Member Reviews: NuForce Icon HDP (High-end Headphone Amp, USB DAC, Preamp)

  Flat out, it's the best piece of audio gear I have purchased in my 2 1/2 year long audiophile career.   My previous DAC was an M-Audio Fast Track Pro run to an external amp, so that will be the standard by which I judge the HDP.  There frankly is no comparison between the two.  The HDP's internal DAC is world class compared to the Fast Track Pro.  It is extremely accurate without any coloring of the sound.  Separation and sound stage/placement is very well produced.  I get the impression that I am listening to exactly what the mastering engineer intended me to.  I am starting to notice how awful some of my recordings are, this DAC will...

This is an all-around terrific value for what it does very well and transparently. I'm listening to 200-hour burn Senn HD600s with cardas cable upgrade.   The headphone amp is dead quiet at full gain, super clear, and uncolored.  It delivers transparent, super quick transients and crispy detail without fatigue or pooling in any particular frequency. The Analogue outs go into my NAD C553BEE for a deep and fully detailed stereo experience through my KEF 103.2s.  As a Headphone amp it works without any fatigue, noise, coloring, or mud in the guitar samples. percusion, Cajón, tabla and deep african drums are accurately and clinically deep without any smear and harmonic...

My first headphone amp. No experience with others, so my impression of this one is in comparison to regular output from MP3-players and receivers. With this in mind I still feel the value is high (even though I realize I need to spend some time with other amps in order to justify my praise to this one in particular).   I'm very happy with the HDP. Price paid 3879SEK(VAT excluded) ~$500  

Awesome, buy it now.   Tested with K701, DT990 Pro, DT880 600, HD650 and HFi-2400's.

Update (1/19/2013): Don't use the HDP in horizontal mode, as it will overheat, and you'll have to send it in for repair. I learned this the hard way.   Having owned the $100 NuForce uDAC1 for over two years, I felt it was about time to upgrade. It had been acceptable, but I could still notice a bit of a veil in the midrange. The itch was also caused by going to a Head-Fi meet. When I plugged the uDAC1 into some high-end amplifiers, I realized how limiting it actually was. What does $500 (Canadian price) get you? A huge improvement.   The HDP supports 24/192 coaxial input, but only 24/96 optical input. Most PCs have an optical out jack on the motherboard. With it,...

This is my first headphone amp. It drives a set of Sony MDR-V700 s. Definitely allows my headphones to exploit the dynamic range of classical music. Easy to discern bit rates that used to hide in my speakers and headphones before.