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Violectric HPA V550 Pro Review (Pre-amp/Headphone Amp)

anphex

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Those things, 1.3W into 300 ohm load vs 730mW, brand heritiage, industrial design. This is a luxury good. I would say if you just want performance, get Topping. I would trade my Schiit for this in a hearbeat because it is well engineered, super powerful, and looks awesome.

Example from Beyerdynamic DT1990 pro: "Sensitivy: 102 dBSPL (1mW/500Hz)" at 250 Ohm.

So this volume not to even mention anything above that would blow my ears or headphones out. What good are 1,3 watt when I'm only using about a 1000th of that. Same issue I keep wondering about with high end speaker amps. What good do 500 Watt RMS when you're idling around 0,1-5 Watt for most of the time. That's why the 5w-rms-measurament that Amir does was a godsend for me since I was also unaware of the discrepancy of realistic power values in real life usage.

But yes, as you said. Luxury good probably for a different kind of customer.
 

Helicopter

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Example from Beyerdynamic DT1990 pro: "Sensitivy: 102 dBSPL (1mW/500Hz)" at 250 Ohm.

So this volume not to even mention anything above that would blow my ears or headphones out. What good are 1,3 watt when I'm only using about a 1000th of that. Same issue I keep wondering about with high end speaker amps. What good do 500 Watt RMS when you're idling around 0,1-5 Watt for most of the time. That's why the 5w-rms-measurament that Amir does was a godsend for me since I was also unaware of the discrepancy of realistic power values in real life usage.

But yes, as you said. Luxury good probably for a different kind of customer.
Do you think SINAD is more important than power at this level or performance? I don't. I suppose it might depend if your typical use case is IEMs or high impedance headphones with lots of EQ and bass.

Either way, it probably doesn't matter much. Really none of the performance differences among this, A30pro, or Magnius matter much to me. They are all totally suitable for me regarding performance.

It is the other things I mentioned that make this one stand out. I really like the specific shapes of the knobs, switches, and faceplate, and the design of the lettering on the faceplate, for example. I like that it is made by an established German company.
 

jae

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Manufacturers take note. THIS is the type of chassis/interface/feature set many of us want to see in premium products. It's great that it still performs reasonably well too.

I don't mind if I have to pay more, but I will not buy something if it is not up to par in terms of engineering with chinese products that cost a fraction of the price. What we seriously lack are products that are both robust with a premium feel that also have this TOTL functionality. The minute a company puts out something like this HPA V550 Pro (preferably with a built in DAC) that rivals Topping/Okto/Matrix specs, I will buy it no questions asked.
 

tomchris

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The faceplate is nice, but it is not THAT nice. Nitpicking, volume knob should have been to the right, and input/output selectors should have been knobs as well. Flip-switches look better than buttons. Headphone inputs look better stacked vertically. Loose the chrome bolts/screws.
 

fredoamigo

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The faceplate is nice, but it is not THAT nice. Nitpicking, volume knob should have been to the right, and input/output selectors should have been knobs as well. Flip-switches look better than buttons. Headphone inputs look better stacked vertically. Loose the chrome bolts/screws.

This is why VIOLECTRIC targets the English market :)
 

Victoria

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Damn thank you so much for reviewing this Amir! Violetric has been on my radar for many years now and I’ve always had this gut feeling that these guys mean serious business. Plus I kinda like the aesthetics of their products, especially when optioned with silver faceplates they kinda look like old USSR lab equipment slapped together during the Cold War haha. Also if anyone wants some design porn these guys have gorgeous PCB layouts:

38872D50-84F8-4296-BA84-9C2DB3316AE1.jpeg


The amplifier in question. Just look at it! Brings a tear to the eye.
 

jae

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The faceplate is nice, but it is not THAT nice. Nitpicking, volume knob should have been to the right, and input/output selectors should have been knobs as well. Flip-switches look better than buttons. Headphone inputs look better stacked vertically. Loose the chrome bolts/screws.

