Woo Audio WA8 Eclipse
 

I’d been eyeing the Woo WA8 Eclipse amp/dac for a while, and finally had the opportunity to hear it at RMAF, with Sennheiser HD800s. In spite of the less-than-ideal circumstances at CanJam, I was impressed. When I got home, I ordered one using the 10% discount Jack Wu gave at the show (net price $1,619) and it arrived two days ago.

This is a great-looking little amp. It’s quite heavy for its size, and although it came packed in a nice hard case, it’s not exactly portable. Tyll Hertsens called it “transportable” - easily moved around the house or to the office, but not exactly one for the road. It’s battery-powered, with a rechargeable battery said to be good for at least 5,000 hours. Run-time on a full charge is 3-4 hours.

I’ve been listening to it using an iPad with a lightning-to-USB adapter (the old ”camera connection kit,” functional but not ideal), Shure SRH1540s, and MrSpeakers Aeon Flow closed phones. The sound so far is excellent: very clear mids and highs, solid bass, and a very nice overall balance. Like my other Woo amps, the midrange is really quite special. The little mini tubes also create a nice glow. At the moment I’m listening to Hawaiian slack-key guitar from John Keawe, and it’s beautifully resonant and clear, and spacious even with closed phones.

I have a Sonore MicroRendu streamer on order to go with it, which will be fed over the network by my SonicTransporter i7 running Roon. It will make a nice bedroom system.

If you’re in the market for a small tube amp/dac combo in this price range, I highly recommend it.

https://wooaudio.com/amplifiers/wa8

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Great gear from Woo. Thanks for the report.

Congrats Tony, I’m glad to hear you like it.

Woo Audio WA8 Eclipse
 

Thanks Steve. The MicroRendu arrived today and it’s an improvement over the iPad, and very convenient with Roon.

I have been reading a lot about the WA8. I just picked up a pair of Focal Utopias and now I am debating about which amp/DAC to pair with them. So many options :)

Woo Audio WA8 Eclipse
 

Yes, so many options. The WA8 is a great amp and I don’t think you’d be disappointed, but at the level of the Utopia you might also look at the Woo W5-LE, or the Pass Labs HPA-1.

Am a big fan of the WA6 with my Focal Clear and Audeze LCD-3. If I were to step up to the Utopia then I would give the WA22 a good look. Woo's line of amps are great for tube-rolling.

Not related to the WA8, but I got a killer deal on a Bottlehead S.E.X. with every mod you can think of. This hopefully will hold me over with the Utopias until I save up enough to think about the WA22 or possibly even spring for a Linear Tube Audio Z10e (the thought of having a single reference amp for either Stax/MrSpeakers Voce and the Utopias is really tempting).

I picked up the WA11 at the canjam nyc 2019 and like it so much, I bought the WA8 from Jack at the canjam NYC 2020. And I really love the WA8. More so than the WA11 even without the balanced outs. WA8 is a very special amp to my ears.

Excellent.