Valencia: Balanced Headphone and Power Amplifier

[benjifx19]

• Valencia™​

  Balanced Headphone and Power Amplifier​

  Valencia was designed with three clear purposes…
  
  • Be the world’s first dedicated balanced headphone power amplifier.
  • Be one of the world’s cleanest measuring headphone amplifiers.
  • Be one of the most powerful headphone amplifiers available today.
• These were just a few of the ambitious goals when Orchard Audio teamed up with long-time audio commentator Z Reviews to design Valencia. We at Orchard Audio are proud to present this breakthrough in headphone amplifier technology.
  
  Valencia boasts a refined class AB design that accurately and effortlessly pushes any modern headphone from 16Ω to 600Ω, inside an absolutely pitch-black noise envelope. We minimized components and eliminated all complications to the signal path. You won’t find a gain selector, secondary inputs, or volume control on Valencia. It is purely a power amp.
  
  Measuring a SINAD of 118db, Valencia is the pinnacle of a modern transparent amplifier. Never before has a headphone amplification system been designed to traverse with so little interference. Audiophiles often ask if an amplifier is warm, sibilant, or adds weight and depth to the sound.
  Valencia adds nothing.
  No noise.
  No distortion.
  No limitations.
  
  A power amp for headphones introduces some new challenges for audio enthusiasts. Using a power amp means that the user must control the volume via pre-amp or other means. Your choice of DAC, pre-amp – be it solid-state Class-A – or a tube, will greatly affect the sound of your headphones when running off of Valencia. Having 15 watts (@32Ω) of extremely clean power puts responsibility on the listener. Control of the input voltage is necessary to prevent possible damage to both a headphone and the listener’s hearing. With care, Valencia can run even the most sensitive IEMs with a completely black background if the source gear shares a near-zero noise floor.
  
  Valencia features a single set of Balanced XLR inputs on the rear and a single 4-pin XLR output on the front. Every unit includes a 4-pin XLR to 4.4mm Pentaconn adapter.
  
  RCA to XLR adapters may be used with the rear inputs. These adapters lower the potential output power of the amp, which may benefit some users of more sensitive headphones. Alternatively, should your source be only RCA and you wish to use the full power of Valencia, Orchard Audio sells an active RCA to XLR Converter for this use case.
  
  Single-ended headphone connections (e.g., 1/4″ / 6.35mm) are not supported by Valencia.
  
  Additionally, a complete set of speaker-style banana taps is located on the rear of the unit. These can be used for high-efficiency speakers (>=95db/w), as Valencia supports an 8Ω load with a ~7-watt output, maintaining the same pitch black background that headphones enjoy. NOTE: These taps are active at the same time as the headphone jack so it is NOT recommended to use both simultaneously!
  
  A soft off-white LED power button is located on the angled front fascia and a hard-off power supply switch is located above the 90 to 264 Volt AC input on the rear, making Valencia worldwide compliant directly out of the box.
  
  CAUTION: Valencia is strictly a power amplifier; the user must provide external volume control.
  
  

  Features​

  • Fully balanced design
  • Exceedingly low noise and distortion
  • Neotech OCC wiring for 4-Pin XLR
  • Independent linear regulators for each channel
  • Gain: 14dB
  • Signal to Noise Ratio: >134dB (a-weighted)
  • Input Impedance: 44 kΩ
  • Power (RMS):
    • 0.81W into 600 Ω
    • 1.62W into 300 Ω
    • 3.24W into 150 Ω
    • 7.56W into 64 Ω
    • 9.68W into 50 Ω
    • 15.12W into 32 Ω
    • 9.66W into 16 Ω
    • 4.83W into 8 Ω

Has anyone here tried this?

 

[Saberpunch]

Cross posting from the "Show us your Head-Fi station at it's current state thread". So, I had the Orchard Audio Valencia headphone power amp for a while now and I really like it for hard to drive headphones like the DCA Stealth and even my sensitive iem like the Jomo Audio Nautilus. I also have Leo ganfet class D speaker amp which is the Orchard Audio Starkrimson Ultra 2.0, and to me, the Valencia sounds very similar as his Starkrimson Ultra 2.0 amp. They say a good ganfet Class D amp can sound just as good if not better than a really well design class A/B amp and Leo pretty much proves that with his latest headphone amp Valencia which is a class A/B amp.

