this product is no longer available as of 4/30/2022. Consider our new flagship headphone amplifier “Bliss” which is planned to be released around August 2022.

滄 AZURE

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Pre-amp / Headphone Amplifier  

Overview

“沧” Azure is a preamp/headphone amplifier from HoloAudio.“沧” Azure adopts a fully balanced structure with 4 groups/channels. The left and right channels form a fully balanced structure. Each channel has two independent amplification modules to complete the buffering and amplification functions. There is a total of eight amplifier modules built into the “沧” Azure and they are fully discrete. The design is able to solve the shortcomings of the transistors, so that its tone can exceed the limits of traditional transistors. It also has both the advantages of tubes and transistors. And the use of a large number of transistors makes the linearity of the amplifier superior in every way.The volume control of “沧” Azure is a fully balanced stepping device controlled by a relay. It has a total of 64 steps, and each step is 1 db volume. The advantage is that the noise is minimal and small, and it can be precisely controlled, even at a low volume the left and right channel will not be biased.“沧”Azure has three output modes, low-impedance headphone output mode, high-impedance headphone output mode, and line output mode.

 

Please read a review from well respected “Torq” @ Headphone.com – Click Here

 

Please read a review from Darren Henley @ Twitteringmachines.com – Click Here

Please check out a video review from Amos AKA Currawong on Youtube – Click Here

滄 AZURE 

Specifications:

Analog Input

• Single Ended Input x1
  • Largest Value 12Vpp
  • Impedance 3.9Kohm
• Balanced Input x1
  • Largest Value 24Vpp
  • Impedance 7.8Kohm

Analog Output

• Single Ended Line Output x1(PREAMP)
  • Largest Value 16Vpp
  • Impedance 33ohm
• Balance Line Output x1(PREAMP)
  • Largest Value 32Vpp
  • Impedance 66ohm
• Headphone Single Ended Output x1
  • Low Resistance Mode – 400mW@32ohm load
  • High Resistance Mode – 180mW@300ohm load
• Headphone Balanced Output x1
  • Low Resistance Mode – 1600mW@32ohm load
  • High Resistance Mode – 720mW@300ohm load

Extras:

• Aluminum Remote Control

 

As of April 2020 shipping costs have gone up significantly due to COVID19. this is out of our control, we hope to see prices back down sometime 2021 but do not expect them to go back to normal for quite some time.

Dimensions of actual unit

260×281*55mm(WxLxH，Not including the protruding parts)

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Some notes from KitsuneHiFi and HoloAudio:

Azure is a high end amplifier. So by function, it’s nothing particularly special at first glance… or is it? Just an headphone amp + pre-amp. Right? However, the key for Azure is the full discrete amp modules. There are 8 of them inside the Azure. 4 channels to be a fully balanced amp. And each channel has 2 discrete amp, one for buffering and one to amplify. Jeff Zhu has put tremendous amounts of time to develop this amp and has researched a way to get more detail and natural sound from a discrete transistor based amplifier. This is very comparable to high end tube sound however with better detail retrieval.

We have chosen specific transistors that have high performance of thermal character. So with a large amount of these transistors we have made an amp that performs extremely well by design. As we have said before, the Azure has 8 discrete amp modules. Each module has about 50 transistors per module. This ensures superior linearity. In a tube amp, the more tubes improves linearity, but how many tubes are considered reasonable? The amount of transistors in the Azure is very high for many discrete amplifiers on the market. This is key for its performance, sound signature, albeit a bit more costly… we think one might agree it is well worth it.

Premium grade components have been carefully chosen to deliver the best possible sound signature that HoloAudio is well known for. For an example; Quality Mundorf Caps are used and our most preferred after testing many other choices. Also a quality O-Type transformer is used for optimum audio performance and of course is properly shielded from surrounding components. Each part of this circuit design has been well sorted out and specific components paired for optimal audio performance.

Azure’s 8 modules have a total about 400 transistors! This renders overall tone and sound stage to be quite impressive. Personally, KitsuneHiFi believes it’s an impressive amplifier and curious to hear from our customers and their thoughts on this Amp.  We are proud to release this amplifier around Sept of 2018. Those who love resolution and natural analog like sound will absolutely love this amp. It will meet and exceed those expectations of the most particular.

 

fun fact:

HoloAudio’s own motto is: “Time will tell”

Download Holo Audio Azure’s user manual HERE