woo audio

DENVER--The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, held in Denver, was a must-see event for audiophiles young and old. The biggest change this year was a bonanza of affordable high-end products -- mixed in with the usual crazy expensive gear -- along with a good helping of midpriced goodies.

Music Hall had a rather plain-looking little monitor speaker, the Marimba ($349 a pair), that sounded big and truly powerful. I have never heard that level of bass "slam" coming out of such a diminutive speaker; I can't wait to get it in for review.

Woo Audio's stunning new … Read more

I had a long fascination with high-end audio before I owned any of the good stuff. I suppose the same allure applies to exotic cars; millions read reviews of cars they never drive, and watch Food Network shows about food they'll never taste. Folks are interested in excellence, but compared to $200,000 cars or celebrity chefs' handiwork high-end audio is more accessible and practical. Two products covered in today's blog -- used high-end Grado headphones and the Oracle Delphi turntable -- sometimes sell for less than $1,000 on eBay. That's still expensive, but more within … Read more

I've frequently raved about Woo Audio's all-tube headphone amplifiers in this blog, so I was surprised to see that the company's new WDS-1 digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is a solid-state design. Woo still offers the full line of made-in-New-York-City headphone amplifiers, with prices starting at $495.

There's also a new matching WPT-1 CD transport. Build quality is superb; these components have the sort of detailing you see on high-end gear that sells for two or three times the price of Woo's products. Each unit is 9 inches wide and 13 inches deep so they can be … Read more

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2011, held last week at the Denver Marriott Tech Center Hotel, not only showcased a vast array of high-end audio designs, there was a special headphone-oriented show within the show called CanJam. It was a fantastic opportunity to sample the world's best headphones and headphone amplifiers.

The energy in the CanJam ballroom was palpable. There's no doubt the headphone market is still expanding at a rapid rate, and anyone who spent some time listening to the latest crop of cutting-edge products had to come away from the experience shaken and stirred. … Read more

I've never heard anything quite like the Audeze LCD-2 before. This headphone somehow produces extraordinary clarity, openness, and articulation, but without exaggerated detail or annoyingly overdone treble. The Audeze LCD-2 is a game changer; no wonder it's getting raves from the online high-end mavens at Head-Fi. Audeze's co-founders, Alex Rosson and Sankar Thiagasamudram, are onto something.

The headphones feel great in your hands. Build quality is robust, but the design is nowhere as sleek as Sennheiser's high-end headphones. The LCD-2's impedance is 50 ohms, and the maximum power handling is a remarkable 15 watts, which corresponds to a superloud 133 decibel output! You'd be hard pressed to blow this headphone up by playing it too loud. The LCD-2's tonal balance is noticeably warm, but I never felt it was smearing detail or lacking in resolution. It also sounds great at quiet listening levels. Sure, one of the advantages of headphones is you can play music as loud as you want, but it's still nice to have the option of listening low, without losing detail or presence.

The LCD-2's unusual technology (planar magnetic, or orthodynamic) is currently only used by one other headphone manufacturer, Hifiman, and I raved about its HE-5 headphones last year. The LCD-2's huge headphone drivers (6.17 square inches each) are many times the area of any dynamic headphone I know of. Audeze's very large drivers project sound over most of your outer ears, and that may be the reason why the LCD-2 sounds more speakerlike than other headphones. It weighs a rather hefty 19.4 ounces (550 grams), but I found it comfortable over very long listening sessions. The LCD-2 is handmade in the U.S., with real lambskin leather-covered earpads, and real Caribbean rosewood earcups.

The LCD-2's headphone cable is detachable, via very secure mini-XLR plugs, and is therefore user replaceable. I opted for a Chain Mail 8, an audiophile upgrade cable from ALO. It seemed to enhance everything about the LCD-2's sound, which was awfully good with the stock cable.

The LCD-2's big drivers make bass, oh boy, do they make bass. If you really want to hear amazing bass, you have to get "Kodo: The Heartbeat Drummers of Japan" CD. The drums' big sound is beyond the abilities of most headphones, but here, over the LCD-2, the drumbeats were clear and powerful. Not the sort of flabby, thick, or overdone bass you get from DJ headphones, no, I'm talking about pitch-accurate, highly defined bass that also digs deeper into the very low bass regions than other full-size 'phones.… Read more

You can buy a set of great full-size headphones for $100 from Grado or Sennheiser, but if you want to pick up one of the world's best headphones, be prepared to spend more than $1,000. Granted, no one needs a $1,000 headphone to listen to music or a $140,000 Porsche Panamera Turbo sedan to drive to work, but they're nice things to have. That's why we cover them on CNET.

Audio-Technica, Sennheiser, Grado, and Ultrasone's latest attempts to advance the state-of-the-art are really expensive, but before the introduction of the T1, Beyerdynamic's top models all carried an MSRP of less than $400. With the Tesla T1, Beyerdynamic joined the $1,000-and-greater club; it sells for $1,295.

Steep prices haven't stopped the high-end headphone market from booming, and Beyerdynamic can't keep up with the demand for the T1. It's hand-built and tested in the company's headquarters in Heilbronn, Germany.

Its padded leather headband and soft earpads provide high comfort levels, and while we were testing the T1 over some rather hot and humid late spring days, the headphone remained comfy for hours on end. The T1 comes packed in a very impressive aluminum storage case.

According to Beyerdynamic, the T1's transducer is the first to produce more than one Tesla of magnetic flux density (hence the T1 designation). A more powerful magnet better controls the diaphragm's movement, which should produce lower distortion.