Valencia to me has so much authority in the bass while sounding as clean and clear as possible throughout the entire frequency even when I try going as loud as I am comfortable with on the DCA Stealth. When I say clean and clear, I mean really clean and clear without sounding sterile like the Topping amps. Topping amps to me feels like someone boost the treble to artificially make the music sound clear in my audio chain. With Valencia, it feels like I am hearing an open window to my system. The natural breeze of my audio chain music signal coming through that open window without any filter going directly to my headphone/iem. That's how pure the Valencia sounds to me.

I used both tube preamp (Supratek Cabernet DHT Preamp) and solid-state preamp (Topping A70 Pro and Schiit Midgard) and I like tubes more for various reasons. It's also not a fair comparison since the Supratek is many more times expensive, but the Supratek to me as a preamp is just really good in both sounds and feature. I like to think of a preamp as tone control to my audio chain. If I want to alter my system sound, I prefer to alter it at the preamp stage. A good tube preamp will take tube rolling really nicely, so I can change the tone of my system with just a simple tube swap. If I want something with more sparkling highs, I like using my Sylvania 6SN7 GTA chrome top. If I want a more smooth midrange, I like my late 40s RCA smoked glass 6SN7GT. If I want something more bass forward, I just roll in some Kenrad VT-231 tubes. With Valencia, I can hear the tube roll changes a lot more on this amp compared to my other amps, and Valencia does seem to scale really well with better equipment. It still sounds pretty good and clean on a budget preamp like the Topping A70 Pro, but the sound just gets more refined and bigger with a really good preamp like the Supratek Cabernet DHT.

A word of warning since I think many folks here are primarily headphones users or probably never really use a pre amp to a power amp chain before. If you first boot up your system, always go DAC > Preamp > Poweramp. If you boot up your power amp first and then your preamp, it could cause your transducer to explode. I know it's very appealing to leave your solid state amp on 24/7 and I've seen some people turn off their tube preamp and leave their solid state power amp on 24/7. If you really want to turn off and on your preamp and leave your power amp on 24/7, make sure your preamp has a mute button. If you use a mute on the preamp and turn it on, it shouldn't make your transducer make a really loud "boop" sound that will cause it to explode. I guess with headphones, it's a lot easier since you can just unplug your gear when you're done and plug it back in with ease vs speakers. I always just turn on my preamp and then my power amp because I am used to it. And then when I turn it off, I turn off the power amp and then the preamp. Another thing is to start the volume all the way at the bottom. Then slowly turn the volume up with music playing until your gear is loud enough every time you switch gears. I always do that with my speakers, so its second nature to me. I guess anyone will get used to it after a month or so.

Another good warning for iem and sensitive gear users. Valencia is really powerful. But how loud you can play depends on your preamp gain. I say research your preamp on how much gain it will boost in your system. My Supratek gets so much louder than my Topping A70 preamp because it is a high gain preamp. I can always flick a switch and play with the gain knob to make the Supratek a low gain preamp, which is why I really love the Supratek flexibility as a preamp. Topping A70 only has 2 gain settings, which are low gain and high gain. With iem and sensitive headphones, you may want to find a preamp that has a flexible gain feature (like having a high gain or low gain function). I never tried my iem on default gain on the Supratek because I do not even go above 50% when using the DCA Stealth. Playing that same amount of gain and power on a iem feels not smart. I always go low gain and I play with the volume like normal when using my sensitive gears (similar to how the volume knob looks on the DCA Stealth). I always end it like maybe around the 40% area on my volume knob.

Valencia with Supratek preamp volume knob running DCA Stealth picture below:



As for background noise like hiss or static sounds, the Valencia itself is absolutely quiet. But you will hear your chain more. I found out when using my Nautilus iem and switching from the Horizon 2A3 tube from my RCA UX-245. The Horizon 2A3 tube is a much quieter tube, it went from I can kinda hear it background noise to I barely hear any background noise. Barely hearing anything on a sensitive iem when running tubes feels pretty amazing to me. Also, I know this sounds like snake oil, but a good interconnect will also help silence noise. I have an Allnic XLR interconnect and its absolutely quiet compare to my generic Mogami XLR. But honestly, if you are running a good design solid state preamp, you won't have to worry about noise even with really sensitive iem. I just really like tubes even with my sensitive iem, so I use the above mentioned method. This is only with my Nautilus iem btw. On my other headphones/iem like the Supernova, Onkyo A800, and Eris, I don't really hear any noise in my system using Valencia unless I maybe don't play music and just crank up the volume knob to max. With hard to drive headphone, you won't hear any background noise.

