[teknorob23]

++Disclaimer: I have purchased FA-12 amplifier at the full retail price, with my own money. I received no inducements from and have no affiliation to Flux Lab Acoustics other then being an excited new customer with an interest in hearing and finding out more about their products and brand+++

I'm surprised theres not been a thread set up for these exciting and intriguing new amplifiers from Flux Lab Acoustics, relatively new brand at least i suspect to those like me who live somewhere else in the world other than Ukraine and its neighbouring countries.

Stand out power ratings, high end specifications combined with a seriously too-good-to-be-true price tag and a brace of unequivocally positive reviews, piqued my interest enough for me to fire off a barrage of quickly and compelling answered questions via FA's facebook page, which has resulted in my buying blind the FA-12 the balanced sibling to the FA 10 16 watt power house amplifier.

Guessing by the fact they appear to have nearly sold out their first production run, there are quite few expectant buyers out there, who maybe in the same boat, with a void to fill while they await delivery, so i thought i'd get the ball rolling and set up a thread, where we can share the pleasure/pain of anticipation followed by our impressions and comparisons.

In the meantime i here are links to the product pages/ reviews and i look forward to chatting with you all about this exciting brand, their amplifiers and hopefully even the music you like to listen to through them!

FA-10 "16 watt headphone amplifier" / $749 + Shipping
https://fluxlab-acoustics.com/product/fa10/

Features:

• output power is 16 Watt on 32 Ohm load, absolute control for most hard to drive headphones on market
• output stage is based using Toshiba bipolar transistors with a supply voltage of 80 volts
• 3 GAIN modes for excellent flexibility
• Class A
• 64-step relay volume attenuator
• powerful toroidal transformer

Specification

• 32Ohm: 16W RMS per channel
• 300Ohm: 1.7W RMS per channel
• 600Ohm: 1W RMS per channel
• Inputs single-ended RCA, balanced XLR
• Outputs 4-pin balanced female XLR headphone out, TRS headphone out
• Frequency Response : 5Hz-200kHz, -3dB
• THD 0.008%
• Input Impedance 10KOhm
• Gain 14dB, 21dB, 25.3dB
• Power Consumption 55W
• Voltage 115V at 60Hz, 230V at 50Hz
• Weight 11.2lbs (5.1kg) without packaging

Photographs Courtesy of Flux Lab Acoustics

FA-12 "True balanced headphone amplifier" / $749 + Shipping
https://fluxlab-acoustics.com/product/fa-12/

Features

• • Fully balanced topology
• Class A
• JFET inputs
• MOSFET outputs
• 64-step relay volume control attenuator
• Premium components: Nichicon, TAKMAN, NIPPON, FUJITSU-TAKAMISAWA etc.
• Powerful toroidal transformer

Specification (Not published yet)

Photographs Courtesy of Flux Lab Acoustics


FA-10 PRO/ $749 + Shipping*

Manufacturers Description

FLUX FA-10 PRO is a powerful compact headphone amplifier designed for studio and critical listening applications. It has been designed and engineered to provide clean, quiet power and excellent sound with low noise and distortion with most hard to drive headphones on the market. The FA-10 PRO is the refined answer for those who want to get the most powerful and outstanding value headphones amplifier on the market for an extremely good value

Class A precision and speed
The FA-10 PRO amplifier circuits are employing Bipolar input stage and Toshiba Bipolar transistors at class-A mode with a supply voltage of 80 volts of output stage all that features are providing clean transmission for signal up to 16 Watt on 32 Ohm load of output power

Flexibility
Three GAIN modes give you unique flexibility to use the amplifier with a wide range of headphones without loss of sound performance quality

Fine attenuation
High transparency at any volume level and absence of even minimal unbalance of the channels, allows you to get more accurately set the volume level thanks to 64-step relay volume control attenuator

Clean power
The main foundation of the amplifier is a custom made, low-noise powerful toroidal power transformer with a low-noise power supply

Perfect fit
Classic design unit with the milled CNC face panel easily become a decent element of your desktop head-fi system

Remote control
For greater flexibility and convenience, the amplifier is optionally equipped with a remote control

Full Specifications
https://fluxlab-acoustics.com/product/fa-10-pro/

FA-12S Class-A Head-Amplifier / Pre-Amp /$499 + Shipping

Manufacturers Description
FLUX FA-12S is the unique design headphone amplifier called to deliver great flexibility of your head-fi system with the engaging character of the sound which will not leave indifferent even the most sophisticated listeners

Features

• Class A
• JFET inputs
• MOSFET outputs
• 64-step relay volume control attenuator
• Premium components: Nichicon, TAKMAN, NIPPON, FUJITSU-TAKAMISAWA etc.
• Powerful toroidal transformer
• PRE OUT
• *Face panel colour option is available under the request

Reviews

Headfonia FA-10 Review:
https://www.headfonia.com/flux-lab-acoustics-fa-10-review/

Sound New FCN-10 ($1349 + Shipping) Review (included here as this streamer DAC Amp has the identical amplifier stage to the FA10)
https://soundnews.net/amplifiers/he...n-10-review-a-muscle-car-for-your-headphones/



Zee FA-10 Review

 

[m-i-c-k-e-y]

And their TOTL DAC/Preamp/Streamer/Headamp named Atlas

Link: https://fluxlab-acoustics.com/product/atlas/

Headphonia has a review and gave it as best desktop DAC/Amp for 2019 : https://www.headfonia.com/flux-lab-acoustics-atlas-review/

 

[teknorob23]

And their TOTL DAC/Preamp/Streamer/Headamp named Atlas

Link: https://fluxlab-acoustics.com/product/atlas/

Headphonia has a review and gave it as best desktop DAC/Amp for 2019 : https://www.headfonia.com/flux-lab-acoustics-atlas-review/

A thing of beauty, but sadly way beyond my budgetary means. Have you heard it?

