No compromises, exquisite parts, and looks to explode your wife's head.
I own British speakers. I love British speakers. My main speakers are B&W Nautilus 800's, and I LOVE them. What do I love about them? They sound very, very natural over the long haul, but they don't immediately hit you over the head with this or that. They are not flashy, but they provide superb musical satisfaction over the long haul. Nothing sticks out, and that's what provides the naturalness of the sound.
I have to think that the Tisbury fellows like this sort of British sound, because that's EXACTLY what I got from the CA-1. Nothing stuck out, but the music flowed in an remarkably natural way, and one that I would not have expected from a $600 solid state amp.
I always wonder what will come out of review amps once I fire them up and first listen. I always run the amp in for 10-12 hours after getting it without playing the amp at all, and then I let them warm up for an hour on the day of first listening before I strap the cans to my head. And then I eagerly press play and let the music flow. And in the case of the Elekit, flow it did indeed, and in a very pleasing way.
I was approached by MiniWatt to review their current USB DAC/AMP combo, the n4. I had not really heard much about this company before but they have had several previous products that were well received, including a very compact vacuum tube headphone amp. I hadn't reviewed an "inexpensive" product ($349 MSRP in this case) here on InnerFidelity for a while, so I decided to give it a try.
'Tis the season, time for the InnerFidelity writers to hook you up with some cool gift ideas. We accept that many will just be looking for goodies for themselves...sorry about your wallet.
When famed audio designer Jim Fosgate first announced that he was going to be making a tube headphone amp, I was definitely interested, especially when I saw the first pictures of itit's a beautiful product. For a variety of reasons, it took quite a while for me to actually hear one, which was at a Chicago headphone meetand on that cursory listen I thought it sounded good. So finally, a review unit arrived for me to really put through the paces.
InnerFidelity writers are busy writing basic introductory content for the Ultimate Headphone Guide. Our second entry? Skylab writes about the need for a headphone amp.
I have seen some nice looking Pathos products reviewed in the pages of Stereophile before, but I have never heard any until now. They always seemed to get enthusiastic reviews, and the pictures looked pretty. When the Aurium showed up here, I didn't have any idea what to expect sonically, but I expected and got a nice looking product.