ITHALANOS HA-1 HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER

Frequency response	8 Hz – 60 kHz (-0.5 dB)
Inputs	Amphenol gold-plated, turned solid brass female RCA connectors
Outputs	Neutrik locking 6.3 mm stereo headphone jack
Tubes	Input tube 6SN7 / Output tube 6080. (Input tube can be rolled for higher gain 6SL7 when lower impedance headphones are used).
Weight	+- 6 kg

 

PRICE +-R30 000.00

SUPPLIED BY Ari Marinos 082 499-5462 / ithalanosaudio@gmail.com

 

The Short Of It…

If superior audio quality with texture and emotion is what you want from a headphone amp, you have to listen to the Ithalanos HA-1.

The Long Of It…

The dominant force in play right now is Artificial Intelligence. As a technology it seems to be threatening the livelihoods of almost everyone. In short, it’s scaring the bejesus out practically every industry, our audio industry included.

I could for example, ask any one of the many AI bots to design a headphone amplifier for me. With just a few prompts I could have a completed design, and chances are that my prompted design would actually work.

The million-dollar question though would be, what would my AI generated design sound like? AI can’t really tell me this. What’s more, if I actually did build the amp and there were aspects of its sonics that I didn’t like, how, as a non-technical person, would I know what parts of the design to change to correct those sonic flaws in the design.

Could I ask AI to make the amp sound airier, or darker, or have more presence?

Does AI actually understand these, and many other audiophile terms, when to be honest I don’t completely understand them myself?

A far easier path for me to follow would be to have a listen to a headphone amp that has been designed by a real person, one who has listened to what’s available in the market and figured out what they like and don’t. Perhaps even someone who has some of the best international audio designers on speed dial and who has used their expertise and feedback to design something that delivers not just analytical information, but music.

This brings me to the Ithalanos HA-1, a headphone amplifier designed and built in the Fairest Cape by Ari Marinos. Marinos and his band of merry designers looked at some of the best headphone amps and then looked at how they could optimise these designs.

In short, and to quote Marinos, the Ithalanos HA-01 is an output transformer-less valve headphone amplifier intended for use with higher impedance headphones.

Key features include a custom wound transformer designed specifically for low-noise audio application, a Maida regulated power supply for ultra-low noise, high-voltage power supply with low ripple. There are no coupling capacitors and the input and output tubes are direct coupled for the shortest signal path. A well proven current source has been used on the cathode of the 6080 tube, which lowers the output impedance of the cathode follower. This, it is stated, keeps current steady through the 6080 during musical passages that have loud transients.

While some designs use electrolytic or multiple parallel capacitors, which would ultimately compromise sound quality, The HA-1 is fitted with high voltage, large capacitance MKP capacitors. On the input side there’s a pair of Amphenol gold plated turned brass female RCA connectors and on the other end there’s a Neutrik locking 6.3 mm stereo headphone jack. Volume is controlled via an Alps Blue Velvet potentiometer, and finally isolation between house and signal grounds has been optimised.

Clearly a lot of attention has been paid to what goes on, on the inside of the HA-1.

The outside of the headphone amp I would describe as being functional rather than pretty. Its chassis is solidly built using real wood and 3 mm aluminium. The fit and finish is good and it’s clear that a lot of love and attention has been paid to making the HA-1 a piece of gear that is of heirloom quality.

The unit should be placed on a clean hard surface so that convection cooling can occur via slots provided in in top and bottom plates. There are three large heatsinks below deck: one for each constant current source (ccs) on cathode of each output triode. One is for high voltage Mosfet used for regulation in the Maida power supply. These devices allow ultra quiet, black background and ultra stable power delivery, unaffected by loud transients.

As mentioned a little earlier, the HA-1 has been designed for higher impedance headphones, with Marinos stating that good results will be achieved by using headphones with an impedance of 50 ohms and above. In discussions with Marinos, he did say that if the headphones being used with the HA-1 were on the efficient side, then even 32 ohm cans could work.

For most of my time with the HA-1, I used my Nuprime streamer as the source unit. This, as I could listen to music from Spotify and to the music stored on my laptop. I also used my phone as a source, and for a truly old school type listening session – as in valves and vinyl – I connected the output of my phono stage to the HA-1.

For headphones, I used some in-ear AKGs, my PSBs and some Sennheisers.

After letting the HA-1 warm up for an hour or so – score one for streaming here, as I could set and forget without worrying about changing CDs or LPs – I sat down for my first real listen.

