HeadAmp Blue Hawaii Special Edition ($4980)
Though they don't stack, the headphone amplifier and power supply of the HeadAmp Blue Hawaii sit next to each other with an understated grace that only extremely high-quality builds can pull off. The unit I have here (thanks Stretch!) has silver panels, but a wide variety of custom colors are available. The BHSE is a hybrid amp sporting a quad of EL34 output drive tubes in an OTL DC coupled configuration, fed by a solid-state input section and power supply. Slowly but surely over the week of listening, the Blue Hawaii became the amp I'd return to over and over again as I tried to get a bead on the sound of the other amps. It just seemed so neutral, so tight, so controlled. No drama, just the music. Brian (NA Blur on Head-Fi) came over to have a listen to the bevy of amps. His comment upon hearing the BHSE was, "I don't want to analyse what I'm hearing with this one, I just want to listen to the music." In my correspondance with my Stax expert friends there were two thing that all three said: you need to test these amps at high volume, and the Blue Hawaii is a "wire with gain." The sound of the Blue Hawaii was simply nothing at all. A wire with gain is exactly right, and unlike most of the other amps turning up the volume control simply made it louder. Moreover, the SR-009 lost some of its shimmering (and sometimes glaring) character to the authoritative driver control of the BHSE. In some ways though, the Blue Hawaii seemed a bit boring and plain-Jane as I switched between it and the lushness of the Woo, the sparkle of the A-10, and the warmth of the Cavalli. The impression dissapated quickly though as my acoustic memory of the previous amp faded, and I was left in the confident grasp of the BHSE on the whole of the music. Every detail, every brush stroke on a drum skin, every fingernail tick on a guitar string, every chuff of air across the mouth of an organ pipe, was simply available to be heard in organic proportion. While I enjoyed the sound of the other amps, I simply enjoyed the music with the HeadAmp BHSE.
If I had a pair of SR-009s of my own, the HeadAmp Blue Hawaii would be the amp for me.
Though they don't stack, the headphone amplifier and power supply of the HeadAmp Blue Hawaii sit next to each other with an understated grace that only extremely high-quality builds can pull off. The unit I have here (thanks Stretch!) has silver panels, but a wide variety of custom colors are available. The BHSE is a hybrid amp sporting a quad of EL34 output drive tubes in an OTL DC coupled configuration, fed by a solid-state input section and power supply. Slowly but surely over the week of listening, the Blue Hawaii became the amp I'd return to over and over again as I tried to get a bead on the sound of the other amps. It just seemed so neutral, so tight, so controlled. No drama, just the music. Brian (NA Blur on Head-Fi) came over to have a listen to the bevy of amps. His comment upon hearing the BHSE was, "I don't want to analyse what I'm hearing with this one, I just want to listen to the music." In my correspondance with my Stax expert friends there were two thing that all three said: you need to test these amps at high volume, and the Blue Hawaii is a "wire with gain." The sound of the Blue Hawaii was simply nothing at all. A wire with gain is exactly right, and unlike most of the other amps turning up the volume control simply made it louder. Moreover, the SR-009 lost some of its shimmering (and sometimes glaring) character to the authoritative driver control of the BHSE. In some ways though, the Blue Hawaii seemed a bit boring and plain-Jane as I switched between it and the lushness of the Woo, the sparkle of the A-10, and the warmth of the Cavalli. The impression dissapated quickly though as my acoustic memory of the previous amp faded, and I was left in the confident grasp of the BHSE on the whole of the music. Every detail, every brush stroke on a drum skin, every fingernail tick on a guitar string, every chuff of air across the mouth of an organ pipe, was simply available to be heard in organic proportion. While I enjoyed the sound of the other amps, I simply enjoyed the music with the HeadAmp BHSE.
