ECP Audio T4 Headphone Amplifier

@TomB: send the limited loaner over to @brencho. He has Focal Elex which I bet would be a superb pairing.

 

I dropped by @brencho's the other day. I can confirm @Ice-man and @BillD's observations. We found that tubes can make a big difference from polite (provided stock) to less polite with the special Brimars with what looked like the Batman logo on them (stronger, sharper transients, and less bloom).

The high end is natural and smooth, an improvement over any of the T3 builds I have heard. Don't know what @dsavitsk did here. It's on par with any other well-implemented full tube amp. Resolution is very very good and stage expansive and wide (particularly with @brencho's uber tubes). Overall, the tonality is on the warm side with either the stock or Brimar 12??7. There is a bit of mid-bass boost with the headphones that we tried (see below). Anyone who likes bright and sterile "wire-with-gain" (of which there is no such thing) amp should avoid this amp.

This is the kind of amp that you plug in very technical capable headphones, sip a cask strength RE:FIND rye bourbon, listen for hours, and fall asleep with your mouth open drooling after the tonearm hits the Q-up.

The modded HD800s and Elex worked pretty good from the T4. I think the HD600 would have been ideal, but I forgot to try it. There certainly are enough 12??7 variants to make almost anything work. This amp isnt cheap, but I would be hard pressed to name any other around the price range that can do better. Maybe the ZDS, but it's crept up in price and is now discontinued. To get better than this, we need to move up to the next price bracket. The T4 fills in a gap that I have long considered no-mans land. This is a good thing.

More from @brencho and some photos later, because people like pictures.

 

The Willet rye was disappointing, it's garbage better off mixed with ginger ale or perhaps an Old Fashioned (plop a sugar cube on top of a slice of orange and toast it the flame thrower).

That would be my preference with the ZMF Verite, but I am not sure if Verite would be a good match. Warm and mellow + bass and mellow could be too much of a good thing. However, I am not well versed in 12A**7 tubes. If there were an equivalent to the leaner, meaner, and brighter Genelax Gold Lions for the 6922s, it could work. The ZMF Aelous/Nips would be a better match for the T4 with the tubes we tried.

 

Never thought of that, but that's a good way to put it. Much better-looking casework and no dumb-ass looking Arial font.

 

BW2 might slam a bit harder, but the difference here is tiny. The T4 is more resolving and has a wider stage for sure. Definitely get good tubes for the T4.

 

Just like the amp itself

 

I suck at this. Brimar 12AX7 "T" I liked quite a bit. Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7 tube for new stock based on my experience with their other small tube the 6922.

 

The brimar Marv is referring to is the 6060 Yellow T.