Note: The product in photo is a prototype and subject to change. Interested in being updated about this launch? Enter your email in the field above.
Personally, I love seeing a product in this stage of development. Stoked about this one!
This is excellent and EXACTLY what I have been looking for. However, I am worried you guys might not learn from other companies mistakes. When making a transformer box for estats, and that is what this appears to be, companies always use tiny little transformers which leave a lot to be desired. If this is done properly it could be the best end game amp on the market for estat enthusiasts but I have been let down before. Hope its done correctly.
The amp will be using high quality transformers custom made for driving Estats. Another ES Labs product called the EHT-7 also uses the same transformers and has been gaining popularity as an alternative method for powering electrostatic headphones.
I’d love to see this one happen, but it needs to be reasonably priced. The estat world is in desperate need of someone to make the entry easier and a combo unit like this at a reasonable price would be a huge deal. I really like the fully separated direct headphone output and I’m assuming bypass is going to be a switch for the other outputs? Would that mean you could drive a hard to drive headphone from the direct path and attenuate another headphones volume with the knob and adjust their volume together with your preamp? And would that include estats in the mix? Cool idea. If you need any testers, I’d love to put it through its paces.
Note: The product in photo is a prototype and subject to change. Interested in being updated about this launch? Enter your email in the field above.
This an the SJY estat were supposed to launch in June, now its August. Status update?
Hydra (the amp) and Argos (the estat) will launch on August 18th.
SJY Horizon Closed Carbon has Impedance: 11Ω, Hydra lists Conventional headphone impedance range: 16Ω–300Ω. What do I expect if I wire Closed Carbon to Hydra? Although I have rme adi that works perfectly with both Carbon and Zeph but I’d like to know if I can listen all three SJY’s headphones on the Hydra amp. Thanks!
Edit: What’s its continuous power into 4 Ω loud speaker?
I spent a while testing the closed carbon with the hydra using both the Headphone output and direct outputs. While the Headphone outputs worked just fine I ended up preferring the direct output with the closed carbon. The direct connection gave it more headroom and authority with the low end base. Just be aware of the volume knob when using the direct output since it can get loud quickly.