To start off, this is my first tube amp and headphone amp at that. I own what i like to think is a decent ($2-300 range) set of headphones. I've also only been using the amp for 2 days now. It only has about 4 hours of good sound through it at this point. I enjoy loud clean music from anything between Blues to Electronica.
Cons:
Just to get this out of the way. The red (power) light is kinda bright. I have it sitting on my desk(attached photo) and in the dark it's just TOO bright. I don't mind a small little LED letting me know it's on, but really, i can see that the switch is in the "on" position if i really need to know.
I've noticed a few "pops" while listening, nothing that is a big deal, maybe once ever 2 or 3 hours. Just worth noting.
Pros:
It sounds good. I have nothing to compare it to, really. It sounds better than it did before i had it. It is also louder.
It actually drives my headphones. I feel it as much as i can hear it.
The sound certainly is more "warm" as most people are describing.
The build quality is exceptional, i'm most impressed about this. This thing is built and finished very well. The knob, switch, and input/output ports are high quality. The tube guard is also a nice feature. I love the form factor, i was thinking big huge bulky monstrosity, but it fits well on my relatively small desk.
Other thoughts:
Bad quality music/sound will still sound bad, simple as that.
It gets hot (see picture*Edit, i guess i was only allowed one photo). I've taken temperature readings of the case(which i've read acts as a heatsink made from extruded aluminum) at 110F regularly and i've seen the tube reach above 130F. I guess when talking about electronics, this isn't nothing to be worried about. Nothing i'm worried about at least, i have computer components that reach 160F+ regularly.
If you have the headphones on and you flip the power switch on you'll get a bit of noise through the speakers. Caught me off guard the first time it happened.
I'll probably use it for a good 250+ hours before thinking about switching out the tube as most people say it's a common modification and actually pretty highly recommended.
I can see the itty bitty glow of the tube, but the bright annoying red light shines into the case and "kills the charm" as someone else said.
This amp is running off of my PC with an old Soundblaster 5.1 sound card of some sort into the amp via 3mm.
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Reviews with images
Needs at least a 20 ohm attenuator on the output.
I have both the Bravo Audio V2 and Ocean Mini, and love them, but only because I went to the trouble of making an attenuator cable. I work in a noisy office, and have my headphones on for about six hours each day. I use a stereo component CD player with an RCA cable, and usually listen with ATH-M50x (38 Ohm) headphones, but I have also tried DT-770 (250ohm) headphones with both of these amps. Without the attenuator, the volume is way too sensitive--the entire reasonable volume range seems to be within the first 1/16th of the dial. I used to struggle getting it just high enough so that both channels were playing, while yet still keeping it from being too loud. Also, there is a constant volume quiet hiss/buzz when not playing any audio. This hiss is always present, and sometimes more noticeable when touching the headphone cable or the case. Since the noise is at a constant low volume, music usually drowns it out. Anyway, the hiss and volume issues were fatiguing, and while looking for a replacement amp, I found some instructions for making an L-pad attenuator on the Internet. The resister values vary depending on the amount of attenuation desired. In my case, I used a 36 ohm resister in series and a 2.4 ohm resister in parallel for each channel. The attenuator drops the output volume enough so that the hiss goes away, and it moves the reasonable listening volumes to about the 50% point on the dial. That said, I liked the V2 so much that I bought the Ocean Mini. The Ocean mini's heat sink case and front power switch make for nice improvements, and the fit and finish are also better.
