Epiphany acoustics ehp 02

[wee tee cee]

Just wondered if any of the members have tried one of these battery powered headphone amps. I currently have a musical fidelity m1 hpa and predominantly listen via sennheiser hd 650s. I have recently purchased a battery powered dac and have been mightily impressed with what taking the mains out of the equations can do. Any advice would be greatly received.
Thanks Tony.

[DSJR]

Just check you have enough 'jiuce' in the output to drive the Senns and you should be fine. Why not a mains one? if the designer knows what he's doing, a mains supply should be as clean as a battery one methinks?

[wee tee cee]

The Musical Fidelity amp is very good and I have invested in balanced mains but I have been so surprised at the ability of the battery DAC I recently plumbed in the system and a battery powered bantum I run I was really looking to follow the same path with the cans. The senns can be driven by a I pod to a reasonable level just looking for personal experience of any members that have used the Ephiphany.....it gets some great write ups.

[wee tee cee]

any members that have heard the epiphany willing to give an opinion?

[wee tee cee]

ordered one and also one of their 3.5mm-phono connectors to get it hooked up to my pre......will post up findings once its had a few hours under its belt.

[bobbasrah]

Just check you have enough 'jiuce' in the output to drive the Senns and you should be fine. Why not a mains one? if the designer knows what he's doing, a mains supply should be as clean as a battery one methinks?

In this particular case it would appear they did.
Bought the O2+DAC combo and no complaints as my work rig driving the Beyers, apart from the power cuts that are such a frequent issue around these parts. Took it home to Romania to compare with a mates battery power version from Canada, no difference. He is now chasing the DAC to switch for the battery space as he is not using it on the move... Also used it to direct feed the amp where it was a bit of a surprise

How did you get on with it Tony, struck me as an odd departure given your collection to date, and you went quiet since....

[wee tee cee]

I think its only fare to state the following initial impressions are based on roughly half a dozen hours of run in and listening.
My kit/Cans and Ears!!!!!

First impressions on opening the packaging is that the amp is tiny, roughly the size of two 20 packs of cigarettes. Its a solid well built wee beastie....the volume pot is nice and smooth and both power and gain buttons are positive in action. Both input and output are of the 3.5mm variety on the front panel, but this is after all a portable headphone amp. It comes with a wall wart charger as the design of the amp centres on internal batteries that should eliminate all mains/psu bourne nasties being passed onto the music,it can be left on charge all the time without burning your house down.

I purchased the epiphany 3.5mm-phono lead which is well made terminated with gold plated plugs at either end and sheathed in a red nylon braid.

Plumbed it into my set up a Tisbury audio passive pre (as far as I can detect invisible in the audio chain) and a non up-sampling DAC also battery powered, (dedicated thread running on AOS) my cans of choice are senn 650s- everything is being fed via a lap top, with basic I tunes all ripped at lossless/spotify premium at optimum quality......(USB/V-LINK/OPTICAL) nothing too esoteric.

Initial impressions were good but not overwhelming.....I listen to cans quite a lot and tend to base my decisions on cable changes or other links on the chain against that.
I had a sneaking suspicion that the 3.5mm input could be a bit of a limiting factor so had took the precaution of visiting Maplins and getting a 3.5mm-phono connector (£3.59- gold connector one, built very well) so figured that utilising a better connection between devices may pay dividends. Played my usual test tracks and decided to try my theory.

Connected the maplin convertor to a Mark Grant Eichman silver bullet terminated interconnect and having had both the DAC and Head amp on charge for a night decided to switch everything to battery mode ( I run balanced mains but both PSUs are just in place to enable battery charging). The wee amp was struggling to stay put on the rack with the thick cables, so I attached the provided small adhesive rubber feet at each corner. Epiphany warn against using a 6.3mm-3.5mm adaptor as the big cable can put excessive strain on the input plug and risk damage. I used the senn 3.5mm- 6.3mm adaptor wire, as such relieving the amp from the strain of heavy headphone head phone cable mine laden with a Grado 5m extension.

With the MG interconnect in play I was pleasantly surprised.....I recently sold my MF M1 HPA that was also performing single line pre amp duties, the Epiphany is NO down grade sonically!

The Epiphany comes with a gain button to aid driving difficult load cans, the 650s are driven at my normal listening level without the gain in play at roughly 11-12 o clock on the volume dial.
The amp was really living up to the performance I had read, alluded to in other reviews....it is a proper/serious headphone amp.
These are initial impressions with only a days worth of running under its belt but in my set up so far I am very impressed and cannot honestly say the MF was any better.

