headphone amp Seeking Headphone Amp: Roon Ready, MQA, possibly Tube!?

[Temporal_Dissident]

Greetings,

Looking for a new headphone amp for a specific situation: drive a stand-alone headphone system in a home study.

 

No loudspeakers.

 

Roon-Ready streaming Tidal/Qobuz/NAS will be only source. 

 

Ideally, I could find a high-end, class A tube amp with balanced phone outs,...with DAC and streamer built-in. 

 

BUT, I prefer to not compromise amp or DAC quality in order to jam all functions into a single box. 2 components would be fine. 

 

Suggestions?

[WAM]

That won't be easy, there are not many single box tube solutions out there.

I was looking for one myself, and ended up with an Unison Research SH. Beautiful amp, nice dac, but it is not balanced and not a streamer, not Roon-ready. 

 

Perhaps Woo? You could check out headfi.org and/or InnerFidelty (avoid Rafe Arnott's "reviews" , you should look for the stuff Tyll wrote).

 

If you forget the tubes, you have - depending on your budget - a lot more choice (GoldNote, DCS, Auralic, to name a few).

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

Warwick Acoustics Aperio

 

https://warwickacoustics.com/headphones/collection/aperio/

 

Probably the only one, no tubes though.  And it's 24k.  Otherwise, get two boxes.

[Temporal_Dissident]

9 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Warwick Acoustics Aperio

 

https://warwickacoustics.com/headphones/collection/aperio/

 

Probably the only one, no tubes though.  And it's 24k.  Otherwise, get two boxes.

$24k is dCS Bartok altitude. I think I need to look at two boxes. 

[exdmd]

Not tubes or Class A but the Matrix Audio Element X is a one box streamer DAC and balanced solid state headamp that might work for you. Here is a list of streaming DACs, some with headamps built in.

[Temporal_Dissident]

14 hours ago, exdmd said:

Not tubes or Class A but the Matrix Audio Element X is a one box streamer DAC and balanced solid state headamp that might work for you. Here is a list of streaming DACs, some with headamps built in.

 

 

This is great. Much appreciated. 

[UnityGain]

I appreciate that this is an old thread, however it has taken me a long time to find the answer to this question too. If you can compromise on the tubes then take a look at the Waversa wMiniHPA MkII