Which headphones of Drop's currently available?
I have some rewards points to burn but there's no obviously good options on Drop right now for headphones Contenders Ultrasone - maybe? I don't own any Ultrasones, so curious. Looks like garbage travel headphone which could be useful also. Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. - Maybe? I have the DT 880 Good price point, really uncomfortable headphones but could be interesting to try the upgraded version. E-MU - strong contender but $400 is a bad price point for what it is. Which of the above would you choose and why? Nothing else on Drop is relevant to my interests, because Already own 6xx 820 800 s Ether cx Garbage / Consumer grade Meze 99 - garbage bass canons, hard pass No gaming headphones obviously Sennheiser wireless - no to wireless/bluetooth Hifiman - I have 2 of drop hifimans and they make really bad cheap shit on Drop, hard pass on HE-R7DX Aeon - I own the closed, Drop refuses to address #padgate so no reason to buy open Beyerdynamic 177x - wireless, nope Too similar 8x / 560s...
Mar 28, 2024
I'd have to say that I enjoy the sound of the amp well enough. Paired with my efficient speakers I never felt like it was really straining to give me the volume I wanted, without much distortion. Mid-bass through treble was well defined, but the bass was much more reserved than I expected it to be. It's very quiet even with the volume turned up at no signal, surprisingly. Running in Class A certainly helps. The fit and finish was probably a 7/10. Some of the machined edges were a bit rough, and the machined knob manages to actually be *sharp* in one spot. The volume knob doesn't rotate perfectly smoothly through it's travel, it binds slightly in the middle. The transformer covers are a nice touch with the standard-spacing banana plug receptacles on the rear, but it's also obvious they're concealing small output transformers. With an output transformer, the more iron you have the better bass you'll get. Small transformers limit the low-end power available but large, good quality transformers quickly get expensive.
The tube this amp uses, 6AD10 has a pentode voltage amplifier and a 4.2W beam power tetrode section, so it can serve as both input and output tubes in one. These tubes were originally designed to be the integrated audio sections of entry-level televisions towards the end of the tube era, among other things. I couldn't get the bottom cover off due to the corner screws using something I don't have in my toolbox but I could see Nichicon electrolytic capacitors and possibly WIMA film capacitors inside, and the board looked well made. It seems to use a switching power supply.
While some individual variation is possible due to manufacturing differences in tubes and component quality, I did find the manufacturer's specifications to be somewhat...optimistic. Most surprisingly were the sensitivity and frequency response measurements.
The manufacturer proposes 3.5W into 8 Ohms with 500 mV sensitivity, in other words, with the volume control turned to maximum applying a 500 mV signal to the input jacks will cause the amplifier to deliver 3.5W into an 8 Ohm load. However, as shown on the "Sensitivity Into 8 Ohms" my example of the amplifier only delivered 2W; it took about 1.5V at the input terminals for 3.5W output. Into 4 Ohms, the amp fared even worse making about 1.7W with 500 mV, rising to 3W at 2V. At those power levels, I'd be worried about damaging something if operated that way long-term. The kink in the sensitivity charts occurs about 700 mV and gives about 3W into 8 ohms or 2.7W into 4 Ohms, and that's as hard as I'd really like to push it.
The frequency response was somewhat lacking as well. Gemtune specified 30 Hz - 40 kHz +/- 1 dB. (Generally, the level at 1 kHz is defined as 0 dB) The amp's upper -1 dB point is very close to 40 kHz so I'll give them that one (Freq Response 10-100K) but the low-end frequency response was disappointing. Makes sense why I felt the bass was lacking. The channels diverged by about 0.5 dB on the low end (less than the specified frequency response flatness by comparison, so that's good) and the -1 dB point was 46-55 Hz; at 30 Hz it's down to -2.3/-2.65 dB and at 20 HZ it's down to -4/-4.55 dB.
That's not to say I think the amp is a bad performer. I think it's a good, starter tube amp. It's not trying to be anything more than what it is, which is a slightly novel desktop tube amplifier with a sleek and minimalist design that will fit in nearly anywhere. The 6AD10 tube is an interesting touch, and they're available pretty inexpensively. You'll probably want a DAC to drive it, as testing with a cell phone and a small desktop computer showed that those devices just didn't have enough oomph to get more than 1-1.5W of output even at maximum hardware, OS and application volumes. If you have a nice PC with a good sound card, you could probably drive this directly. It only has one input, so keep that in mind.
Overall, this is a 3/5. It's value matches the price paid for it, and this type of performance is what you get for that price. A great splurge for a person just getting into audio in high school or college, someone who wants a small tube amp for their desk and wouldn't mind having someone ask about it, someone who likes oddball tube amps, or who just wants something a little different.