[ricmiclaw]

I've heard very good news about the fully tricked Woo Audio 5 and the right tubes are crucial. My initial trial with it will be with EAT 300B ouput tubes, 2 EML 5U4G-mesh rectifiers and I was able to obtain a matched pair of NOS Chelmer CV181 (ECC32) drivers of very high electrical quality. I think this will likely prove to be the near perfect tube combination for this amp but I am prepared with other tubes to roll through. At some point in the coming year, I will probably add a balanced tube amp to complement it, as stated above. The one I'm looking at most closely is the Eddie Current Balancing Act because it is switchable between 2A3/45s and 300Bs, which will give me many opportunities to find the tube combination that I will find most close to perfection while potentially sharing some common tubes with the Woo Audio 5. When I get to that point, I'll start looking to replace the HeadRoom stack. As it turns out, if the products available in the market at that time are similar to today, the Phonitor would be my first choice as part of a DAC/amp combo. There are very few true audiophile-level choices for a DAC-less amp. There's a very fine Japanese unit from Blossom that also looks beautiful encased in fine wood and has fully balanced inputs and outputs. That's a decision for probably next year.

One other thing about the Woo Audio 5 is that it's also a pre-amp with rear outputs that can serve up 8wpc to my inefficient phones like the LCD2 and the HE6, versus the typically <1wpc outputs on headphone amps without the pre-amp outputs.