HEAD-DIRECT EF-5 Headphone amplifier - Page 4

congrats on your new buy man! the EF1 with the denons is an amazing pair,I wonder how good the EF5 will be. I am so envy you

Yes, it's still the OP275 opamp. I hope to have time this afternoon or evening to listen, after I've dropped off kids at friends, parties, and meetings. I'll have to pull out my WA6 and put the EF5 in it's place.

This is an EF5 thread, so unless you are comparing the CTH to EF5 maybe we could take this to the CTH thread.

Can any of you who are receiving their EF5's shortly and own a pair of AT AD2000s report if there's any hiss? They're the most hiss-prone full sized phones I've ever listened to..
I'm looking to find a good new amp that would drive possibly some sexy new orthos as well as my previous arsenal adequately, but not necessarily to perfection.

Thanks a bunch!

Sure it is, but being in the headphone amp forum i believe there is merit in comparing such hybrid amps in the same price range justified enough. And hell i only brought it up cause you brought up the CTH in this thread first..so layoff.

Oh, okay, I didn't realize that you have heard the EF5 to compare them. Sorry.

Standing by for your impression of the HE-5 with the ZDT, will you be posting here or on the ZDT thread you started some time ago?

Thank you , I bought the EF-5 , because i dont like the sound of D7000 with SRG amp specially for games , and i hope EF-5 will be better choice

MINI-Review: Head-direct HiFiMan EF5

So far the EF5 is very nice sounding, and a great match for the HE-5 orthodynamics, with a nice frequency response, timbre and tone. It is very musical and rich, and not dry or lifeless. It also sounds fairly well refined, like a more expensive amp.

Due to space limitations in my bedroom rig and limited number of DAC outputs, I have only been able to compare it side by side with my balanced SAC KH1000 amp that I previously mentioned works great with the HE-5. I will need to grab my "balanced to single ended" transformers to hook up the WA6 at the same time as the EF5 so I can compare the two, but I can say right now the EF5 is much more powerful than the WA6 with the HE-5 orthos.

The EF5 has more than enough power for the HE-5, and normal listening with either amp is with the volume knob at about 10 o'clock with the EF5 in low gain. In low gain I cannot turn the volume up past 2-3 o'clock before it is louder than I can stand. This seems to be the same issue where the SAC has more power than I can stand as well. I am actually planning to see how the EF5 does with my K1000 which need the power of a speaker amp most of the time. Yet not all speaker amps can control the K1000 drivers well and sometimes the sound is mushy and dull with the wrong amp, and the K1000 are so picky about amps that if the EF5 cannot drive them well that is not a fault of the EF5. Even my $2500 ZDT is not optimal with K1000 like the SAC.

The EF5 soundstage is nice and big for a single ended amp, and compares well to the SAC amp which is a little more forward sounding in the mids than the EF5 but without making the EF5 sound recessed at all in the mids either. Likewise, the SAC is not close to being too forward either. The HE-5 obviously don't have as deep a soundstage as the HD800, but with the EF5 and SAC amp I think it is better than my RS-1 with flats (it was nice with the WA6 too).

That's all I have to report on the sound right now. I did try turning the volume down and there is still some channel imbalance introduced at very low volume levels, but below volume levels that I would listen to with full size phones. But I fear this may mean still needing to use a volume attenuator when using IEM with the EF5 in low gain. I will try IEM with it later. Fortunately the EF5 does not let music leak through when the volume knob is set at Zero, like my old EF1 did. The Nuforce uDAC and my Apogee mini-DAC both allow me to adjust the output level of the DAC output, so I can turn down the DAC and turn up the EF5 amp volume knob and not be in the very bottom range of the volume pot where the is an imbalance.

There will be more to follow!

Is that power supply as in 'separate product you can buy' or 'this is the power supply that comes with it'?

I would have to ask Fang. I assume since it can be switched to 16v output that a person could buy one for their EF1.

Oh man, a power-supply upgrade! How very Naim-like.

Of course I have to get that as well..

Another pic

I'm told these are 'in stock'.

wow ¡¡¡, anyone can compare with EF1?, thanks.