What is your current headphone setup?

I’ll keep this to my “main” rig, though the other rigs (office, bedroom, portable etc.) can be found in my profile:

Short version, the primary chain is:

    Roon -> Custom Roon End Point -> Chord DAVE -> Woo WA234 MONO Mk2

and then that feeds whichever of the following headphones I feel like listening to at the time:

  • Focal Utopia
  • Abyss AB-1266 Phi
  • Audeze LCD-4
  • Sennheiser HD800S
  • Sennheiser HD660S
  • Sony MDR-Z1R

I use Roon as my primary music server/client. That feeds a Roon endpoint/streamer that I designed and built myself (it’s not simply a headless PC running Roon Core) that drives DAVE via either USB or AES inputs.

The Woo WA234 Mk2 can run different settings (cathode or plate output, and hi or low impedance) and allows the use of 300B, 2A3 and 45 series power tubes. The vast majority of the time I’m using it with 300B tubes, and the full complement of tubes in it for “serious” listening is:

  • Western Electric 300B (NOS)
  • Takatsuki 274B (rectifier)
  • RCA 13EM7 (signal/driver)

The Abyss Phi, driven in plate-output/Lo-Z mode, are the best I’ve heard them and are probably the most overall fun headphones I own. Though the Utopia get about the same amount of head-time - sometimes more due to the way they fit and depending on what I’m doing.

2 Likes