Little (Premium Module) Headphone Amplifier
Audiophiles
spend a substantial amount of time and money optimizing their audio system.
Whether it's their electronics, speakers, cables or even alterations to
their listening environment, their quest for the best possible sonic experience
is usually costly. A less expensive, yet very satisfying listening experience
is a good set of headphones along with a high quality headphone amplifier
connected to a high-end playback source. One company that has been dedicated
to providing the audiophile community with a variety of headphone products
is Headroom located in Bozeman, Montana. They've been around for quite
some time and have refined their product line. Products range from the
affordable HeadRoom AirHead ($119) to the more esoteric headphone
amplifiers costing thousands of dollars. We were given the opportunity
to review their Little (Premium Module) headphone amplifier system
priced at $479, which is a step up from their least expensive headphone
amplifier product.
Few products focus much on the headphone electronics and some choose not to include any at all. HeadRoom's Little is a low-cost entry-level home headphone amplifier that takes the place of an existing headphone jack or provides one for products that lack one. Headroom also offers upgrade options to the power supply and the electronics to achieve a higher level of performance.
Construction
The Little is just that, little. The unit is not much larger than
the power supply used along with it. The front panel has a big volume
knob in the middle surrounded by the 1/4" headphone jack and Process/Filter
switches. Two indicator lights give the user status of the power supply
rails. The power supply module that plugs into the wall (AC source) provides
±15 volts at 240 milliamps to the Little. There is no power
switch to be found, so get used to the power lights always being on.
The rear panel has
two gold plated RCA jacks and a non-detachable power cord into the unit.
Large filter capacitors are used on the main board for holding adequate
power reserves. Linear voltage regulators and are mounted on the smaller
printed circuit board to provide clean secondary power to the headphone
amplifier circuitry. The Little (Premium Module) uses the popular
OPA627 and OP275 operational amplifiers in the signal path as opposed
to the OPA604 used in the standard Little. The design is clean
and compact which undoubtedly contributes to the sound quality of the
unit.
Performance
Our evaluation of the unit included
a pair of audiophile grade Sennheiser HD-600 headphones that completely
revealed the sonic qualities the Little (Premium
Module) had to offer.
We also tried out our affordable Grado SR-60 headphones and soon found
we missed the attributes of the HD-600s. DiMarzio interconnects were provided
to connect the Little to our SACD player. We even had a fancy Kimber
Kable connecting the Little to our portable CD player's 1/8"
mini-plug. Even though the Little is an entry level audiophile
product, the signal path is neutral and the detail is amazing. A flip
of the Process switch helped reduce the "Blob in the head"
effect, but we preferred keeping the processing off in most cases. The
Filter switch is used to boost the high frequencies to compensate
for the effects of the processing. There were several times when the processing
actually improved what we were listening to, but it was largely dependent
on the source material and certainly a subjective preference. While the
processing does a great job expanding the sound, it was nice to have a
bypass switch.
We started out listening to some of our favorite SACDs and DVD-Audio discs. It was amazing to hear all the detail we missed with our conventional loudspeakers. Very subtle sounds are revealed with the Little and Sennheiser HD-600 headphones. One example of this was with a poorly recorded soundtrack CD I bought a while back. The recording engineer must have gone to sleep because there was some subtle digital clipping with the A/D converters during high recording levels which became very apparent with this headphone system. It was difficult to hear it otherwise, but the Little and HD-600 headphone setup made it quite apparent. Conversely, quality recordings came alive with this setup, revealing detail missed with the vast majority of consumer headphone electronics I've heard. We also connected the Little to our PC sound card lineouts and soon found out just how bad the audio DACs were in these low cost PC products. We could distinctly hear the synthesized highs in the cheap sound card. I would recommend using this setup to evaluate any front-end electronics you plan to buy. You'll be impressed with the detail you might have otherwise missed during the evaluation of a component.
It's refreshing to
see a product that truly offers a substantial improvement in audio quality
for the dollar. If you're not looking to spend a whole lot of hard-earned
cash on your audio setup and want the best your money can buy in a headphone
system, listen to the Little with the premium module. You'll be
amazed at what you've been missing.
- Kevin
Nakano