If you are looking for an immediately impressive bit of kit that flatters certain frequency ranges------ look else where!.....this is a very honest device that just amplifies the signal it is sent uncoloured. Female vocals are dealt with beautifully and a lovely spacious uncluttered sound stage is presented.

The cans and cables attached either side of the amp cost multiples of its price.....it fully justifies this. Having shelled out for numerous well reviewed chi-fi head phone amps the epiphany is of a totally different order....it should be Bourne in respect of a dedicated headphone users lists of contenders.

I will emphasise this mini review is at a very early stage in my ownership of the device.....I have no doubt it will improve further with a couple of hundred hours usage.

Thanks to the member that PMed me with personal experience of the amp ,I am delighted with the purchase.

If other members that are regular headphone users are interested I can post impressions once the amp has been suitably run in .

[wee tee cee]

bourbon/pain meds and copy and paste don't mix.......hope the mini review makes some kind of sense......

[YNWaN]

I think you may want to do a bit of editing as some sections are repeated four or five times.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Yes, the paragraph that begins with "First impressions..." appears five times for example!
If you want to copy & paste the bits you want to appear just once(!) and put them into a new post, I'll edit your OP for you as you won't be able to now.

[wee tee cee]

That would be greatly appreciated if you could edit the mini review.
I had wrote one and on trying to upload lost the lot the site said i was not logged in but i already was.
Unfortunately I tried saving it to word periodically (mentioned my woes to my good lady who cut and paste the whole shebang "see its easy!".)
My apologies to the mods, my computer skills are sadly lacking, if you could tidy up the review i would be great full.

Apologies,

Tony.

[wee tee cee]

edited version now done.....apologies to members for the initial ramble.

[DSJR]

Thanks for sharing :)

[bobbasrah]

Sounds like you had a fun time getting the review up, but your summary is about right Tony. It is an extraordinarily clean and uncoloured little (read Tiny) amp, stick a poorly recorded or mastered track through it and it shows, warts and all, a quite forgiveable quality...
See what you think in a few weeks time....

[wee tee cee]

Me and computers don't really get on, nearly been a lap top/ window interface on a number of occasions....

The wee amp is a cracker, I can hear it opening up with the more hours I use it, the term giant killer could really be applied for the Epiphany.

Quite sure a couple of hundred hours under its belt will let it flourish.

Hope the edited mini review/first impressions now give credit to a great product.

[bobbasrah]

I believe it is called percussive maintenance Tony.....
You will get there....
For what it is worth, the DAC combo is just superb, only thing is it doesn't have standard RCA outs which will put some off...
Breaking in a pair of Alpair 7.3s here, so soon hope to get the boxes built, so I can put the increasing prayer calls of Ramadan into the background... Lovely toons from just the bare drives so far....
Anyhow, catch up later on your experience...

[wee tee cee]

Bob,
Good seeing you posting again, nice to have someone further down the road guiding us that are running to catch up.

Kind Regards,

Tony.

[bobbasrah]

I believe you are referring to that light at the end of the tunnel....
You usually find out about halfway in that it is a train.....

[wee tee cee]

At least it would be quick.......quite messy though!!!!

[bobbasrah]

http://www.signforums.com/forums/showthread.php?5078-Indian-Joke

[wee tee cee]

Very good!!!!

[doodoos]

Got one of these on order so can comment later if anyone's interested.

http://www.njc-audio.co.uk/html/monitor2.html

[wee tee cee]

looks like a nice bit of kit/pre amp to boot.......be interested to know how you get on with it once its had a while to settle down.
bear in mind the epiphany gives you change from a £100 and can be used without any mains Bourne nasties......keep us posted, nice to see another British manufacturer producing reasonable money kit!!!!1

[wee tee cee]

after about 100 hours my amp has really started to open up.........left cans playing whilst listening to the main hi fi. for the can users on the site well worth a punt just wish they offered a version with phono outs.
i currently run a maplin 3.5mm-phono converter and phonos into the pre......tried a belkin 3.5mm/phono and a Cambridge audio lead but it wasn't a patch on a good quality interconnect with the converer.
full size 6.3mm headphone plug would also do away with converters........still vfm/sound quality its well worth a punt.

[wee tee cee]

added an Atratus interconnect from Epiphany into the mix. Running it from the passive pre to the amp with the phono-3.5mm converter completing the connection.
Initial impressions mirrored very closely the review on hi fi pig that it was a tad bright but it is settling down nicely.....I use senn 650s which are pretty neutral and seem to work well with the interconnect.

I will give it a couple of hundred hours to settle down, but so far very impressive.