In passive mode, my PSBs are rated at 32 ohm and as they were at the bottom end of the impedance range that the HA-1 likes, I wasn’t expecting much.

Well, knock me over with a feather.

Maybe it was lowish expectations, or maybe I just happened to choose a track that gelled with the electronics and headphones, but whatever it was, I was smitten.

The first thing I heard when popping the headphones on was, well, almost nothing. The noise floor of the HA-1 is impressively low and barely audible. This even when using my closed back PSBs. Being closed back models with well-fitting ear pads, the PSB’s external noise blocking properties (even without their noise cancelling or active amplification engaged) can sometimes highlight any noises from source or amplification, since there are fewer external sounds to mask system noise. Being quiet, or perhaps more accurately having minimal floor noise should mean that fine detail and micro dynamics are audible.

This indeed proved to be the case and the combination of HA-1 and PSB delivered music with fine detail and resolution.

A track I’ve been using quite often nowadays to evaluate the sonic space in which music was recorded is Orpheus by Sara Bareilles. This track opens with the crowd shouting and screaming. On good systems you can hear the size of the venue. Ambient cues, on a good system are clearly perceptible.

With the HA-1 in play, I could most certainly hear these cues and I felt like part of the audience at the concert.

A few seconds after the crowd roars its approval, Bareilles starts playing piano and singing. And once again the HA-1 impressed with its delivery of two difficult sounds to reproduce: piano and real human voices. Piano was delivered with naturalness and super definition. I could hear the percussive part of each note that was then followed by the resonance of the strings in the instrument.

The best way I could describe Bareilles’s vocals is ‘liquid’. Her voice was just so smooth and easy to listen to. Seemingly at odds with the term smooth is the term ‘textured’. While vocals were smooth, they were also endowed with texture that enabled me to hear nuance in vocal riffs and subtle changes in intonation.

Next, I cued up Fall on Me by Great Big World that features Christina Aguilera. The vocals on this track can either be sublime or off course on the system they’re being played back on. Again, this was a track that highlighted the positives of the HA-1 and its simple instrumentation with piano, cello and violin, textured and believable to listen to.

After a few more tracks featuring mainly vocals, I decided to throw down the gauntlet and set the HA-1 a far sterner challenge. So next in line I set Crystals of Zircon by synth pop band Blancmange. This track features some fairly deep bass notes and it is actually well recorded.

Marinos had stated during some of our conversations that bass response and quality would improve as headphone impedance increased. The 32 ohm load of my PSBs was certainly at the lower end of what the HA-1 would like to drive, and knowing this, I was waiting for the bass to be slow, undefined and flabby.

It wasn’t. Bass was reasonably well controlled and extension was good. Lows were similar to that one would experience from a lowish powered tube amp. Enjoyable and good. Would the absolute audiophile in me have preferred a little more absolute control that would have added a smidgen more pace? Yes perhaps.

Music as a whole was lovely to listen to and short listening sessions that were supposed to be purely analytical ones, ones with tracks chosen to find the best and worst aspects of the HA-1, turned into listening sessions purely for the joy of listening to music.

At this stage, I called a friend and got hold of his Sennheisers.  These had a rated impedance of 300 ohms and were therefore better matched to the HA-1 than my cans. While the differences weren’t major in that the basic character of being easy to listen stayed the same, everything did tighten up a notch or two. The slight bass bloom all but disappeared and now delivered a great blend of extension, control and detail, but still retained some warmth.

Vocals, both male and female, had a little more texture, and retained the liquid quality already mentioned. At the top end of the audio spectrum, high frequencies delivered the harmonics of all instruments without ever getting shrill. Unless of course this shrillness was in the recording. If it was, the HA-1 reproduced these faithfully.

At the end of my review time, I roped my daughter in to have a quick listen to the HA-1. Her music choice was typical of a seventeen-year-old…not.

She started with the Pad de deux from Tchaikovsky’s ‘The Nutcracker’ and followed this up with Let You Break My Heart Again by Icelandic artist Laufey.

In short, my daughter said that she heard more instruments in the music than she’s used to hearing (and as she typically uses my headphones more than I do, she knows what they sound like) and that there were more layers to the music.

Ultimately, Marinos has created a headphone amp that is if nothing else, supremely musical. Yes, it is somewhat dependant on headphone load, but when matched with good cans, it ticks almost every box.

Joel Kopping