This is a review and detailed measurements of the MAMORITAI Euphony headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and is on kickstarter with pricing from US $1,399.
This is the high-end brand of Fosi Audio and one touch of the unit tells you that is precisely what they aimed at. The case is incredibly heavy and solid for a headphone amp, weighing more than many power amplifiers! Two quarter inch headphone jacks are wired in parallel. And analog volume control with excellent feel finishes what is in front. My shot above doesn't do justice to the nice looks like of the amp. Maybe the side view does a better job:
I suspect the case alone costs a couple hundred dollars!
Back panel shows simplicity itself:
Lack of balanced I/O is a miss as is gain switches. The latter exists if you open the unit with dual dip switches determining the gain. Wish that was brought out as it is both useful and impacts measurements. Speaking of which, it is very nice to see the company publishing half a dozen on their website. Try to find that on another high-end audio company!
From a quick glance of internal pictures, it seems that op-amps are used as input buffers but output stage is discreet transistors with beefy heatsinks.
MAMORITAI Euphony Measurements
I have modified my standard measurement settings for unbalanced input to produce 4 volts and not 2. That levels the playing field with balanced input headphone amps:
Distortion is below threshold of hearing at -120 dB so noise is what sets SINAD to 104 dB. That is competent performance. Noise as eluded to, suffers at lower output levels:
So not a good bet for IEMs and such unless you use lower gain internally.
Frequency response is dead flat and very extended:
As noted, noise floor is a bit high but otherwise, there is good bit of power to drive most headphones:
Power at 32 ohm is not as much as I anticipated:
I suspected that the output impedance is non-zero which turned out to be the case when I power tested at different impedances:
Those lines should all start at the same position if the output impedance is zero.
Channel matching is modest:
Again, that could have been helped with lower gain settings so you wouldn't have to rely on volume control range alone.
Sorry, did not have time to listen to it.
I ran the measurements and my critiques by the company. To my pleasant surprise, they still wanted the data to be published as to get feedback from membership!
Conclusions
Objective performance ranges from competent to "I wish this was better." Build quality however, is excellent all the way. As is transparency from the company which garners highest levels of appreciate and praise from me.
I can't recommend this version of MAMORITAI Audio Euphony. But if Fosi history is any example, I suspect follow up products with much improvements.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
This is the high-end brand of Fosi Audio and one touch of the unit tells you that is precisely what they aimed at. The case is incredibly heavy and solid for a headphone amp, weighing more than many power amplifiers! Two quarter inch headphone jacks are wired in parallel. And analog volume control with excellent feel finishes what is in front. My shot above doesn't do justice to the nice looks like of the amp. Maybe the side view does a better job:
I suspect the case alone costs a couple hundred dollars!
Back panel shows simplicity itself:
Lack of balanced I/O is a miss as is gain switches. The latter exists if you open the unit with dual dip switches determining the gain. Wish that was brought out as it is both useful and impacts measurements. Speaking of which, it is very nice to see the company publishing half a dozen on their website. Try to find that on another high-end audio company!
From a quick glance of internal pictures, it seems that op-amps are used as input buffers but output stage is discreet transistors with beefy heatsinks.
MAMORITAI Euphony Measurements
I have modified my standard measurement settings for unbalanced input to produce 4 volts and not 2. That levels the playing field with balanced input headphone amps:
Distortion is below threshold of hearing at -120 dB so noise is what sets SINAD to 104 dB. That is competent performance. Noise as eluded to, suffers at lower output levels:
So not a good bet for IEMs and such unless you use lower gain internally.
Frequency response is dead flat and very extended:
As noted, noise floor is a bit high but otherwise, there is good bit of power to drive most headphones:
Power at 32 ohm is not as much as I anticipated:
I suspected that the output impedance is non-zero which turned out to be the case when I power tested at different impedances:
Those lines should all start at the same position if the output impedance is zero.
Channel matching is modest:
Again, that could have been helped with lower gain settings so you wouldn't have to rely on volume control range alone.
Sorry, did not have time to listen to it.
I ran the measurements and my critiques by the company. To my pleasant surprise, they still wanted the data to be published as to get feedback from membership!
Conclusions
Objective performance ranges from competent to "I wish this was better." Build quality however, is excellent all the way. As is transparency from the company which garners highest levels of appreciate and praise from me.
I can't recommend this version of MAMORITAI Audio Euphony. But if Fosi history is any example, I suspect follow up products with much improvements.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
