Il primero. Unbeknownst to Enleum, by January 6th 2023 the first review published in German. Local distributor audioNext had promptly turned an early prototype sample for a trade show into a review loaner. Writer Roland Dietl first tried it with the Audeze EL-8 Titanium then Dan Clark's more power-hungry more resolved Stealth. He found the HPA-23RM fully up also to the more demanding task, calling the combo as playing at "the highest possible level". His Phonitor x head amp managed an equally compelling illusion of recorded space but not the same elasticity in the treble nor the same overall filigree. In short, he found the Enleum the more seductive of the two to accord it that certain X factor. In South Korea meanwhile, final production boards with debugged firmware still waited on the safety inspector's approval to make tracks to first customers; and hopefully my greedy mitts. Certifications. They're terribly unsexy but necessary gatekeepers to insure that consumer electronics conform to regulations and code.

It wasn't until July 26th 2023 so 1½ years after my narrative began that "we are finally starting to release our much-delayed HPA-23RM production units. As usual you're among the first to receive a review sample. We can ship by this week from Korea. The HPA-23RM project was a challenge due to a very advanced power supply and all new charging circuits. This power supply created more improved efficiency and lower noise. Compared to our HPA-21 predecessor we reduced product volume to about 1/6th while generating the same output power with far improved performance thanks to all new reference circuits. Moreover, the total number of Li-ion battery cells reduced to two down from HPA-21's 8 and now features an advanced reliable cell-balancing charging circuit from any 5V USB-C power source. All these developments took another 8 different prototype PCB over 6 months past the original launch date. While we had targeted earlier production, our flagship AMP-54R amplifier won Red Dot Design's best-of-the-best award which forced its early product announcement in Munich."

"HPA-23RM production was then put on hold except for a very first small batch production in March." In short, my final sample was quite different from that of the first review so presumably even more bueno. The same bueno was an unchanged $3K price with free shipping from Enleum's web shop. Before you protest my framing, it's based on Soo In's claim that aside from bitchy loads like Susvara/AB-1266, HPA's performance on headphones is commensurate with that of his $6'250 speaker/headfi amp. No matter the final figure, 50% off is always ace; here still more so if you don't have any speakers to leave the lion's share of an AMP-23R untapped.

For context, that and Cen.Grand's €4.5K Silver Fox are my two favorite headfi amps. A rather smaller deck with on-the-go appeal shaving off €1'500 from the Silver Fox should really appeal to sonic big-game hunters.

Here's my office setup with stablemate AMP-23R serving EnigmAcoustics M1 speakers or Final D8000 headphones. It's where the HPA would mix it up first for some sibling rivalry.