Despite appearances, you don’t have to shell out a small fortune for a high-performance headphone amplifier. Producers of some of the most affordable tube amps around, Bravo Audio packs an absurd amount of power into its products for the price tags Read More
I have one of these units and it can pick up hum from a nearby DAC or laptop. Separating it by a few feet solves the problem. Use a longer interconnect, one meter or so. With a slightly upgraded tube, it sounds surprisingly good. I used it with my Sennheiser HD600 and the newer HD6XX. Haven't tried it with lower-impedance headphones. Not sure if it will hum a bit with the latter. Anyway, it's fun little unit and for $56 dollars, it's great.
Will this drive my Shangri-La Sr electrostatic headphones, or do I still have to use that big honk’n Hifiman Shangri-La Sr electrostatic headphone amplifier they came with?
Oooo, so sorry. You didn't supplied the requisite grammar or spelling mistake. No dice.
But back to the topic, will this drive my thx pandas or airpods max in BT mode?
Hi Guys,
I have the AMP and im quite fun of it.
The only issue i have is a small hum that comes every couple of seconds.
Can you please advise on how to get ride of it?
*I changed the tube to the gold lion.
I have one, fun little amp. I swapped out the capacitors for 35v Panasonics, the big power cap and two larger filter caps, haven't swapped the coupling caps yet. Seems to have made the tube glow brighter? I have a pair of new transistors to swap in, but I need heat sinks first as the new ones run hotter, and the existing sinks are already on the small side. All of this should improve the high frequency roll off.
Keep you cell away from it, no shielding means you get to hear every text you get before the notification or vibration lets you know.
I had one of these and it had terrible interference in an office environment, ended up getting the FiiO E10K. I replaced the tube and liked the sound though. The plastic top came in REALLY scratched, makes you wonder about their quality control.
It looks cool, but there's no shielding which is pretty dumb.
mine was picking up interference from a fluorescent lamp that was almost directly over my space at work. I found that just moving it a few inches eliminated the buzz. That being said, these are decent amps that deliver good power to your headphones. Just pair it with a decent DAC.
Just to try it try washing your board in rubbing alcohol or any other solvent for cleaning flux. Because my board that a hum and buzz for a while until I thought about just washing the board. And the hum and buzz just went away.
I bought one of these on Amazon so I wouldn't have to wait. It was only $8 more. My question is regarding a DAC. I'm using a Zorloo ZuperDAC that I picked up during the last drop. The question is what is the optimal way to use this combination. This is a setup for work so it did not have to be super high end. I have the volume turned up all the way on the ZuperDAC using my iPhone 6s Plus as the source. I only have to turn the volume nob up not even a quarter on the Bravo to get good volume output to my DT 770 Pro 80 ohm cans. Should the ZuperDAC only be at 1/2 volume since it has an amp also built in. Or should I get a DAC without an amp? I'm new to this stuff. I'm also going to try this out with Massdrop HD6xxx, and Hifiman HE-400i, and HE-560's.
Lot of DAC/Amp combos have a "Line Out" option that you should use instead of the headphone jack. The headphone jack can be used in the absence of a line out, but it would be best to avoid cranking either one of the amps in the chain to max volume if you can avoid it. 75% + 75% is probably better than 100% + 50% regarding distortion stats.**
** Yeah, I know 75/75 isn't going to be the same output power as 100/50, but I'm not going to bother doing the math, nor theorizing as to the output powers of the two devices mixed with the logarithmic nature of sound amplification to come up with some random 65% + 82% guess... It's easier to just dink with the knobs until you get something that might sound better while keeping the same volume. :-)
If you like this form factor check out the originals at Garage 1217. They are pricier but also better as they are adjustable for whatever headphones you choose.
These Bravo amps are great fun but two quick bits of advice to potential buyers: Throw out the stock tube and get something half decent, or even better: spend a little more and get the Bravo Ocean instead; it's really worth it. (And then also throw out the supplied tube and get something better).
I was thinking of building a headphone amp based on a circuit like the one on which the Bravo V2 is based. Being kind of lazy, I just bought this version of the Bravo V2, instead. I'm comparing mine to an original version Objective 2 amp, which I built up from a PCB I got directly from NwAvGuy.
So, what do I think of this Bravo V2?
1) Its output impedance is too high. It loads down trying to drive my Fostex T50RP headphones with 60 ohm impedance. Driving those 'phones, the Bravo gets 'gnashy' sounding. Harsh highs, rubbery bass. It sounds kind of 'electronic.' However, driving my Sennheiser/Massdrop HD6XX 300 ohm headphones, the sound from the amp becomes acceptable. It's still a bit more harsh and electronic sounding than if I use the O2 instead. But at least it sounds on par with a typical PC laptop's headphone output when driving higher impedance headphones. That's a pathetically low bar to clear...
2) I'm not having any noise or channel imbalance problems. Mine seems good.
3) I expected the Bravo to sound mushy and 'tube-y.' Instead it sounds 'harsh,' even when driving high impedance headphones. I haven't tried any different 12AU7 tubes in it, which I will do. But unless the supplied Chinese-made 12AU7 is an utter piece of crap, I don't expect a different version 12AU7 will fundamentally alter the annoying sonic character of this amp.
I figure the amp is worth the cost of its constituent parts. At some point I'll try some of the mods people have suggested. But if you're shopping for a 'keeper' of a headphone amp, ignore this.
I'm still happy with my O2, so if an Objective 2 comes up as a drop again, I'd recommend that. This Bravo V2 doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the O2. Not even close. Sorry.
Hello all, first of all thank you for all the info about this amp and all the mods. I´ve made all the mods (changing the mosfets, changing the capacitors for high grade audio nichicons and other mods on this website rockgrotto.proboards.com/thread/11555/bravo-v2-modifications-2017) besides power supply filtering and some of them that are more complicated. The last one I did was the bias adjustment mod, replacing the 3k to 1k resistance and adding two 5k pots. But now I'm in a problem.
Is it normal that the tube filaments inside are like orange and really hot? I've left 13.5 V in the Bias adjustment.
The IRL530N is like super hot even with another aluminum dissipator. The LM317AT is like medium hot.
The major problem is with crosstalk and distortion. I´ve made the mod of crosstalk and with the right channel muted the music is perfect. However with the left channel muted I ear alot of distortion and leaking in the left and distortion in the right channel... I´ve already changed cables and tried to search online but I can't find a way to make it go off. I'm gonna attach some pictures for you to see what you think is happening:
ibb.co/GMYpd0W ibb.co/GMYpd0W ibb.co/k1MCWxn ibb.co/cLdNrZp ibb.co/4pMG2JT ibb.co/Lk13Gsf ibb.co/8m1z4Ts ibb.co/LZtLVvn
Sorry, I no longer have the Bravo V2 amp I bought way back when. It's gone.
If you want help troubleshooting, I'd recommend drawing a schematic that shows the circuit with your mods, and showing the voltages you measure at each node.
The 12AU7 heater should be as close to 12.6V as you can get. It's OK if it's a bit low, like 12V, but I wouldn't run the heater higher than 13V, as that would be likely to shorten the life of the tube.
As I wrote in my post, I found that no amount of modifications would be likely to make this design into a truly 'hi-fi' amp (in my opinion).
Good luck with this.