Stereophile review of Headroom Desktop Amp

[mkozlows]

Wes Phillips reviews the Maxed-out HeadRoom Desktop (the '05, I assume, based on magazine lead times), and likes it a considerable amount at:

http://stereophile.com/headphones/406head/

The weird thing about the review to me was how much time he spends agonizing over the cost of the amp. I mean, okay, yeah, it's not a cheap amp (although it's now $200 cheaper than it was when he reviewed it), but this is freakin' Stereophile, where the average price of a reviewed amplifier (excluding the stat-skewing $350K one) is $8,000. Getting excellent sound out of a $2K box is practically the bargain basement in Stereophile terms.

(In normal person terms, of course, not so much. I was effusing to a friend about what a great bargain system the HeadRoom Micro DAC + Amp and Sennheiser HD-650 were, until I realized that the phrase "... for only $1000!" was about to pop out of my mouth, at which point I shut up.)

 

[RockinOut]

Thank you for the link

 

[TheSloth]

Wes did make a few misakes...

He says his unit had a 'RK50 stepped attenuator' - we know there is no such thing. It's either an ALPS RK50 (only offered in the Max line) or HeadRoom's own stepped attenuator.

He also says that the DPS is a Dual Mono PSU, which I don't believe it is, but I could be wrong.

I believe he will be posting a follow up with his impressions of the same unit with the new '06 Max Module. As was pointed out, his price is also now out of date, with the current price for that setup now being $200 lower.