Of course there will always be individual preference, can't please everyone. But I think they should at least be commended for seemingly implementing what they did in a respectable and clean fashion and everything at least "looks" premium. basic things like power buttons on the back of products is not acceptable (class D power amps are an exception). I'm sure most of us will agree that if a volume knob will not break your toe when dropped, it is not nearly big or heavy enough. ;)
 

3125b

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Am I off base here, or should they offer both power and low noise for 3000€?
With headphone getting ever more sensitive, this seems like a pretty pointless product, in practice outperformed by the Apple dongle with many headphones (89dB SINAD @50mV).
 

Zensō

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I guess I don’t get the audiophile obsession with big, heavy boxes machined out of billet. That’s a lot of money to spend purely for aesthetics. My preference would be for a more streamlined physical design with higher performance, which we have available from a number of companies at a fraction of the price.
 

Patrick1958

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Checks the review
Checks the Topping A30 Pro review
Compares prices


:rolleyes:

So what am I paying here? The designer salary? The new car of the CEO?
Excellent support.
Some years ago purchased the Violectric V280 on the second hand market (ebay). The balanced input would not produce any sound. Contacted Violectric support. Despite the unit being older than 5 years Violectric repaired it for FREE.
 

ck42

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Excellent support.
Some years ago purchased the Violectric V280 on the second hand market (ebay). The balanced input would not produce any sound. Contacted Violectric support. Despite the unit being older than 5 years Violectric repaired it for FREE.

Okay, I'm impressed. Wish more companies operated like this. This is the type of behavior that I would expect when dealing with a premium product from a company that cares about its customer base.
 

Takanaka

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It could be an alternative to the HPA4 Benchmark ..
Not really IMO, the Benchmark is a bit more expensive but offers SOTA specs and flawless performance, as linear as it can get. Also more sophisticated and intuitive in use.
 

Tatteredmidnight

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Seems strange that this gets a pass on when one channel is clearly faulty. It’s power output and preamp measurements are outstanding, true, but the unit is clearly faulty or there is a major design problem. If @amirm is really all about evaluating the fundamental quality of the engineering of a product, it feels like this should have at least raised an eyebrow, and warrants more than a casual mention.
 

YSC

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Seems strange that this gets a pass on when one channel is clearly faulty. It’s power output and preamp measurements are outstanding, true, but the unit is clearly faulty or there is a major design problem. If @amirm is really all about evaluating the fundamental quality of the engineering of a product, it feels like this should have at least raised an eyebrow, and warrants more than a casual mention.
judging by the channel balance, the exact matching frequency and voltage, I doubt that's a QC fail, looks from the image I suspect that transformers put much closer to one channel resistor array than the other is the culprit, it don't seems shielded and thus may bleed some noise into it. Maybe Violectric feels it's below audible threshold and due to their insist in size or whatever reason they just let it be that way
 

KSTR

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Seems strange that this gets a pass on when one channel is clearly faulty.
You guys lost connection to reality, I mean, really totally. Amir is the one to blame in the end, measuring mostly irrelevant stuff and then the unwashed come along and try to make a case out of nothing from graphs and numbers they fail to interpret correctly (this increasing tendency of backseat driving here on ASR is putting me off more and more, btw).

That little 10dB rise of low/mid frequency in one channel, compromising SINAD by only 3dB (because it covers only a small part of the frequency range)... this is completely irrelevant and this is clearly not a fault nor a design issue, it could be just simple 1/f noise from components. Note the level at which this is happening!
 

dfuller

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You guys lost connection to reality, I mean, really totally. Amir is the one to blame in the end, measuring mostly irrelevant stuff and then the unwashed come along and try to make a case out of nothing from graphs and numbers they fail to interpret correctly (this increasing tendency of backseat driving here on ASR is putting me off more and more, btw).

That little 10dB rise of low/mid frequency in one channel, compromising SINAD by only 3dB (because it covers only a small part of the frequency range)... this is completely irrelevant and this is clearly not a fault nor a design issue, it could be just simple 1/f noise from components. Note the level at which this is happening!
Yeah it's pretty much completely irrelevant to reality. Once you're at this level, I highly doubt you'll hear anything offensive coming from your headphones.

These to me seem to be a great choice for something woefully insensitive because it has what seems to be a truly goofy amount of power on tap (4.5 watts at 32R!) along with what ends up being an inconsequentially low noise floor.
 
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