NJC Audio Monitor II Headphone Amp

[Spectral Morn]

Great review Toby well done and a well deserved win too.


Regards D S D L

[Toby]

Thank you

Great avatar, I love the daleks.

[Techno Commander]

Excellent review Toby. Well done.

[Maximum]

I have had one of these for a week or two now. It seemed to tick a lot of the right boxes and a dedicated amp has been on my list for months now.

I had to tweak a couple of things to get things sounding great. For the first week it all sounded very good in a technical sense but lacking a little openness and foot tapping ability, and one of my test tracks didn't have the awesome swooshing bassline it had before. Then I remembered I'd used an old purple QED cable and borrowed the blue jeans lc1 from the speaker amp. Bingo! The sound was much less constrained and mechanical. I was going to buy some of the belkins but thought what the hell lets see if this Mark Grant cable is upto the hype, and after trying it I can say it is, everything is now superbly clean and musical with no noticable audio nasties apart from the ones present on the recording.

The other issue is possibly too much gain from the gator mk1 board which some others have had, although the distortion isn't always present and seems to go away with the digital volume set at -3db, so the gator may be making a trip to get the mk2 mods.

I must say I'm liking this amp a lot. Bass is deep, punchy, detailed and very controlled. Midrange is very clear. Highs are good and never harsh just clean and delicate. Soundstage has improved a lot and everything has a lot more weight and definition, and it scales up with volume a lot better. It works with both my Grado 325is and Superlux 668B phones without any feeling of a mismatch.

[Toby]

Thats really interesting about those cables Rob, I had a little look at the site for that Mark Grant cable you spoke about but there were many different ones with some wildly varying prices too, what is the cable you have?

Also what is that Gator Mk1 you mentioned as ive never heard of that before, is it some kind of DAC or something?

[Maximum]

Sorry it's the G1000HD cable I was referring to. I couldn't really justify any of the higher models, a £70 cable to connect a £200 dac and £250 amp seemed a bit over the top already.

The Gator is the discrete output stage Stan designed for his Beresford 7520/Caiman dac, which recently he has refined to give lower gain as some people were having problems with certain amps.

[Toby]

Thanks Rob, I wouldnt have thought a cable would have made much difference, so long as its of high quality to begin with of course, but then I did read online a while ago that good solid state amps like these are able to detect the subtle differences from interconnects so I might save up & get one of those mentioned.

[CentraL]

Being in the market for a quality headphone amp, I have been pleased to locate this amplifier (and what a joy it's a British made unit!!!)...

but...

the price quoted now is 365 Gbp plus shipping, which marks it as very expensive and places it outside my budget...

[oldson]

wow this is an old thread.
found it via google as i only just discovered this amp exists.
i am interested in a SS headphone amp with plenty of power for my lcd2, and this may fit the bill.
great review btw.