Hey, friends just published my impressions on this amp this morning! Should be available for view in 4k shortly. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to @ValentineLuke for allowing me to review his amp!
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Sweet!
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Rupert Neve passed away few hours ago. May he rest in peace.
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For those of you that prefer reading vs. watching YouTube thanks again to @ValentineLuke for lending me his personal amp for this review!
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Very cool! I love the dedicated site. 
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Great site. When did you change your name? Has it been MrHifiReviews for weeks and my brain has been translating it to MRphotography?
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Just yesterday @PaisleyUnderground , thank you! Still long way to go on the site but it’s got the foundation.
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Thank you @ValentineLuke !!
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Just resurrecting this topic to ask if anyone else has found the RNHP to be hard sounding, fatiguing? I’ve just purchased one based on glowing reviews in the various forums, and initially I was very impressed with the power and dynamics, really dynamic! But after a couple of days listening (I just slotted it into my Topping E30 stack for the time being replacing the L30) I’m finding the glare quite headache inducing!
Just put back my little L30 into the stack and similar sort of detail retrieved, but seriously lacking in power and dynamics for sure. This is driving HD600’s as I exclusively listen to classical on the headfi rig.
There are so many amps, DAC’s and stack at up to £600 that I’m wondering if I made a mistake here?
PS. No one talks about burn-in as far as I can tell, is this a ‘thing’ with RNHP?
I don’t/didn’t find the RNHP fatiguing at all. I also don’t think it would be a good pair for the HD600 or other 300ohm(ish) headphones. I found it paired well with Focals, Fostex (TR-X00), and easier to drive headphones. For example the Verite wasn’t good off it either.
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I’ve recently picked up a Fidelice headphone amp (which is essentially the same as the RNHP), and on initial impressions I’ve found the same. Very enveloping soundstage and nice placement of instruments, with a slightly unusual rich/dark sounding soundstage (yeah I know people usually say ‘dark’ for frequency response, but it felt like the soundstage was dark somehow, for lack of a better word).
But, the bass punch was so brutal I found myself turning the volume down rather than the usual response to good gear of being able to crank it up and enjoy, fatigue-free. I’m using it with B&W P7s, and I guess a critic would say they’re bassy headphones. But I’ve used them extensively with the Arcam rHead and had no such problems with excessively hard bass punch.
I was wondering how much/if at all the response would change based on burn-in, and also the caveat for me is that the power supply obviously isn’t up to scratch and is letting through AC noise - as soon as I plug in headphones I can hear a high-pitched ring/whir, which seems to be a noise filtering issue. Hard to know how much that issue would alter the rest of the sonic performance.
I’ve actually already sent it back to the distributor due to the treble noise issue, which has been something of a hassle as the distributor has been very reluctant and rude about accepting it might have an issue. I bought it via a story operating on Taobao here in China, so everything should come with a 7-day no-reason return policy anyway - regardless of a fault or not. So who knows, maybe I’ll get a refund and just move on. Otherwise, if the distributor sends it back to me I’ll probably have to get a cheap linear power supply to solve the ringing issue, and then figure out how it sounds after more burn in. I’d previously heard it briefly at a Canjam meet and it didn’t seem as harsh as when I had it here in-house.
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I am rapidly forming the opinion that the RNHP is not at all what it is cracked up to be, maybe respect for Rupert Neve designs has elevated it to a status it does not deserve? I know in some quarters it is thought of as overhyped, but I went with the consensus of actual users opinions as proper reviews were thin on the ground. It’s detailed, multi-stranded, very dynamic - maybe with harder to drive headphones some of that power might be dissipated in moving the diaphragms? But the HD600 is never a problem to drive, reviewers always bunch it with the easy cans, despite the 300ohm load.
The amp I received has a cheap wall wart power supply, and very little if any protection circuitry - the manual suggests you plug your headphones in and remove them with the unit on - which results in a nasty hum and thump each time! Someone over at ASR (I know they are a bunch of measurement junkies!) mentioned the amplifier chip was a standard cheap Texas Instruments job and someone else I have since found reckons the circuit is pretty much straight off the Texas Instruments implementation guide. Hmm.
