Top-of-the-line elements of the Head-Fi revolution has been the expansion of high-end Chinese language manufacturers available in the market; Topping, Questyle, and Xduoo have all efficiently carved out niches for themselves within the desktop headphone class and all of them supply extremely aggressive merchandise at costs that plenty of customers can afford. The brand new Drop+Xduoo TA-84 OTL Headphone Amplifier that was introduced at present has us excited for numerous causes — and never simply because it affords plenty of worth at $399 USD — which you’ll be able to already get for much less for those who order now.
The TA-84 is a collaboration between the 2 manufacturers and there’s no query that Drop was instrumental in bringing the Sennheiser HD650 to a a lot bigger viewers with their HD6xx headphone.
The success of the collaboration stunned each Drop and Sennheiser and compelled them to make the HD6xx a everlasting product somewhat than only a group purchase alternative.
We might not be taking an enormous leap suggesting that the Drop HD6xx, HD600, HD650, and Drop HD58x are the most well-liked audiophile headphones offered over the previous decade.
Due to that degree of success, Drop determined that it wanted to supply a brand new headphone amplifier for its current headphones lineup.
TA-84
The brand new TA-84 DAC/Headphone Amplifier is an OTL (Output Transformerless) design that makes use of EL84 energy tubes and 12AU7 driver tubes. Xduoo’s TA-26 OTL Headphone Amplifier which was clearly the inspiration for the brand new amplifier doesn’t embrace a DAC and in addition makes use of a single 6SN7 driver tube and 6AS7 output tube as a substitute. The TA-84 makes use of a single EL84 tube per channel.
For a deskstop DAC/Headphone Amplifier, the TA-84 is on the bigger aspect measuring nearly 12″ W x 5″ D x 6″ H and weighing 6.6 kilos. The anodized aluminum case provides the unit a somewhat hefty really feel in your palms.
I plan on discussing the 12AU7 and EL84 tubes throughout my formal overview and also will be performing some tube rolling to see how the efficiency modifications. The inventory unit comes with PSVANE-branded tubes and gives 93mW of energy into 600 ohms with a voltage swing of roughly 6 Volts.
The output is simply 18mW into 32 ohms which implies that the amplifier shouldn’t be advisable for headphones with an impedance of lower than 100 ohms because the OTL topology is greatest suited to high-impedance dynamic headphones.
As a result of there’s a variety of sensitivity scores in regard to high-impedance headphones, there’s a acquire swap (+0/+16dB) on the entrance panel which we shall be testing with a collection of dynamic fashions. The frequency response is listed as 10Hz- 80kHz (+/- 0.5dB) with a SNR of 102db and a THD+N of <1%.
While the TA-84 can be utilized as a stand-alone headphone amplifier utilizing the equipped RCA inputs on the rear panel, there’s additionally a USB enter possibility with a management swap in order that customers can choose from both possibility.
The USB enter helps Home windows, Mac OS, Android, and iOS so a broad vary of supply units can be utilized.The digital enter feeds an ES9018K2M DAC and helps as much as 32-bit/384kHz PCM and DSD as much as DSD256. MQA shouldn’t be supported.
The DAC part has an SNR of 113dB with a THD+N of 0.002% (at 1kHz) and offers these on a funds, the choice to make use of the interior DAC somewhat than having to buy an extra part.
Customers who already personal extra subtle DACs will need to strive the RCA inputs to check the 2 choices.
We have already got an advance pattern and shall be publishing our overview previous to the October thirty first ship date.
The “Early Chook” $299 worth is accessible till the top of launch day 9/19/2023. The worth will go as much as $329 for the following 7 days. After that, the preorder worth of $349 shall be accessible till finish of the primary run. The run is restricted to solely 200 models.
For extra data: drop.com