 

[m-i-c-k-e-y]

Nope not yet.. Interested.
But it's BIG.

 

[TonyRoma]

Any idea if these are shipped from the EU?

 

[teknorob23]

Nope not yet.. Interested.
But it's BIG.

It does have rather large feet, probably too much for me to get away with in my designated corner of the living room. I had seen this review when it was posted last year but at the time i was happily wedded to my SoTM, Hugo TT2, FA Euforia Focal Stellia set up. It was only due to a forced downgrade or rationalisation of my system when my business got clobbered by the advertising effects of Brexit in the UK, and that was in a time before COVID too. Anyway long story short, i kept a relatively small proportion of the proceeds from the sale of my kit, to re-build a small core system with the hope i could capture some proportion the performance. To this effect i run a Chord Hugo2, from Primare Streamer/ Roon ROC running intel NUC server into Sennheiser HD820. I love the Chord DAC's but they can be a little dry, so i've been looking for an affordable alternative to my Euforia Anniversary Edition tube amp. I listen mainly to electronica, techno, IDM, but i like to hear it presented, with speed, accuracy and as much detail as it is there, but also in as organic/ analogue a way possible, if that makes any sense .

I had a max budget of £1k, so i was looking at 2nd hand and new options, but nothing i'd heard passed through enough of the H2's performance, so i'd pretty much given up, that is until i saw the recent review of the FA10 on Headfonia. It sounded like it could be the just the ticket, so i rattled off a facebook message to Flux Labs, received a response almost immediately from Vitaliy. From there i discussed my preferences at length and at highly unsociable times of the day, from which he recommended the FA12, the balanced apparently slightly warmer sounding sibling of the FA12 as potentially a good match for my tastes and partnering kit.

The highly focused specification and Vitaliy's obvious passion/ knowledge combined with this scarily low price, found me pressing pay on paypal, and now i'm waiting for the FA12's hopefully imminent arrival, filling the time as only headfiers know how, i.e with lots or speculation and re-reading of anything i can find, that and pestering Vitaliy with lots of questions about the brand the company, what lock down is like in the Ukraine, how does he entertain his children, etc, etc... so please excuse my over enthusiasm, that the dyslexic streams of consciousness!

 

[teknorob23]

Any idea if these are shipped from the EU?

At the moment, they are shipping direct from Ukraine only. I am in the UK and ordered my FA12 on Monday so i will report back on how things go

 

[kvik]

Not directly related to FA-10/12, but 5-6 years ago the Flux Lab product portfolio consisted of primarily tube amps. They were however all discontinued with the arrival of Solid One DAC/HPA, which I suppose is the predecessor of Atlas.

 

[teknorob23]

Not directly related to FA-10/12, but 5-6 years ago the Flux Lab product portfolio onsisted of primarily tube amps. They were however all discontinued with the arrival of Solid One DAC/HPA, which I suppose is the predecessor of Atlas.

did you hear any of them?

 

[kvik]

No, though the amps were quite attractive, they were not exactly cheap, the top models were priced at 3-4000 USD, and in my case 25% import taxes would have be added. Also, as far as I recall the site was in ukrainian back then, and far from as easy to navigate or understand as the current english site/shop version. I think I just wanted to add a bit of historical background to illustrate that the company has actually been around for some time.

 

[Kevin Lee]

FA-10 would on my shopping list

 

[cfranchi]

I was ready to pull the trigg for the Cayin iHA-6 for my Hifiman HE6se, however after investigations, I really think that I will go for FA-10. Really nice to see some ´disruptive´ products at honest price.

 

[saadi703]

I was looking for a powerful amp for my Hifiman Susvara (which was in transit to me from Hifiman) but I didn’t want to use any speaker amp as those things are noisier than headphone amps. The Hifiman EF1000 was too expensive for me and other options were pricer as well so I thought about buying Cayin iHA-6 but luckily I came to know about the flux FA-10 from soundnews review. This appeared to me the answer that I was looking for. I had comprehensive discussion with them on Facebook. It was good to know that they made this amp for Susvara and tested this amp with Susvara. So managed to order the FA-10 on last Sunday and now waiting for my FA-10. Hifiman Susvara arrived yesterday and now waiting for my FA-10 anxiously. The timing can not be any better.

 

[Audio Addict]

I also recently came across this company and like the others have been discussing their products and my headphone collection on Facebook Messenger. I do own a couple of Kennerton Audio Headphones along with the original HE-6 and they recommended the FA-10 or the FCN-10. I did reach out to Kennerton as they had displayed with Flux at the Munich show. Kennerton was very positive about the engineering capabilities of Flux Lab Acoustics. The FA-10 reminds me of the Ray Samuels Audio Dark Star in its power capabilities. The downside was how many headphones were accidentally blown do to too much power,.

 

[teknorob23]

I was looking for a powerful amp for my Hifiman Susvara (which was in transit to me from Hifiman) but I didn’t want to use any speaker amp as those things are noisier than headphone amps. The Hifiman EF1000 was too expensive for me and other options were pricer as well so I thought about buying Cayin iHA-6 but luckily I came to know about the flux FA-10 from soundnews review. This appeared to me the answer that I was looking for. I had comprehensive discussion with them on Facebook. It was good to know that they made this amp for Susvara and tested this amp with Susvara. So managed to order the FA-10 on last Sunday and now waiting for my FA-10. Hifiman Susvara arrived yesterday and now waiting for my FA-10 anxiously. The timing can not be any better.

congrats, did you manage to get your order in before they ran out of stock? My fa12 is hopefully on it’s way. Not sure how long shipping from Ukraine to UK will take, as you say the wait is painful, but likewise I’m not going anywhere either