Headroom Ultra Desktop Review - Page 3

Ahhhhh, I have my macbook pro back!  Head-fi HATES my iPhone, or vice versa.

Now, about that Nova!

I love the Nova!  It is the perfect speaker integrated amp for me.  It has everything I need - a stunningly good DAC.  Stunningly good!  It has 2 optical inputs, one detuned to allow for the relatively jittery airport express.  It has 2 coax inputs.  It has 3 analog inputs, one of which can serve as a home theater bypass, allowing the theater processor to use the amp section to drive the speakers hooked up to the Nova.

The preamp has a tube section that can be switched in and out.  It does make a difference, though slight.  Slight warmth and a slight softness and fullness, vs a very detailed sound with more bass impact without the tube section. - this is via the speakers and the internal tripath amp.  I tend to use the tube section 90% of the time via the speakers.  I like the slightly softened tone.  It also makes up for the airport express / airtunes streaming, which I suspect is not the best streaming option, though it works well enough, and uses the airport express and mac mini that I had lying around...

It is quite good as a headphone amp.  The tube section may or may not be able to be switched out via headphones - I'm still not sure.  Obviously I can't tell any difference, which leads me to believe it is a class A tube or tube hybrid headphone amp only.  It is a heck of a good headphone amp, and probably nearly as good as my dynalo or the Headroom UDA.  As a direct comparison to the UDA as a dac/headphone amp, I think the UDA might edge out the Nova for the win.  Hard for me to be sure, as the listening rooms are different.  The Nova is in the family room with, well, the family.  I still have not gotten the good couple of hours of quality time with it.  Lastly I am now spoiled by crossfeed.  I miss it with the Nova.

I personally would not get a Nova for headphones only.  If you have or are building a listening room or desktop speaker rig, I'd get one in a heartbeat.  It is a really cool central piece, at a wonderful price.  It is an awesome DAC and headphone amp as well.  At $1220 new, and near $900 used, I might consider other options for headphones only, though you would be hard pressed to find a better DAC at $1220 or $900, though a couple come to mind.  I will be adding a power amp to mine, using the preamp out, and bypassing the 80 wpc internal amp, at least to try out more power with my speakers.

So in summary - Awesome center piece to a speaker rig, excellent headphone amp, killer dac.  Great for a speaker rig where you will also listen to headphones.  Deserving of consideration as a headphone DAC/Amp, but pretty big physically, and on the high end of the price/performance line for headphones only.

As a headphone amp, the UDA wins, though probably not by almost $900.  I do know that I would rather have the UDA sitting in my main headphone rig, and that I love having a headphone amp as good as the Nova in my family room.

All my opinion, of course.  Hope it helps.

I just hate to see this thread die with a long review of the Nova as a last post!

So...  After a week with the UDA, I find it to be the finest headphone amp / dac I have owned.  If headroom is listening, I hope that if they choose to update the DAC with the ESS chip or another higher end chip than the already fine Cirrus Logic chip, that they choose to keep the modular format of the UDA dac, so that there is an upgrade path.  Not that it needs it, but it sure would be cool to have the option.

An additional note - I downloaded the HDTracks 24/96 sampler - it sounds awesome on the UDA!

Quote:

Originally Posted by dpippel 

Great review aamefford. Keep it up.

 

And I don't mean to derail your thread, but what shakeup are you referring to at HeadRoom? Is Tyll no longer around? I've been away from Head-Fi for a good long while and must have missed it.

I almost forgot - well, actually my iPhone or the new head-fi host program ate my reply last week...  There is further info here at head-fi with a bit of searching.  Briefly, and pretty much all I know about it - Tyll brought in investors who brought along some changes in long term direction.  Some time around this, Tyll's role changed within Headroom.  Some time after that, Tyll has left direct operations, though seems to still be involved with Headroom.  My details are very thin.  There are 1 or 2 threads at least that address this directly here at Headroom.  I know all I really need to:  Things have changed, Tyll seems to have parted with Headroom amicably, and the Headroom crew is still a great bunch with outstanding customer service.
 

I have settled in with the filter on 1 most of the time.  Occasionally on 2.  The D7000's are a touch light in the midrange, so sometimes filter 2 seems to help a bit.