Audeze EL-8 (200-E8-1212-00) + Beyerdynamic A 20

Power & Sound

This is a very nice little amp. It has has plenty of power to drive my HD800, LCDX, and others. It sounds great: improves bass quality (tighter and little stronger), slightly attenuates upper range highs. There's not much too it so its easy to use. It's a well built and has a nice industrial look. For the price its worth the money.

Beyerdynamic A20

This desktop headphone amp is very solidly built, it weighs nearly 4 pounds and feels just like a solid chunk of metal. It is of course not portable and needs to be connected to your AC plug. It is just plain terrific in driving medium-impedance headphones such as my 250 Ohm Beyerdynamic DT1770 for which it makes a natural partner. I am using it with a Chord Mojo DAC set to fixed line level out at 3 volts and this configuration offers a highly immersive listening experience with a very dynamic and clearly delineated soundstage as it seems to tighten up the sound while preserving micro- and macro-dynamics. The improvement over driving the headphones directly by the DAC is real and obvious but not strictly necessary, think of it as icing on the cake – for perfectionists only. A power rating of only 170mW (when some other brands desktop amps offer a full watt or two) may seem week on paper but it absolutely plays loud enough and with sufficient authority -- certainly more than the typical USB or battery-driven dac/amp can provide. Highly recommended.

Rock Solid

This amp is rock solid. The sound it delivers is really clean and doesn't change the characteristics of the source much. It slightly takes the edge of highs and adds just a touch more bass. It isn't the most powerful amp for use with headphones like Audeze LCD-3 it is enough. It's a great combo with nice DAC.

Beyerdynamic A20

This desktop headphone amp is very solidly built, it weighs nearly 4 pounds and feels just like a solid chunk of metal. It is of course not portable and needs to be connected to your AC plug. It is just plain terrific in driving medium-impedance headphones such as my 250 Ohm Beyerdynamic DT1770 for which it makes a natural partner. I am using it with a Chord Mojo DAC set to fixed line level out at 3 volts and this configuration offers a highly immersive listening experience with a very dynamic and clearly delineated soundstage as it seems to tighten up the sound while preserving micro- and macro-dynamics. The improvement over driving the headphones directly by the DAC is real and obvious but not strictly necessary, think of it as icing on the cake – for perfectionists only. A power rating of only 170mW (when some other brands desktop amps offer a full watt or two) may seem week on paper but it absolutely plays loud enough and with sufficient authority -- certainly more than the typical USB or battery-driven dac/amp can provide. Highly recommended.

EL-8s

great set of planar HPs - built like a tank / to my surprise lighter (weight-wise!) than expected - planar HPs are usually on bulkier and weight a ton side - ! - this are well built and design is attractive and pretty comfy / sound-wise like most planar HPs it's a joy to listen to this cans - they deliver a pleasantly velvet sound (have not found a genre where I did not like the performance of EL-8s ;) !) mostly due to physical properties of reproduction (you have to be a fan of planar HPs) / wish Audeze included a better stock cable and made a better connections to the cans - not a big fan of it - but it does the job ! another positive I discovered is ?! easily driven by iPhone, but an amp will make them sing ! highly - highly recommend !

By David on January 29, 2016 Verified purchase