Gadgetory

hey everybody how are you audio head here today we're doing a review in partnership with the part-time audio file over there at wwp art time audio file dot-com we have the new heed can alot headphone and DAC combination here the heed is typically known for their can amp which came out a few years ago and has been known to be very friendly with the AKG 701 this one has some new revisions to it as you can see here it's obviously got a separate power supply called the cue PSU located on the left it's a separate power supply everything comes over through the cord in the back to the amplifier located on the right this one also includes digital coaxial input you can see it's selectable here it's analog to digital this unit also includes an additional headphone input so you can see here that has two total now the knob is a very good I like it a lot it's got a good finish the overall build of the unit it's pretty good I like it it's solid the power supply is much heavier than the amplifier as you might expect and you can also see the ribbing the slots here on the side allow for heat to dissipate out of the unit it's gets a little warm to the touch it's a Class A amplifier so it does get a little bit warm but the heatsink definitely helps you know kind of alleviate a little bit of that as you can see from the back here there is a obviously your analog inputs as well as analog outputs you can see the optional DAC card that's available input for the digital coaxial here on the side as far as overall sound is concerned really I really did like this one it's got a lot of punch it's got a great sense of tone and overall subtlety that's very nuanced it's very good there's a good punch to it it's got plenty of power to drive really good headphones for almost every headphone I attempted to drive this with great results I never really got up beyond 75% even with lower quieter recordings which is definitely a good sign the overall cost for the unit is actually $1,200 for the amplifier alone the DAC card is another $400 on top of that bringing the total for the review that you see here at 16 so it's $1,600 so it's a little bit on the higher end of things for that though you do get quite a bit of punch you do get a like a pretty solid dedicated headphone amplifier it's not drying it by any means got a lot energy it's pretty exciting as far as the $400 DAC card I found the performance to be pretty good for $400 it's not the best I'd ever had I have Dax here that cost more and perform more but for around 400 it's it does the job it definitely gets the job done the other side of that is there is no USB input on this unit which is kind of a drawback so you know unless you already have an external DAC that you really love or a great source that you like to coaxial out to you might want to look into USB connectivity for $400 you know you could probably swing yourself a pretty good deck with full interface so you can just run the analog outs to this hamp amplifier and you may be able to see from this shot that actual sides of this is a little bit smaller each unit is roughly the size of like a two-pound Velveeta loaf box so it's not a massive size it actually both will fit kind of well on any type of desk or AV unit that kind of thing it doesn't take up a lot of space it's a little bit bigger than some new compact combo DAC units out there overall not the largest unit I've ever had on the testing bench by any means so all in all a good all-around kind of more top-tier amp with great fun energy it's very exciting kind of sounding amp when you really get down to it you know a separate headphone amplifier you know is kind of the way to go when you're looking at separates for personal audio applications you can really get individual DAX that you like it the sound signature you want right invest your money in particular products along the chain where you know you can kind of cater it to your tastes and your needs and you can do each piece of the chain one at a time that way so there's a lot more versatility involved when you do a separate headphone amplifier as opposed to doing one that's combined and all in one unit or even a headphone out from one of your your components so that's the this one is the he'd canna lots with the optional DAC card in it this video is brought to you in partnership with the part-time audio file so feel free to check out the full review on his site wwr time audiophile calm and let me know if you have any questions in the comment section thanks a lot guys