Introducing Drop + Xduoo OTL Tube Headphone Amp
We’re excited to announce our first collaboration with xDuoo—and our first-ever OTL tube amplifier. Building on xDuoo’s extensive product line and solid reputation in the amplifier space, we worked closely with their engineers to create a brand new tube amplifier designed to pair with high-impedance headphones like our ever-popular HD6XX and HD58X. It’s the Drop + xDuoo OTL Tube DAC/Amp—and it’s totally tubular.
From the earliest designs, we intended the amp to pair with high impedance headphones of 120 ohms up to 600 ohms. For this reason—among sonic preferences—we chose an Output Transformerless (OTL) topology for the amp, since it pairs so well with high impedance loads. Many fans of OTL amps such as the Darkvoice 336 and Bottlehead Crack are well aware of the magical attributes these amps can have when paired with a suitable set of cans.
The tube configuration uses a total of 4 tubes (2 per channel). For the preamp tubes, we chose the ECC 82 (equivalent to the...
