Tube Headphone Amp Preamp

I was not ready for what this little unit can do. Connected to my computer, it gave a "fresh" sound to many of my cd's. The stereo feels more "open" and with more clarity and detail. Supertramp's live album has a great sound, but now feels like a monster. Stage depth and presence is really good. I had not much time to play with it but tried the bluetooth from my Samsung phone and it pairs very easy and the sound quality is even better that with the computer in some cases. Good thing is that it works right out of the box. no need to look for drivers. You computer and android phone will recognize it without any issue. Still have to hook it up to a dvd or cd player and see how it performs but for now, I'm really impressed. The tubes that come with it sound fine but want to give a try later with other tubes so added to my order a pair of GE tubes which I plan to check at some time in the future as I read that these sound even better. Get a good pair of headphones and listen to your favorite music, you will definitely hear a difference, just be careful with the volume as it sounds loud! .If you don't want to spend a lot of money on a fancy preamp, go for it. You won't regret!

Super upgraded sound .....When I moved a few years back my NAD amp didn't survive the trip, Needed some MUSIC to unpack by ASAP so I hit the closest place I could get an receiver. Thinking I would worry about quality later as I was desperate, I ended up with a serviceable Sherwood, Speaker were a unique mix that I fell into that even audiophile friends thought sounded surprisingly good ,,,, It was a set up of an book shelf Infinity (which had a great tweeter, so so mid and a base with a bit of POP but no real fidelity ,,, I set those on to of a B&W traditional bookcase speaker with a pretty flat profile (great mids and fidelity in the base) Together they had the fidelity of much $ speakers...... This so so set up sounded good. NOW IT SOUNDS GREAT ...... Going to roll the Tubes and get some headphones. Will replace AMP with 2 AO7s soon

I'm a newbie audiophile, and i have used this as my DAC and headphone amp for a few months, and I’m honestly impressed. I've paired this with my Sennheiser HD 560S, it adds warmth, depth, and fuller bass without messing up the detail. First impression, it sounds like what sex feels like. Everything just sounds fuller and more alive, and makes my tidal subscription worth it, though other streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube music also benefit from it. The build feels solid, and it looks great with the glowing vacuum tubes. One small issue: one of the tube LEDs went out after a short time. It doesn’t affect the sound or performance, but it does mess with the aesthetic a bit. The tone knobs are a nice touch for my preferred bass and treble balance, I just wish there was a knob for mid too. and Bluetooth works fine when I want it, though I mostly stick to USB. For the price, this little amp adds a lot of value. It’s a great entry into tube sound without breaking the bank.

Originally, I was looking to inject a little "tube magic" to my desktop audio setup. My previous setup consisted of a Lynx Hilo DAC directly connected to the Yamaha HS5+HS8S powered speakers and subwoofer. I was looking at a cheap tube preamp/headphone amp to do that. Came across this brand, Aiyima, and a couple of others here. They all seemed to have similar features and cost around $50-$75. At the end, the key features that sold me was this amp has both USB and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity in addition to RCA in and out. Even though the price was slightly higher, I decided to get this. After reading reviews here, I also decided to order at the same time the Riverstone Audio GE5654W Platinum Matched Pair upgrade tubes. I didn't even bother installing the stock tubes, so this review is based on three weeks of listening using the GE tubes. Let me first talk about the sound. It is fantastic! I have never heard my Yamaha speakers sounded this good before. I have prior experience with tube audio. In fact, my family room setup consists of Audio Research tube pre- and power amps. On the other hand, if you have never experienced tubes, you will be in for a ride -- a great one. Nevertheless, the moment I turned this amp on and fed it a little jazz stream via BT, I couldn't stop smiling. These Yamaha speakers were neutral and sterile with the Hilo, but with this little tube amp, they are smooth and create a very well defined sound stage in front of me. My primary mode of listening is YouTube Music / Pandora / Spotify apps on an Android phone streaming Bluetooth LDAC to the Aiyma, which is connected via RCA out to a (new) Schitt Jotunheim 2, which is connected via XLR to the Yamaha monitors. Now, the Hilo is out of my audio chain altogether. What was supposed to be a $50 spend has since turned into two new amps and (later) a new (Topping D70s) DAC, a pair of planar magnetic headphones, and an IEM. Now, my end-game setup is to use the Topping D70s' USB and/or Bluetooth inputs and its DAC. This DAC is A+++. It sounds clean, resolving, but not "digital". Anyway, the Topping feeds the Aiyima via RCA, which then feeds the Jotunheim2. This gives me the best sound. I am in audiophile heaven, listening to Jazz stream from the Android phone, or my library of FLAC audio files fed by foobar2k from my PC. In terms of the Aiyima's tone controls, I have both bass and treble dialed at 12 o'clock (0dB). I set the volume dial of the Aiyima to around 1 o'clock. I found that going from there to max didn't change the sound and volume much. I tried both the BT and USB inputs of the Aiyima as well, and both worked well. USB does not require any driver in Windows 10. BT connected right away with Android phone. I also tried for a little bit listening to my headphones connected to the Aiyima's single ended headphone jack. That's only okay. I'd much prefer listening to them through the Jotunheim2's balanced headphone jack. As some said, as soon as you plug in the headphones, the RCA pre-out is muted. This is a very good feature that I wish the Schitt Jotunheim2 has. Finally, the amp runs very efficiently. It is not even warm, and the two tubes are not hot at all. All in all, I love this amp.