I think that covers it. The Valencia amp is really cool and I really love how clean it makes all my headphone and iem sound on it. Hearing it pair with my favorite tubes and hearing my iem scale for the first time without hearing a distracting background noise is just really awesome. It makes me want to buy more power hungry headphones like the Tungsten and more sensitive iem just to see how they sound on my system lol. Valencia can be scary, but it helps build a good habit of treating audio gear. Like always turning the volume all the way down when you are done, so the next gear or maybe the next person that is going to use it is not going to lose their ears. But once you get used to proper procedure like turning off power amp first and then preamp and the other way around when you turn it on, it becomes second nature.

If anyone else has the Valencia, I hope you have fun with it like I did!

I have this amp and it’s really nice. The above quote is my impression of it.

A TLDR version is this is a really clean sounding amp that can drive any sensitive gears like my Nautilus iem to hard to drive gears like my DCA Stealth depending how good your preamp is.

Obviously, it scales well with your equipment. Using a budget preamp like the Topping A70 Pro is fine, but a really nice preamp can help make the music sound “bigger” and the Valencia never felt like a bottleneck for my chain. You”ll probably treat it the same way as you would a speaker power amp when building a chain, which I pretty much did since I also own their speaker power amp already. I just unplug my Starkrimson Ultra 2.0 from my audio chain and reconnect the interconnect to the Valencia when I want to listen to my headphones.

 

[benjifx19]

Was thinking of pairing it with the JOAL and later the Abyss 1266 phi tc with woo audio wa22 as the preamp

 

[Saberpunch]

You probably want to keep in mind that the Valencia is balance XLR only for both input and output. So if your preamp only have RCA, you would want to look into a RCA to XLR adapter for the input interconnect.

I use a brand called Colicoly I got from Amazon when I wanted to test the Nitsch Magni Piety preamp to the Valencia and it works great. Just keep in mind that using the adapter won’t fully juice the Valencia, but I don’t think that’s an issue since you will still get some serious power from the Valencia.

 

[benjifx19]

You probably want to keep in mind that the Valencia is balance XLR only for both input and output. So if your preamp only have RCA, you would want to look into a RCA to XLR adapter for the input interconnect.

I use a brand called Colicoly I got from Amazon when I wanted to test the Nitsch Magni Piety preamp to the Valencia and it works great. Just keep in mind that using the adapter won’t fully juice the Valencia, but I don’t think that’s an issue since you will still get some serious power from the Valencia.

Yep. I am going with WA22 because its fully balanced. Makes it easier

 

[MrAlaska]

I got one so I could use any amp I like with Tungsten without worrying about power and I like opening electronics to see what's inside and thought others would like a peak without opening up theirs.

 

[benjifx19]

I got one so I could use any amp I like with Tungsten without worrying about power and I like opening electronics to see what's inside and thought others would like a peak without opening up theirs.

i remember Z saying he could have made the Valencia much smaller and now i see what he meant

 

[MacMan31]

I got one so I could use any amp I like with Tungsten without worrying about power and I like opening electronics to see what's inside and thought others would like a peak without opening up theirs.

So clearly not worth $1600 US (or $2,215 CAD).

 

[Saberpunch]

I got one so I could use any amp I like with Tungsten without worrying about power and I like opening electronics to see what's inside and thought others would like a peak without opening up theirs.

That’s really impressive they kept it that small inside of Valencia. It kind of remind a lot of class D speaker amps the way they keep it small and minimalistic. It make sense Valencia insides are small since Leo build a lot of Class D amps and his class D monoblocks is small and minimalistic too in the inside.

Picture of Leo Class D monoblocks from his website:

 

[JooLoo]

I got one so I could use any amp I like with Tungsten without worrying about power and I like opening electronics to see what's inside and thought others would like a peak without opening up theirs.

I’m tempted to gut this and put all the bits into a small cncd brick like slightly bigger than a chord qutest

 

[Saberpunch]

That would be amazing if you did. It would be like a transportable super power brick.