Overall I think the popularity took the company by surprise and so they have since released an ‘audiophile’ friendly version at three times the price with virtually no internal change that I can find verified by an independent source. Anyway, this one is going back - and now I will do what I should have done originally and order three amps to listen to before I decide!
Probably thinking around the £500 mark:
Singxer SA-1
SPL Phonitor One
LakePeople G111 (maybe if I can get it on return?)
All pretty boring black boxes really, but this middle bit of the market seems a little bereft of choice. Lower down there is tons and further up also, and many are saying that £100 upgrade to £400 will probably not be worth it - get something £700 upwards. Ah… the law of diminishing returns! 
PS. I’ve had it on and playing now for upwards of 24 hours and nothing has changed, it’s still very hard edged and fatiguing, so it isn’t burn-in that is required. It just don’t like my cans! Or my DAC!
The HD600 was my first serious set of headphones, and I’ve always found it electrically modest but extremely noise and amp sensitive. I went down the balanced path in large part to control its hiss and high range scratchiness. I don’t bother with balanced for most of my other headphones.
Many chip amps do that, and they all sound about the same, and they usually generate glare to my ears.
Also consider the Class A RebelAmp. It’s my current default solid state amp, and I don’t care to upgrade. It’s available in green or black.
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Thanks for your comments and suggestions @generic - the Rebel amp looks terrific fun, but sadly I’m in the UK and that limits my choice somewhat to the main stream offerings or EU stuff. As I’m trialling things just now the 25% restocking fee and shipping sort of rule it out… shame though.
I did consider the Allo stuff because that is available, but the aesthetics are, well, non-existant 
I do have their DigiOne for the Pi as a fall back streaming source, although on my Topping E30 DAC there is no discernible difference between the Allo HAT and the raw USB feed - but that’s probably the DAC design sending it all through one input. I’m not resistant to the small artisanal companies though, they often represent terrific value for money!
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Another option might be a tube amp for your HD 600. I drive mine out of two different tube amps (I shan’t recommend them as they’re no longer in production). I’ve heard good things about the Feliks Audio amps. The Echo Mk II is 750 quid from here (the amps are made by a Polish company but this is the UK dealer).
I can’t vouch for the amp’s quality, nor can I comment on whether it pairs well with the HD 600. But I’ve seen a good many people praise it (and it might go well with 300 ohm headphones). If the price is right, it might be worth looking for impressions on various forums.
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Yes I say that, look s lovely and I’m tube in the main system… one for the list…
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Sounds like I’m in the same boat, been looking for an amp above entry level but not too crazy. The rHead was nice, but tended to sound best with music that let the foot off the pedal to some extent. I’m a big metal fan, but the rHead would shine with say Deathwhite but not so much with Rivers of Nihil.
I had been thinking about the Lake People G111. Or perhaps even going up in price a bit to the Violectric v340 - but it seems their amp-only version isn’t available at all here in China, only v380. Along the lines of the other comments I had been wondering about going tube as well, with Feliks high on the list, and leave solid state fun for my DAPs.
I may give the Aune S7pro a try, mainly because being here in China it’s available for quite cheap 2nd hand, and would be easy enough to sell on for minimal loss if I don’t like it.
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Isn’t it funny. I can buy loads of hifi from China, the Singxer SA-1 could be here in a week or so… but I can’t buy a Lake People G111 from just over the water in Europe!! Apparently Brexit means it’s too hard to ship from the Nederland or Italy… go figure!! 
Europe doesn’t like the Brits any more… can’t say I blame them!
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Sadly Brexit made in simple words impossible to buy and sell UK>EU and EU>UK.
Sad, stupid and everything you can think about but simply impossible.
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Just curious but what are the restrictions on a Chunnel ride or boat trip across the water for a day visit and shopping trip? I assume no shortage of red tape.