Silver: 1 piece in stock and available for immediate delivery.
Black: On request.
The HA-2A is a member of Cayin's HA headphone amplifier series, which also includes the well-known HA-300MKii, the HA-6A and the HA-3A.
With the HA-2A, which has a unified layout and panel style with the HA series, it has two cold light VU meters. At the same time, the HA-2A is one of the members of Cayin's new desktop system, which forms a four-part package together with the iDAP-8, the iDAC-8 and the iHA-8. The HA-2A is a single-ended Class A vacuum tube headphone amplifier.
NOS tubes
The HA-2A differs from the other HA series in that it is Cayin's first tube headphone amplifier that consists exclusively of old NOS tubes. NOS (New Old Stock) refers to a tube that has never been used and comes from an old production.
The amplifier consists of a total of five tubes, with the RCA 17AX4GT serving as a rectifier tube and supplying power to the plate electrode of the preamp tubes. This allows the unique overtone richness and the warm, fine sound characteristics of the tube rectification to come into their own.
Both the preamp and power amp stages use Amperex's famous "Bugle Boy" tubes, a brand of tubes that will be all too familiar to serious tube users. The two Amperex ECF82/6U8 in the preamp and the two Amperex 17BF11 in the power amp have to go through a rigorous internal testing and matching process before we can install them in our amplifier.
30 years of tube experience in one device
Cayin has been manufacturing tube amplifiers for 30 years, and we have accumulated years of know-how and development experience in the field of vacuum tube audio technology. Our profound research experience and huge inventory of various types of audio tubes play a crucial role in the development of the HA-2A. The HA-2A uses only NOS vintage tubes, which can be considered as using the best tubes from our inventory.
The ECF82/6U8 and 17BF11 tubes used in the HA-2A were probably manufactured in the early 1950s, so they belong to the American rather than the Dutch production period. They were used specifically in the audio section of early tube TV sets and became almost the standard configuration for TV audio at that time.
The Amperex ECF82/6U8 is a hybrid tube that combines a high-gain pentode and a medium-gain triode. Cayin's designers make full use of the tube's low internal resistance and low noise by adopting a unique and sophisticated design, wiring methods and power supply arrangements to achieve a rich, warm, balanced and harmonious sound experience.
The Amperex 17BF11 is a double pentode composite tube originally used in early applications with one pentode for voltage amplification and the other for power amplification. However, in the HA-2A, Cayin engineers designed the tube to always operate in single-ended Class A mode. They carefully designed the amplification circuit and incorporated a self-developed Z11 iron-core EI output transformer, which is ultimately responsible for driving the headphones.
20Hz to 50kHz
The HA-2A differs from previous HA headphone amplifiers because the nominal frequency response of the HA-2A can reach 20Hz-50 kHz at +/- 3dB.This is a very impressive value among our HA series tube headphone amplifiers.
Like the other Cayin HA amplifiers, the HA-2A is constructed using point-to-point welding technology to ensure the shortest signal path and improve the transparency and sophistication of the audio performance.
It features dual RCA and XLR inputs and is equipped with balanced 6.35mm, 4-pin XLR and balanced 4.4mm headphone outputs. In addition, it offers high, medium and low impedance adjustment modes so that the user can conveniently pair headphones with different impedances and drive requirements (known as impedance matched output, which is present on all HA series headphone amplifiers).
The device is compact and weighs only 10 kg, which makes it relatively small among tube headphone amplifiers and very suitable for use on the desk.
Highlights
- 5 NOS (New Old Stock) tubes from the 50s
- Amperex ECF82/6U8 in the preamplifier and two Amperex 17BF11 in the power amplifier
- Single-ended Class A mode
- 20Hz-50kHz at +/- 3dB
- two cold light VU meters
- Point-to-point welding technology for the shortest signal path
- RCA and XLR dual inputs
- Balanced 6.35 mm, 4-pin XLR and balanced 4.4 mm headphone outputs
- Weight approx. 10kg
Technical data