 

[CenzoTheEnzo]

Orchard Audio Valencia / Simple Review



Orchard Audio Valencia is a fantastic headphone amplifier for almost all use cases. It stays true to your chain while simply making the music come more to life. To my ears, it added better separation and layering while not effecting the sound signature of my chain. This combination made the music feel more life like; truly a holographic feeling, as well as being emotional. The only true negative I have is that you can hear a very sharp sound when the sample rate changes regardless if you implement a delay. This sharp sound was especially apparent for sensitive gear. For obvious reasons, the Valencia is not for IEMs, and I still do not recommended using them even with an impedance adapter like the iFi imatch.



Headphones & Equipment;

• Final Audio D7000 (headphone)
• Abyss Diana MR (headphone)
• Focal Clear MG Pro (headphone)
• Unique Melody MEST MK3 (IEM)
• SMSL VMV D2R (dac)
• SMSL VMV P2 (pre amp) (not needed)
• Ddhifi (interconnects / usb)
• iFi Audio (silencer)
• Roon (streaming from desktop)

** Edited: With a little advice, I was able to fix that sharp sound I was hearing during transitions of sample rates. So back to no significant negatives for this amplifier from what I am able to hear. **

 

[Saberpunch]

Nice summary of the Valencia, I think Valencia help headphone/iem come more to life probably because of its massive power output.

he only true negative I have is that you can hear a very sharp sound when the sample rate changes regardless if you implement a delay. This sharp sound was especially apparent for sensitive gear. For obvious reasons, the Valencia is not for IEMs, and I still do not recommended using them even with an impedance adapter like the iFi imatch.

I don't use a impedance adapter, only the Strauss & Wagner Ennis 4-pin XLR Male to 4.4mm. With a good preamp, Valencia could work very well with iem with little to no noise. Also, I never really heard a sharp sound on my sensitive gear even when listening to my playlist on shuffle on the Valencia. Keep in mind, Valencia is really transparent and is an open window to your source gear. The sharp sound you describe sounds like it's coming from your DAC and Valencia was probably the first headphone amp transparent enough for you to hear it.

What kind of preamp and DAC are you using the Valencia with?

 

[CenzoTheEnzo]

Nice summary of the Valencia, I think Valencia help headphone/iem come more to life probably because of its massive power output.


I don't use a impedance adapter, only the Strauss & Wagner Ennis 4-pin XLR Male to 4.4mm. With a good preamp, Valencia could work very well with iem with little to no noise. Also, I never really heard a sharp sound on my sensitive gear even when listening to my playlist on shuffle on the Valencia. Keep in mind, Valencia is really transparent and is an open window to your source gear. The sharp sound you describe sounds like it's coming from your DAC and Valencia was probably the first headphone amp transparent enough for you to hear it.

What kind of preamp and DAC are you using the Valencia with?

There is definitely a noise floor to the Valencia, at least with the unit I received, when it comes to sensitive gear. As far as the sharp sound, it thought it was coming from my dac at first. I dove into the settings but wasn’t about to fix the problem. The only thing that calmed it down was swapping to roon compared to tidal. My dac is the SMSL VMV D2R. As far as pre amp goes, I’m not using one. I tried it out in the beginning with the SMSL VMV P2 but didn’t notice much of a difference, if any, between using it or not using it. Everything stayed true to my dac.

Hmmm just starting messing around with it some more. Good chance it’s coming from my dac. What a shame that I never picked up on this until now……

 

[Saberpunch]

There is definitely a noise floor to the Valencia, at least with the unit I received, when it comes to sensitive gear. As far as the sharp sound, it thought it was coming from my dac at first. I dove into the settings but wasn’t about to fix the problem. The only thing that calmed it down was swapping to roon compared to tidal. My dac is the SMSL VMV D2R. As far as pre amp goes, I’m not using one. I tried it out in the beginning with the SMSL VMV P2 but didn’t notice much of a difference, if any, between using it or not using it. Everything stayed true to my dac.

A preamp/DAC combo is usually more susceptible to noise when running a power amp to sensitive gears. That is why I always like getting a dedicated preamp for my power, regardless of a 2-channel system or headphone in this case. If you are using the Ifi impedance adapter, that will take care of the noise issue. As for sharp sound, I do not get that at all on my Valencia in my chain. Its either your DAC or transport. If you still believe the Valencia is the cause of it, you can talk to Leo and see what he says.