10 Favorite Tube Headphone Amplifiers
These are ALL pure-tube headphone amplifiers - no hybrids in this list. Some of them also have enough power to drive efficient speakers (and those that do have mostly have speaker taps) and some can act as pre-amps that’ll add their signal-tube characteristics to the output (though with most pure tube amplifiers the power-tubes are what give most of the signature):
- Woo Audio WA234 MKII Mono (running 300B tubes)
- DNA Stellaris (2A3)
- Bottlehead Neothoriator (845) [Only two exist*.]
- Viva Egoista 845 (845)
- Eddie Current Studio (2A3) [Discontinued]
- Woo Audio WA33** (2A3)
- DNA Stratus (2A3)
- ZMF Pendant
- Eddie Current ZDS [Discontinued]
- Decware Taboo MK IV
Again, just my favorites … yours may vary.
There are LOTS of tube amplifiers I enjoy with headphones. If you’re a DIY-capable type then the Bottlehead Crack is a must-have … with or without the speedball upgrade (I built one of each). It narrowly misses this list … which is amazing given that it is 1/6th the cost of the next least expensive option.
Also interesting (to me) is that my favorite tube, the 300B, is only represented here once. Which suggests my preference for the 300B is as much romantic/historical as anything else.
*The only reason one of those isn’t mine, is that it is not practical to take with me on my world-tour, and my opportunity to buy one of them came just a couple of months before I’d have to have chosen a single tube amplifier to keep.
**The standard version, rather than the “Elite” unit.