mrarroyo
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2005
- Posts
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I have owned several of Graham Slee headphone amps like the Green Solo and two Voyagers. Thus I have kept in touch w/ Graham and I took him up on his offer to audition his latest headphone amp, the Novo.
The Novo is a discrete headphone amp by Graham Slee. It has an MSRP of 200 BP, which roughly translates to $400. Interestingly enough Graham will also offer this amp as a kit for 120 BP or about $240 so DIYers should have fun not only building it but the more advance/adventurous will have fun tweaking it to achieve their own sound signature.
So Graham sent me two Beta Novo’s in early August. At the time he was in negotiations w/ the case manufacturer to make sure the gaps and overhangs were done better, thus the beta units have slight imperfections in the order of ½ to 1 mm in the front and rear panels. I understand this issue has been resolved. The units I received in August were also being tweaked and Graham had designed the board for a couple of configurations and selection of components.
Roughly a couple of weeks after he had sent me the Beta Novo’s the final configuration had been achieved, and Graham shipped me 6 resistors and 2 caps for each amp. I then proceeded to incorporate the tweaks, and one of the amps has about 260 hours of burn-in and the other about 160 hours. HeadphoneAddict and vorlon1 will use these two units respectively as the first two out 9 Head-Fiers who will be reviewing the Beta Novo’s and providing feedback. I hope each of them can continue the burn-in process to at least 350-400 hours before they post their review.
The Beta Novos have to comply w/ the RoHS and other various environmental regulations in GB (just like in other countries). Thus Graham is utilizing a switching psu.. Graham believes switching psu’s are at best a compromise and has provided a grounding post on the back of the Beta Novo, for which I included a 3 foot long cable to be used for grounding by the 9 reviewers. The “compromise” arises due to switching psus have a residual current that can be felt by a lightly running your fingers on the casing. When doing so you will feel a “tingling vibration” which is eliminated by using the cable I included and grounding the Beta Novo. BTW if you feed the Beta Novo using a source that is grounded you will not need to use the cable I included to ground the Beta Novo since it will be grounded via the source. Note: There is also the option of purchasing an upgraded PSU1 directly from Graham or one of his dealers.
The Beta Novo also incorporates a pass through rca set. This can be a useful feature for those who do not want to constantly plug and unplug cables from their amps to feed a second amp.
Here are a couple of pictures, please click on the thumbnail to view the full size picture.
So, how did we get to this loan/review program? Well, when I had the two Beta Novo’s in my hand I thought that setting up a loan program w/ a few Head-Fiers would be fun. I first contacted Jude and asked for his approval to do so and he graciously agreed. Next I contacted a few Head-Fiers who had done various reviews, and had a higher head count. After a few PM exchanges there were 9 and those are being sent the amps. The guidelines are:
1. Keep the amp for no more than 10 days for an in-home test.
2. Write your impressions in this thread. Your comments do not have to be very extensive, a paragraph or so would be sufficient. However feel free to write as much as you see fit.
3. Please no pictures of the amp's internal components.
4. No modifications.
5. Ship it to the next person in your list using US Postal Service Priority with delivery confirmation and $400 insurance.
6. Upon the day you ship the amp to the next person in line I would ask you send a PM w/ the delivery confirmation and insurance numbers to both the next reviewer and myself.
To facilitate the review and to reduce the transit time I split the reviewers in two groups, East and West. Here they are:
East List
1. Vorlon1 – Miami, FL
2. nikongod – Teaneck, NJ
3. SacdLover – Newark, OH
4. Skylab – River Forest, IL
West List
1.HeadphoneAddict – Colorado Springs, CO
2.jp11801 – East Bay, CA
3.blessingx – Estero, CA
4.jamato8 – Santa Rosa, CA
5.GradoFan2 – Dallas, TX
FYI, I handed a Beta Novo to vorlon1 yesterday and tomorrow I plan on sending a Beta Novo to HeadphoneAddict via the US Postal Service. If you do the math and allowing 3 to 4 days of travel time this reviews will take up to 10 weeks. I look forward to their impressions and I will add mine at the end, I do this because I in no way form or shape want to influence the outcome of their individual reviews.
I would hope that we allow the reviewers to post their impressions and value their comments and time for what they are. Please no attacks on them or their gear; they are doing this for free and as a benefit to all of us. I certainly wish that only the reviewers were able to post here, similar to what ASR did in one of his loan programs.
