[Randius]

Two latest products from Audio Technica made their appearance at the recent Hong Kong high-end A/V show - the HA5050H and HA22Tube.

The HA5050H has a completely different design from the HA2002/5000/5000ANV and does not have any of that famous, wooden front panel at all (WTH?!). It features direct DSD decoding, supports 32/384, uses EBBCC vacuum tube and class A bipolar junction transistors for the amplification and 8 headphone jacks! There are two jacks for each impedance value of 16/32/64/600 ohm and seem to be all 6.3mm jacks. Only two headphones can be plugged in at the same time but they can be of different impedance. It accepts both RCA and XLR inputs.
 


Couldn't get much info on the HA22Tube.
 


Above images are from Mobile01 forum.

 

[asko]

 

[reiserFS]

This. The HA5050H looks damn sexy.
Quote:

 

[asko]

  This. The HA5050H looks damn sexy.

 
Yes, the design is cool. But I'm sure that the killer feature is the possibility to choose output impedance between 0, 33, 82 and 120 Ohm that is really awesome and makes this amplifier really universal.

 

[the wizard of oz]

Whoa! This AT-HA5050H DAC/Headphone amp totally escaped my radar! It doesn't appear to be listed on the Japanese AT site as far as I can see, contrary to the AT-HA22TUBE. Ah, I read it is to be released this coming spring, whereas their DAC/Tube Amp was released beginning of this winter.

A very interesting item!

I suspect the on-board DAC shall be the Asahi Kasei Microdevices AK4495SEQ since announced specs are native DSD support up to 128bits and PCM up to 32bits/384kHz, and following their previous choice for DAC brand.

 

[Randius]

Though it looked like the HA5050 had been silent for quite some time but I have gotten news that it should likely be available at end of this year. 

 

[the wizard of oz]

Did they give any reasons for the delay? They initially had announced a spring release...

 

[wmedrz]

The HA5050 looks amazing. I'm hoping it will be available in a few months along with new headphone models or at least announcements. The wait has been long.

 

[earfonia]

Subed.

 

[Randius]

HA5050H will appear at the AT auditioning event held here in Singapore

 

[earfonia]

Audio Technica AT-HA5050H in the house.... 

 

In comparison with my Mytek 192-DSD and Yulong DA8.... HA5050H is Huge!!! It weighs more than 10 kg 

 
 

 
 
To be tested.... waiting for the windows driver from Japan.
Will test it using SPDIF input tonight.

 

[wmedrz]

Can you take a picture of the back and will you do a review?

 

[earfonia]

  Can you take a picture of the back and will you do a review?

 
Ok will do. Will post more picture later.
If you're looking for line out, there is no line out.  There are only balanced and unbalanced line inputs, Coaxial SPDIF, and USB port.  AT made it as headphone amplifier, so the DAC is just a bonus, no line output for the DAC output.
 
I will have it only for a few days, so only short review. Will need longer time for full review.

 

[earfonia]

Picture of the back side:

 
Why there is no Line Output from the DAC?  Really something I don't understand from the design philosophy 

 

[reiserFS]

My, what a beauty it is! How much did you pay?