By David Ponce
Well, it’s not for your headphones only but it apparently has a dedicated headphone mode, with a particular type of tube amp (the 300B apparently) that’s preferred with head mounted gear as opposed to a full set of speakers. Now, we’re big fans of audiophile gear mostly because we know so little about it and it always kind of shocks us that people are willing to part with these sums of cash. In the case of the WA-234 MONO, it’s $10,000. Now for that price, you get a sales pitch in the language of audiophilespeak:
Discrete mono-block, Single-ended, Class-A
Output transformer coupled, EI96 Permalloy core
All triode drive, no semi-conductors.
2A3/300B/45 power tube via Tube Switching Key
Headphone/speaker out via Output Switching Key
Cathode / plate output alternation for headphone
High and low impedance headphone outputs
6SN7 driver, 5U4G rectifier tube
2 RCA and 1 XLR input
3-pin XLR mono output for headphone
Power on plate output 8 watt@300B, 4 watt@2A3, 2 watt@45
Frequency response: 5Hz–62 KHz, -2dB on cathode output
Seiden 46-position stepped attenuator, M-TubeCap, V-Cap
We don’t doubt for a second that the sound they create is princely. But this is 1%er material and we just can’t relate.
[ WA-234 MONO ] VIA [ Bornrich ]
woo audio amps, like most high-end audio electronics (other than speakers or headphones) are snake oil. i personally had a chance to ABX test 8 people using a $2200 woo audio headphone amp against a $40 “altoid” homemade amp, using sennheiser HD600s and HD800s. nobody could tell the difference at all
Well, some of us know that triodes are particularily non-linear, and thats why pentodes dominated the vacuum tube era for so long. But hey, for $10k and a what looks like a set peice form a Basil rathborne horror flick, who cares?
lol