Most of the T1's outer earcup is covered with a finely woven wire mesh, which allows the user to hear outside sounds. Actually, the T1 is classified as a "semi-open" design, so it partially limits how much sound the wearer would hear, compared with open Sennheiser and Grado designs. The T1's thick cable is just shy of 10 feet long (118 inches) and it's fitted with a 6.3mm connector. Beyerdynamic doesn't include a 3.5mm adapter for use with iPods or other portable devices.

I listened to the T1 with three different amplifiers: an Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver, Woo Audio WA6-SE vacuum tube amp, and Burson Audio HA-160 solid-state headphone amp ($699). Beyerdynamic's headphone amp, the A1 ($849), would likely be a serious contender, but I didn't have a chance to try it. … Read more

If you've invested in a set of really high-quality headphones--and you're plugging them into a headphone jack on your receiver or computer--you ain't heard nothing yet. The sound may be pretty good, but the weak link is the "good enough" headphone amp built into the receiver or computer sound card.

Dedicated headphone amps, like the Burson Audio HA-160 take the high road and are built like bona-fide high-end audio amplifiers. Little amplifiers to be sure; it doesn't take a lot of power to drive a headphone, but the quality of the power is something else again. Burson Audio is based in Melbourne, Australia.

I love the HA-160's understated design; the silver anodized-aluminum chassis feels nice and solid. Up front you get two headphone jacks: one for use with low-impedance (15-150 ohms) headphones, and one for high-impedance headphones (150-500 ohms). The large, machined-aluminum volume control is a little unusual; it's a "stepped attenuator." That's a big draw for serious audiophiles, stepped attenuators have matched sets of resistors that sound better than more commonly used continuously variable volume controls.

Most solid-state headphone amps, including a lot of high-end ones, use off-the shelf "opamps," integrated circuit chip sets, but the HA-160 uses circuits developed by Burson Audio, and it features discrete circuits with resistors, capacitors and transistors. That's a more labor-intensive way to build amps, but there's no other way to build true high-end designs.

What does the HA-160 sound like? Nothing at all. Switching back and forth between my Onkyo TX-SR805 receiver's headphone jack and the HA-160 was a study in contrasts. The TX-SR805 certainly didn't sound bad on its own, but the clarity gains with the HA-160 were dramatic. The sound was far more vivid, and the "spaces" between the instruments and vocals were in sharp relief. Bass was also clearer with the Burson; the TX-SR805 sounds softer and veiled by comparison.

I next compared the HA-160 with my reference headphone amp, the Woo Audio WA6-SE ($1,050). It was a closer match, but there were still very significant differences between the two amps. Listening to Peter Gabriel's new "Scratch My Back" CD, the WA6-SE was sweeter and more laid-back than the HA-160.

The orchestral accompaniments were richer, but the HA-160 was more immediate, it sounded much clearer, as if there was nothing between the music and my ears. All of my listening up to this point was with the Beyerdynamic Tesla T1 headphone ($1,295), which is one of the very best headphones I've ever heard (full review is in the works). … Read more

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2009, held last week in Denver, showcased the best and brightest in new high-end headphones and iPod sound enhancing gear.

I blogged about Wadia's super iPod dock, the 170i Transport last year, and Wadia now has a matching digital-to-analog converter/power amplifier, the 151. It has one USB, one Toslink, and two coax inputs. The 170i was the first "dock" to extract a digital output from an unmodified iPod, so for those who really care about sound quality, the Wadia 151 will be the way to go. The 151 PowerDAC will soon be available in black and silver.

Jack Wu of Woo Audio brought a nice selection of his tube headphone amplifiers to the show. I'm a huge fan of Woo Audio, its amps have made my Grado and Sennheiser headphones sound better than ever. Woo was also showing prototypes of its upcoming digital-to-analog converters, the sound showed great promise. … Read more

Lucky me, I've reviewed most of the world's very best headphones, including the Audio Technica ATH-W5000, Denon AH-D7000, and Sennheiser HD 800. But now there's something even better: the Woo Audio WES headphone amplifier ($4,500) and Stax SR-007Mk2 headphone ($2,410). The complete review can be found on the Home Entertainment Web site.

Yeah, it's a lot of dough, but the Woo/Stax combo creams the other contenders for world's best headphone sound, and the pair goes for less than the price of a world class, high-end camera, like the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III. The camera's great now, but in a couple of years it'll be hopelessly out of date. Great audio is simply a better long-term investment.

Stax headphones use a very different operating principle than dynamic headphones (pretty much every headphone from lowly earbuds to full-size headphones are dynamic designs). Stax has been making electrostatic headphones since 1960 in Japan, and the company's current flagship model, the SR-007Mk2, is what I'm using with the Woo WES amplifier. The Stax is a big and comfy design.

The Woo WES is an all-triode tube drive, fully balanced design; the prototype unit I'm reviewing has a total of 10 tubes (four EL34 power tubes, four 6SL7 drive tubes, and two 5AR4 rectifier tubes), but production models will have 11 tubes. It works with Stax and Sennheiser electrostatic headphones only. The machined, all-metal dual chassis is beautifully crafted.

The WES, like all Woo amps, was designed by Wei Wu, and handcrafted in Woo Audio's factory in New York City. Each WES will be built to order over a four-day period; it's slated for release in October 2009. The preintroduction price is $4,500, and full retail is expected to be $4,990. Woo prices start at $470 for the WA 3. All Woo Audio electronics are sold direct from the factory, the waiting list is three to four weeks.

A look inside reveals no circuit boards; all wiring will be "point to point." That's a very expensive way to manufacture amplifiers, but Woo Audio thinks point-to-point wiring makes for better-sounding amps. The amp also features handmade inductors, and even the machined cone feet are designed specifically for the WES.

The clarity of the Woo/Stax combo with acoustic jazz mimics the way live, unamplified music sounds in a good concert hall or club. The Woo/Stax is the closest thing to being there I've heard to date.… Read more