I'm on my second device and this one just failed after about a week of use. While it was working, I was very happy with the sound quality improvement and performance. While it is a bit noisy, I really enjoyed the warmth and punch it added. I swapped the original tubes out for a set of 5654W and then it really started to shine. However, I've had the same failure on this one as on the first one I returned. Randomly, it will start hissing extremely loudly while playing audio. The hissing sound will come and go, sometimes going away entirely. But once it starts, it starts happening more and more frequently. I'm sending this one back and I don't think I'll request a replacement this time.

I received the unit on 2/7/23 and immediately set it up. It worked flawlessly and added the warmth I was looking for. On 3/15/23, 6 days after the return window closed, the left channel blew and it's on its way to the landfill. It worked for 36 days. When the seller read the review they reached out to me and all issues are resolved perfectly.

To be fair, as an audiophile, I wasn’t expecting $1,000 preamp audio reproduction for $100. Nevertheless, I didn’t expect the volume control to fail twice. The unit became unusable at lower levels due to extremely noisy volume switching, and the loss of a channel randomly, alone with added noise. This happen within the first 5 to 6 clicks on the volume control knob. Build quality is decent at the price point, sound quality before the volume control failing, was decent with the GE5654 tubes where installed at new, don't know what it sounded like with the stock tubes. I'm running the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 for music from my laptop, mainly Spotify. The main amplifier is a heavily modified RCA disign..120W X2 RMS class ab, 80V rail., sub amplifier is the NHT SA-3, 250W RMS - 6 ohm. All speakers are my design, two desktop monitors using the Italian Fatal 5" woofer, & Peerless 1" silk dome tweeter. The sub is a little complex, using a 12" facing forward and a Kef B139 facing backwards. It’s a 4 ohm system. If the upgrading of the volume control was implemented it would make a difference, not only mechanically, likely, sonically also, as the volume control is in the signal path.

Improvement in sound over my old BT receiver that broke down….i now have two like this . Working great.

Excelente opción para mejorar el audio y potencia para tornamesas. Tengo un amplificador muy sencillo y este dispositivo le proporciona mas potencia y calidad. Muy buena opción para la música streaming , el bluetooth funciona muy bien con buen alcance , indispensable para stereos o amplificadores que no cuentan con bluetooth integrado.

Muy bueno. lo conecte con un subwoofer activo y dos bocinas. La entrada 3.5 amplifica muy bien mis auriculares

Lo uso con mi lap y mi celular, con ambos se empareja bien vía bt. El sonido se vuelve como más abierto, como si estuvieras en el escenario, el bajo como más "húmedo" , cálido. Lo utilizo con un mini amplificador smsl. Solo el amplificador suena bien y si le agregas este no necesariamente mejor , yo diría diferente. Si me gustó. Lo utilizo con unas torres JBL vintage de 200 watts

En combinación con mis monitores activos, este preamplificador genera un sonido impresionante, sumamente claro y puro. Adicinolmente, el bluetooth es sumamente útil, y aunque algunos puristas puedan decir que el sonido de bluetooth nunca es muy "limpio", no tengo quejas respecto de la calidad del sonido; de hecho, lo calificaría como "excelente". Adiconalmente, la entrada "unbalanced" del preamplificador me rsulta muy útil para conectarlo a mi sintetizador Roland, ya que el sonido del sinte sale absolutamente "puro"... En vista de lo anterior, aunado al precio (sumamente bajo, sobre todo si consiguen alguna oferta), es una compra realmente recomendable. Dos meses después, el Bluetooth dejó de funcionar, sin causa aparente (como se puede ver en la fotografía, el led azul de Bluetooth dejó de encenderse, y no es posible conectarse al preamplificador). Muy decepcionado. ¿Aplica algún tipo de garantía? Me comunique con el vendedor. Dijo que me enviaría un reemplazo de la tarjeta madre ( hace 5 meses) y no ja llegado nada, no he recibido combinación alguna.. Aún más decepcionado... Y, meses después, mi opinión sigue sin ser publicada... ¿Me irán a contestar?

Muy buen artículo! Compacto con muy buen sonido! Cumple con las espectativas y mas