Enjoy and if you have any questions please PM me. Thanks.
The Novo is a discrete headphone amp by Graham Slee. It has an MSRP of 200 BP, which roughly translates to $400. Interestingly enough Graham will also offer this amp as a kit for 120 BP or about $240 so DIYers should have fun not only building it but the more advance/adventurous will have fun tweaking it to achieve their own sound signature.
So Graham sent me two Beta Novo’s in early August. At the time he was in negotiations w/ the case manufacturer to make sure the gaps and overhangs were done better, thus the beta units have slight imperfections in the order of ½ to 1 mm in the front and rear panels. I understand this issue has been resolved. The units I received in August were also being tweaked and Graham had designed the board for a couple of configurations and selection of components.
Roughly a couple of weeks after he had sent me the Beta Novo’s the final configuration had been achieved, and Graham shipped me 6 resistors and 2 caps for each amp. I then proceeded to incorporate the tweaks, and one of the amps has about 260 hours of burn-in and the other about 160 hours. HeadphoneAddict and vorlon1 will use these two units respectively as the first two out 9 Head-Fiers who will be reviewing the Beta Novo’s and providing feedback. I hope each of them can continue the burn-in process to at least 350-400 hours before they post their review.
The Beta Novos have to comply w/ the RoHS and other various environmental regulations in GB (just like in other countries). Thus Graham is utilizing a switching psu.. Graham believes switching psu’s are at best a compromise and has provided a grounding post on the back of the Beta Novo, for which I included a 3 foot long cable to be used for grounding by the 9 reviewers. The “compromise” arises due to switching psus have a residual current that can be felt by a lightly running your fingers on the casing. When doing so you will feel a “tingling vibration” which is eliminated by using the cable I included and grounding the Beta Novo. BTW if you feed the Beta Novo using a source that is grounded you will not need to use the cable I included to ground the Beta Novo since it will be grounded via the source. Note: There is also the option of purchasing an upgraded PSU1 directly from Graham or one of his dealers.
The Beta Novo also incorporates a pass through rca set. This can be a useful feature for those who do not want to constantly plug and unplug cables from their amps to feed a second amp.
Here are a couple of pictures, please click on the thumbnail to view the full size picture.
So, how did we get to this loan/review program? Well, when I had the two Beta Novo’s in my hand I thought that setting up a loan program w/ a few Head-Fiers would be fun. I first contacted Jude and asked for his approval to do so and he graciously agreed. Next I contacted a few Head-Fiers who had done various reviews, and had a higher head count. After a few PM exchanges there were 9 and those are being sent the amps. The guidelines are:
1. Keep the amp for no more than 10 days for an in-home test.
2. Write your impressions in this thread. Your comments do not have to be very extensive, a paragraph or so would be sufficient. However feel free to write as much as you see fit.
3. Please no pictures of the amp's internal components.
4. No modifications.
5. Ship it to the next person in your list using US Postal Service Priority with delivery confirmation and $400 insurance.
6. Upon the day you ship the amp to the next person in line I would ask you send a PM w/ the delivery confirmation and insurance numbers to both the next reviewer and myself.
To facilitate the review and to reduce the transit time I split the reviewers in two groups, East and West. Here they are:
East List
1. Vorlon1 – Miami, FL
2. nikongod – Teaneck, NJ
3. SacdLover – Newark, OH
4. Skylab – River Forest, IL
West List
1.HeadphoneAddict – Colorado Springs, CO
2.jp11801 – East Bay, CA
3.blessingx – Estero, CA
4.jamato8 – Santa Rosa, CA
5.GradoFan2 – Dallas, TX
FYI, I handed a Beta Novo to vorlon1 yesterday and tomorrow I plan on sending a Beta Novo to HeadphoneAddict via the US Postal Service. If you do the math and allowing 3 to 4 days of travel time this reviews will take up to 10 weeks. I look forward to their impressions and I will add mine at the end, I do this because I in no way form or shape want to influence the outcome of their individual reviews.
I would hope that we allow the reviewers to post their impressions and value their comments and time for what they are. Please no attacks on them or their gear; they are doing this for free and as a benefit to all of us. I certainly wish that only the reviewers were able to post here, similar to what ASR did in one of his loan programs.
Enjoy and if you have any questions please PM me. Thanks.