California Audio Show 2014

Eddie Current, Head Amp model Blue Hawaii and OPPO Takes Center Stage @ CAS 2014

  Eddie Current was here at CAS 2014 with their model EC 445 and the new Red Top ($3900 and $800 amplifiers). Their EC-445 is a single-ended or balanced headphone amplifier with interstage-coupled 6C45pi driver tubes and 6D22S (two each). Power at 8 Ohms is 3 Watts, so theoretically it could drive high sensitivity speakers! The new Eddie Current Red Top is a portable-sized high fidelity audio headphone amplifier with an extremely wide frequency response from 0.5 Hz to 400 kHz with a mere 0.008% of distortion. It'll produce 1 Watt @ 100 Ohms and 600 mW into 300 Ohms. It uses bi-polar discrete transistors and there are no coupling capacitors or FETs. It can operate on standard 100V-240V electricity or 12V too. It measures only 7" x 10" x 4" ((WxDxH). Below is a close-up shot of the output tube for the Eddie Current EC 445.

Also at CAS 2014 is the positively pretty purple Head Amp model Blue Hawaii ($5000) electrostatic headphone amp. If you think these pics look great, in person they are so much moreso in beauty and have a lust factor of '11' on a scale of 1 to 10. This solid-sate stereo amplifier is made to drive electrostatic headphones with a gain of 500x (54dB). It has an input impedance of 50kOhms and an output of 1600V peak-to-peak. There are two unbalanced RCA and one XLR input. Outputs are RCA and XLR loop output, plus two headphone jacks. Enjoy the below pics and if you ever get a chance to see this baby in person i highly recommend it!

Last, and most certainly not least, is the OPPO HA-1 headphone amp with both their PM-1 and PM-2 headphones $1199, $1099 and $699 respectively). Would love to tell you more, but do i really need to? For many years OPPO has been making incredibly great gear for the money and we here at Enjoy the Music.com just published a review of their new PM-1 planar magnetic headphones. Other OPPO reviews include:

OPPO BDP-83 SE

OPPO BDP-105

Right now, you can enter to win...
Enjoy the Music.com's August 2014 Contest
Win An OPPO BDP-103 High Resolution Universal Networked Player

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