Have you considered aiyima a07? You can swap out the opamps (2 duals) to use the rest of the budget and get a more musical experience.
Pass ACA-mini if you don’t mind DIY and either have efficient speakers or don’t plan on running a party from your desk. ~6 watts per channel class A, 5" X 5" footprint. Should be available soon for less than $200. I’ll be getting one to hold me over until the is F5 done
Its only 3w @ 8ohm? I know 3 or 4 people that love it for sus so im kinda suprised its that low
Never even thought to try it TBH.
Pure wattage number doesn’t say much. The amount of voltage and current matter.
Apart from power, there are obviously a lot of other attributes that define how an amp sounds with a given speaker/headphone.
Looking at the site they all use 8200. Idk what tge difference is between that an yours but 2 of the 3 (had to count it up) got rid of stuff like 13r and others in favor of the elekit for sus, so maybe worth a shot since you have it on hand.
Oh, ofc. Jyst a fair general rule i go off of is under 4W at 8 ohm likely won’t leave a ton of head room as a general rule (especialy considering cheap shit often posts instant peak and not rms load as “max”). That said, I do know power output og transformer coupled tube amps can be wierd so
The 8200 is a 6l6 amps can use EL34/KT88’s, it’s going to be closer to 10W@8Ohms with those.
The 8150 is a 6V6 amp, which is specifically why I bought it, but i guess it doesn’t hurt to plug into it. I need to look at the wiring diagram, to see if the if the headphone out is attenuated, in which case I’d need to use the speaker taps.
I asked one of them and he uses speaker taps cause the HP out is over 200 ohm OI for some reason