Comments
from the
Designer
There are tons of
little portable headphone
amps available in today's marketplace for a fraction of the Zen
Head's price. I make no apologies. I wanted a true audiophile
headphone amp that would do two things...
A) Something I could
plug a real set of
phones into and get personal listening devices to
sound listenable over long periods of time.
B) Be able to hold it's head high when compared to our reference tube based headphone amplifiers.
I'm a tube guy, spoiled by the openness, ease
and dynamics of our Zen Triode SET amplifiers. I wanted a headphone amp
that got real close to this sound so I started with Burr Brown Op amps
known for these attributes. From there I applied the same design
principles and pain staking voicing that I do on everything we make.
The end result more than earns it's reference to Zen in the
name. It's a headphone amp done right and for people who think
they don't care for headphones, well the vast majority of headphone
amps be it portable or not, portray music in an unnatural way sounding
either artificially wide or inside your head, either of which is
fatiguing. This one does it right, and not by any magic, but largely
from the absence of all the extraneous crap that has been left out of it.
If you're into bells
and whistles, want to use it as a flashlight or alarm clock, built-in DAC or just
want something cheap, look elsewhere. The Zen Head has a
perfect center of gravity both in your hand and inside your
head. It was designed for serious audiophiles or anyone who wants
to reach for a higher fidelity in this format.

- Steve Deckert / DECWARE High Fidelity
Engineering Co.
FOR USE WITH REAL HEADPHONES
OVERVIEW
The Zen Head was voiced to be musical and
non-fatiguing with an openness typically only found in the sound stage
between your speakers or of course a live performance.
You can listen to them literally all day with zero fatigue.
Layers of detail are here, as well as some impressive dynamics
and range, but nothing is overdone or artificially featured that
shouldn't be. Voiced with Burr Brown's best Op Amps and internal
parts it tries rather successfully to sound like tubes - dynamic and
open.
SIZE:
1 inch x 3
inches x 5 inches.
The Zen Head is 9 Volt DC battery operated with around 50
hours play time
from a single battery. It drives headphones between 10 ohms and
600
ohms with authority. It also drives line level applications up
to
100K ohms making it very at home as a line level preamp. Internal
set up switches have also been provided for Hi-Z and Lo-Z output, Hi
and Lo gain, Hi and Lo dynamics, and Cross-feed On or Off.
The case and face plate are machined aluminum and all
internal parts are premium grade making this bomb proof little buddy
likely to outlast you! it comes with our lifetime warranty.
HEADPHONE IMPEDANCE'S
It has a built in range from 10 to 600 ohms so
it will drive most headphones without issue and you don't have
to worry about what impedance they are or what impedance to set the
headphone amp to for best results.
CROSS-FEED
Cross-feed
is well thought out and works so
transparently to preserve imaging and keep the sound
out of the center
of your head or from getting too wide that it needs no
adjustment,
ever. So once again you don't have to worry about
what cross-feed setting to use from recording to recording and source
to
source. Cross-feed is also defeatable so if you
don't like cross-feed, or use a portable source that has cross-feed
options in the
digital domain (like the iPod Touch for example), you
can use that
instead.
BATTERY POWER SUPPLY
It uses a single 9 volt battery that can be
removed and installed without taking the unit apart and without tools!
Battery life is 50 plus hours and unpolluted with a
charging circuit allowing you to use often better sounding high
current alkaline batteries. There are also no voltage level
circuits to pollute the sound, just a simple green LED that glows when
the unit is on. A dim LED or premature distortion at high volume
means it's time to change the battery.
The on/off switch is a mil spec toggle clearly
marked ON / OFF. (In fact the switch I use costs more than a
cheap battery powered headphone amps total sum of internal parts!
)
QUALITY
When you get one of these in your hands -
before you even listen to it, the quality is immediately apparent.
The entire chassis is machined aluminum, even
the thick aluminum face plate is powder coated and engraved. It
has a perfect center of gravity with no rattles. Even the battery
compartment was designed with viceoelastic lining to snugly hold the
battery in place. Internally only the best precision resistors are used
on a top grade circuit board. Polypropylene film caps are used and
selected OPA2132 Burr Brown amps.
The volume control is a high quality feature
in this unit with a smooth analog / infinite adjustment like any fine
piece of audiophile equipment. Easy and intuitive.
Besides the fact that overbuilding and
resonance control in a personal headphone amp help it sound good,
it also makes it pretty bullet proof. Nothing gets hot, nothing
is going to burn out, it has perfect RF shielding and yes you can run
over it with the car and expect zero damage. In other words; it's
designed to last a lifetime, and it will. To prove it we offer a
lifetime warranty parts and labor to the original owner and a 30 day
money back trial!

Circuit Board
FEATURES
- High quality 3.5mm stereo input &
output
jacks.
- DPDT Gold heavy duty power switch to
insure a
perfect connection to the 9 VDC
- Expensive high quality miniature
toggles (red)
for setup instead of inferior sounding dip switches.
- Carefully selected precision
resistors for
each part of the circuit demonstrate that voicing was taken seriously.
- High grade electrolytic (light
blue) with
rated voltages well over twice what was needed.
- Audiophile grade polypropylene film
caps are
used for both coupling caps in the signal path and power supply bypass
caps.
- Polyester Film caps with rated
voltages over
100 times greater than required live in the carefully executed cross-feed circuit.
- Select grade Burr Brown OPA2132 Op
amps.
- High quality stereo carbon volume pot
with
excellent feel. Adjustable range can be achieved with the input
impedance switch.
- Setup switches (miniature red
toggles) include
Cross-feed, Gain, and input impedance allowing you to switch on the fly
while you listen for the best combination. Lame portable sources
like the iPod Touch will require the lower 10K input impedance to have
any real gain and preserve dynamics, while sources with a bit more
drive will prefer the higher input impedance of 32K to keep things from
getting too aggressive and or too loud.
- Double sided fully shielded circuit
board with face plate attached is easily removed from the chassis by removing the
two front screws and sliding the unit out.
- Hand stuffed and hand Silver soldered
throughout.
- Alkaline Battery life is 50 hours.
Compatible with all 9 volt battery types.
- No surface mount components
whatsoever, all
resistors and board traces are over-sized to prevent the dreaded dry
solid state signature so commonly seen in these things.
- No sockets used on Op amps - no
chance to
degrade the sound over time and because no other Op amps will work as
well in this circuit.
Your favorite smartphone or iPod piggyback nicely.
Comes with a 3.5mm stereo
patch cord 12 inches in length.

SUPPORT
This
amplifier is hand built in the USA by
DECWARE / High Fidelity Engineering C0. It comes with a lifetime
warranty to the original owner. If you purchase one second hand and
ever have questions or technical problems we WILL be happy to check it
out for you and service it if needed for a very reasonable rate.
We also
have a support forum
with
many people who own this amplifier who's experiences you may benefit
from.
REVIEWS
The
DECWARE Zen Head has been reviewed in TONEAudio
magazine.

You may
read more
reviews
of
our
products here.
OWNERS MANUAL
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