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Big rig. In my living-room set I had two Questyle 'current-mode' amps for a fully balanced dual-mono experiment once the necessary headphones cables from China arrived. For this review I used just one CMA-800R to juxtapose against the Bakoon. The first headphone for inspection was the burgundy-red AlphaDog on its leathered-up Klutz Design CanCan stand. Switching between Questyle's voltage and Bakoon's current mode drove home the former's greater softness. Whilst the CMA-800R is far from soft per se—its own review tells that tale—on this particular load which majors on lushness to initially sound veiled when one arrives from an HD800 type, the HPA-01's current mode excavated the audio burial site more completely.


To stay with that image, it applied the archeologist's brush to more clearly delineate surface details. This underlined that for orthos, so-called current-mode amplification's decisive difference is not the signal processing between gain stages. It's the actual output mode. If you wanted to inject HD800 illumination into a planarmagnetic, Bakoon's special ¼" ports are the fastest ticket. That doesn't imply an ortho completely changes colours to sound like a Sennheiser. It simply acquires a dose of those attributes mixed in with its own. On that count, Questyle came second. Despite its current-mode designation, its actual drive is conventional voltage mode.

Which begged a question. How might the Chinese and Japanese/Korean voltage outputs compare? Remaining with the AlphaDog for a bit longer, Bakoon sounded a bit sharper and more defined if also smaller and more compact, Questyle fluffier and laterally more expansive and big. The latter presentation reminded me of very good all-copper cabling like Absolué Creations' cost-effective IN-TIM range. Slightly soft as though injected with a bit of whipped cream for aeration, dimensionally vast and a bit warm, it's a different flavour from my silver-over-copper/pure-silver Zu Event loom. The latter's focus is stronger to feel more concrete. That's traded against a smaller playback venue. Transparency/focus fiends would pursue the Bakoon. Soundstage/texture hounds will friend the Questyle. Yet both are very similar.

Time for the Sennheiser HD800 as a well-known top-shelf dynamic. Here I'd call both amps head-on competitors and far more alike than not but on personal bias would favour the CMA-800R by a small margin. At €1'499 for it vs. €1'500 for the Bakoon, price wouldn't factor. On versatility and for owners of multiple cans of dissimilar tech, the HPA-01 pulls ahead for its dual drive modes. For users of balanced sources, two-up listeners and those sold on 2 x 3-pin XLR drive, the CMA-800R has it. Moving on to Beyerdynamic's T1 which I find richer of tone, my prior Senn assessment held. In voltage mode, both amps played on the same level. For the same qualities as before, I now slightly favoured the Bakoon whose contributions played better to the T1's voicing. This was further enhanced in current mode which again was sharper and more separated without undermining the T1's superior tone.


The big question in many shoppers' minds must be HPA-01 vs. HPA-21. Here others will weigh in. My loaner had long since been returned. No Cain and Abel in my crib. Given the price difference but shared tech minus some parts savings, I'd expect the smaller brother to get unreasonably close but certainty and details require an actual A/B. To return to sure things on my beat meant my Audeze LCD-2 v2. As I reported in reviews on the LCD-3 and LCD-XC, with Bakoon drive my favourite of the A bunch remains the oldie. Whilst it's clearly voiced—or coloured to call a spade a spade—it plays most strongly to deeply saturated tone colors and the type of guttural bass power one hears with amplified live music. Those qualities can turn into caricature excess with amplifiers of the same voicing. Hence Bakoon's current drive becomes such a very copasetic balancer for the LCD-2. The same goes for its brother from another mother aka Dan Clark's AlphaDog. And for dynamic cans on hand I'd single out Beyer's T1 as equally responsive to the HPA-01's particular current-mode optimization.
For some predictive math, with Bakoon one starts out at maximal lucidity, separation, articulation and speed. Headphones majoring on tone, mass and density should take to that like honey does to lemon. Headphones already super keen on so-called resolution and illumination which could stand more weight and warmth will not get it from this amp. There you'd be far better off with Burson Audio for transistors; or actual valves. Other Bakoon qualities are very low noise which always plays to apparent micro detail; and no practical treble phase shift from exploded bandwidth which makes for exceptional top-end clarity. In many ways then there's overlap with the actual sound of NordOst cables - quick, lean, lit up, super informative.


For a small map based on my familiars, Bakoon occupies the opposite polarity of Burson. April Music with its Eximus DP1 and Stello HP100MkII models would sit roughly equidistant between the two, SOtM's sHP-100 with mBPS-d2s battery supply between them and Bakoon. These polarities are incision, transient focus and extreme clarity for the Bakoon end; weight, warmth and fullness for the Burson end. Or simplified, light vs darkness and detail vs density. If you love traditional valve sound, you'd start with Burson, then work your way even deeper into that direction. Finally for ortho fanciers, Bakoon most definitely belongs at the very top of their playlist.
Bakoon's Soo In Chae with Audeze representative at Munich 2014 [photo compliments of audionext.de]
Final words. With its HPA-21 sibling awarded by us plus former contributor Wojciech Pacula for his highfidelity.pl site plus at least one other publication, the HPA-01 clearly basks in its glow. How close it comes remains to be determined. I'd say chances are very good that we're looking at 85% performance for 60% of the price. If so, that'd merit yet another distinction. But that we'll leave to the other guys to sort out for a change...
Bakoon Products website