Monoprice’s new Monolith Tube Headphone amplifier claims to bring out the best in your headphones with rich, warm sound of vacuum tube power. Announced over six months ago, Monoprice’s new headphone amp features a 6N5P tube and dual 6N3 tubes, as well as an internal 32-bit 384kHz ESS Sabre digital audio converter (DAC). The unfortunate aspect of ordering a tube amp from Monoprice is that they do not sell tube replacements, a miss.
Highlights:
Tube Sound: The Monolith Headphone Tube Amplifier utilizes a 6N5P dual triode tube coupled with an output transformer for the output stage, unlike some competing designs, which only utilize a large electrolytic capacitor on the output. Dual 6N3 tubes are utilized for the input stage and can cross over to US equivalents 2C51 or 396a. The 6N5P crosses over to a US6080 or 6AS7.
ESS Technology: The ESS ES9018 Sabre chip uses the patented 32-bit HyperStream DAC architecture and Time Domain Jitter Eliminator. The USB receiver is the Savitech SA9227. It supports all sample rates up to 384kHz/32-bit and is clocked by two onboard oscillators.
Impedance Selector: The impedance selector allows you to match the amplifier to the headphone impedance, ensuring that the ideal power is being utilized for any pair of headphones. The impedance can be set to one of five impedance groups, from 16 to 600 ohms.
Monoprice’s Monolith Tube Headphone Amplifier with ESS Sabre DAC costs $399 and is available now.
Monoprice
