A Wheatfield HA2 for the next millenium. - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio

Tyll Hertsens · 06-18-2007, 11:01 PM

I'm so very happy to be able to make a progress report on our developement/resurection of the Wheatfield HA2. HeadRoom bought the design of this amp maybe five years ago from Pete Millett when he decided to get out of the amp manufacturing business. I loved this amp and I just couldn't resist. Well, my ears were bigger than our wallet and we haven't been able to justify the inventory increase needed to bring it in as a product in light of the other things we've been doing over the last few years. Aaarrgghh!

But things have been settling into place; we've got the new line up to speed after the logo change; we've got the balanced Desktop up and running; the new Micros and the Desktop Portable revisions are well into the loop and due out shortly; we see no problems in getting out the speaker stands and class-D amp out by the new year; and we've got a couple of big projects that we're working on that will bear fruit a couple of years down the road. So we've had a bit of time to go to the drawing board to figure out what kind of product we could drop in fairly easily in the 1-2 year time frame. What to do?

Hello HA2! After a bit of talk it seemed like the time had come to get a sweet tube amp out to the masses, and we knew the HA2 is a winner. The problem is that using the product as previously designed it wouldn't fit into a Desktop enclosure---too many power supply transformers. And putting it into a Max enclosure seemed overkill. Well ... how about putting the power supply into one Desktop enclosure and the audio section in the other. Ooops, no dice. The power supply is still too big to comfortable fit. What to do?

(Funny how you always seem to be in "What to do?" mode as a manufacturer.)

We gave Pete a call. Now pete's been playing around a lot lately with switching power supplies. And if you ever get the chance you should have a look at the sweet job he did on the Millett Portable's switching supply. He thought about it for a little while and came to the conclusion that a bitchen switching power supply could be built for the HA2 that would easily fit in the Destop enclosure. Not long thereafter, he had a schematic...and an evil grin. He told us the design would be sweet with the HA2, but could also be used in the future as a supply for some sexy tube monoblock power amps for our speaker stands. Oh goodness, when it rains it pours! "OK, OK," sez I, "Let's just work on the HA2 and we'll think about Desktop Tube Monoblocks some other time." (You'll notice that just mentioning it here means I'm still thinking about them.)

So, Joe and Pete have been furiously corresponding, and Pete is done with the first pass on the circuit board layout. We're expecting a prototype to be constructed in the not-near-enough-future to satisfy my bleeding audio geek heart, but it'll be soon enough. Obviously, I'll let you know how it sounds once it shows up. And before you guys start lining up double wide with offers as Beta testers, n_maher, as a current owner of an HA2, has kindly volunteered to do the thankless job of some Beta testing for us. (Not thankless because we won't thank him, but because I know you guys will galddly dole out some grumbling for getting an inside track on this little sweety.) So you're likely to hear a few coments from him in this thread some months hence.

Feel free to ask more questions and we'll try to get some more answers as we can. But we don't even have a preliminary guess on price at the moment.

laxx · 06-19-2007, 04:24 AM

Awesome man! There were just a bunch of people saying they wanted a ressurection of the HA2! And here it is! It's as if the God's are listening...

The Monkey · 06-19-2007, 04:41 AM

So cool. I'm listening to the HeadRoom Millett Hybrid as I type this, thinking how good and underrated it is. Now this! Definitely a welcome and wise addition to the lineup.

n_maher · 06-19-2007, 12:22 PM

[This post has been moderated, comlete post in this thread]

In HA-2 news, I acquired one of the originals about 4 months ago and have been working with Pete to tweak the amp a bit. As a result I'm very much looking forward to hearing the revised Headroom version and I think the two-box configuration could be seriously cool. For those that don't know much about the original here's a link to Pete's site that has all the old Wheatfield material. It sounds like the amplification section will remain largely the same as the original, which is a very good thing. While the design is "quite old" that has exactly zero bearing on how good it sounds. I've been spending a lot of time with mine lately and it rocks, without question.

You can count on more from me later...

lextek · 06-19-2007, 09:00 PM

This is great news. I kick myself for never buying one of the originals when you guys sold them. The D-Amp you mentioned, would it be along the the lines of the Sonic Impact T-amps? Page 40 July Stereophile 0Q0? Looks very, interesting....

Tyll Hertsens · 06-19-2007, 09:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lextek

This is great news. I kick myself for never buying one of the originals when you guys sold them. The D-Amp you mentioned, would it be along the the lines of the Sonic Impact T-amps? Page 40 July Stereophile 0Q0? Looks very, interesting....

I'm not quite sure I understand your question, but...

We're making a class-D power amp due out early next year. It's similar to a T-amp. A T-amp is a class-D amp that has some patented technologies buried in it and only available through Sonic Impact.

And the HA2 redux has a switching power supply (which is cursoraly similar to a class-D amp), but is a completely analog, tube OTL (output transformerless) design.

THe OQO is a sweet gizmo but a bit on the slow side. The reved OQO2 is even sweeter. We stumbed on the HTC Shift lately, too. Gizmodo had a nice blurb about them.

pmillett · 06-20-2007, 07:43 PM

So, Tyll let the cat out of the proverbial bag!

The PCB's just arrived. Hopefully by Monday I'll be listening to it...

The amp section is virtually unchanged from the original, with some component improvements (like big honkin' polypropylene-in-oil output caps). The power supply, as Tyll reported, is all new (and housed in a seperate box).

Pete

jamey · 06-20-2007, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pmillett

So, Tyll let the cat out of the proverbial bag!

The PCB's just arrived. Hopefully by Monday I'll be listening to it...

The amp section is virtually unchanged from the original, with some component improvements (like big honkin' polypropylene-in-oil output caps). The power supply, as Tyll reported, is all new (and housed in a seperate box).

Pete

Sweet!!!

Tyll Hertsens · 06-20-2007, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pmillett

with some component improvements (like big honkin' polypropylene-in-oil output caps).

That's what I love about you, Pete, you get all giddy when you find a sweet part.

I friggen can't wait to hear it.:eggo:

thrice · 06-20-2007, 08:33 PM

Very exciting news. I've heard the original HA-2 and man is it a lot of amp in a little box....that thing can take whatever you throw at it.....K1000 to boot. I can't wait to hear the new version.