Srajan, nice catch on that Woo amp. Kudos to Jack Wu for agreeing to build and ship you a sample across the Atlantic to promote something as niche and hyper exotic as a tube-based amp to drive expensive ribbon headphones with an output transformer. I know that you plan to also try regular headphones to make this a more relevant read for the rest of us who will never own a Raal headphone. Still, don't you think Mr. Wu did himself a real disserve by losing the preamp feature? Wouldn't more people be able to justify a €10'000 spend if it killed two birds with one stone by being both preamplifier and headphone amplifier? Anyways, it will be fun to read about regardless of how limited I sense its appeal is going to be. Will you do any tube rolling beyond the cheap stock bottles that come with it? Thanks, Kevin
Since Jack specifically reached out in response to my podcast mention of the ribbons, he must see a market opportunity no matter how ultimately small. After all, just a few sales of this model would make the associated review costs quite worthwhile, wouldn't they? I share your sentiment that pre-outs would rather broaden the appeal but there probably was a good technical reason why those went away. And as my preview states, a costly preamp would at minimum want remote-controlled volume and ideally a numerical display which on very small-scale production could become prohibitive features. As to rolling, my stash of glass is down to a few pairs of 300B since the Vinnie Rossi preamp is my last bit of tube kit. Unless Jack decides to include a fancier set, I'll have to stick with the stock tubes. Since that's what any buyer would get, it seems fair enough to review it that way. I'll leave that decision to Jack since he'd have to also furnish me with upgraded glass which would return no longer new. Srajan
