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ThatsPurttyGood101 OP t1_jdu3ii0 wrote

Reply to comment by AntOk463 in Anyone every try these cheap Chi-Fi headphone tube amps? More info in Comments by ThatsPurttyGood101

Those are both great watches! But those are Targeting a very different type of amp. The ones shown in the video are cheap hybrid amps. They use a chip for the amp gain control, rather than the tube, giving them basically a cheap solid state sounds. The ones I have listed are true OTL (or at least seem to be) tube amps. They seem to share the same basic components to something similar like a bottlehead crack amp, which go for $500+. Im curious as to whether these cheap chinese clones are decent enough to warrant the price since they seemingly haven't made it to the U.S. yet.

I've been told to just get a littledot amp for the money but where's the fun in that?

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AntOk463 t1_jdu3y0n wrote

I know the ones you looked at are in a different class than these, I'm just saying be careful when buying cheap tube amps.

Are you thinking of getting all of them, testing them, and then returning the ones you don't like? Or will you just get 1?

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ElectronicVices t1_je2q3ht wrote

At least some of those in your pic appear to be OTC tube amps... (Output Transformer Coupled). These are still "true" tube amps but are not 'Output Transformer-Less' tube amps. Whether or not any of them are OTL/OTC/Hybrid can only be answered by cracking the case. Personally a cheap tube amp sounds like a good way to fry some cans to me. I would stick to Darkvoice/La Figueroa/Little Dot/Schiit/Bottlehead on the lower end of the cost spectrum. Woo, Rogue, Feliks Audio, Cayin and others on the higher end of that same spectrum.

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