Anything new

[Natural Sound]

Bit of speculation and investigative work here, but they had some beefy 805A prototype monoblocks a while back and there was an Instagram story in February of an unknown amp being photographed for a manual. Said amp featured a very large 4-pin socket. I've been rockin the Kaiju since 2017 or so, and have been itching to add some more power lately. Let's just say my wallet is preparing for whatever comes.

I came to a similar conclusion a few months back. IIRC Bottlehad had an 805A or similar tube amp at one point. I think it was a headphone amp for planar headphones. It was only available in assembled form however. I'm going by memory here. I believe the reason why it wasn't going to be offered as a kit was because these tubes need a lot of voltage compared to the other Bottlehead offerings. Safety issue? I could be completely wrong. But since we are speculating, I thought I'd throw it out there.

 

[Doc B]

The headphone amp you mention is called the Neothoriator. It was developed primarily to run AKG K1000 headphones, uses 845 tubes and puts out around 4 watts per channel. It is currently running our dining room system, driving Pipettes with an Echo Dot as source. It is a more or less one off (maybe two off, though I don't know what happened to the second chassis). The new amp is very different.

 

[Paul Birkeland]

(maybe two off, though I don't know what happened to the second chassis).

It's awaiting a reunion with Jameson when I can connect with my buddy who drives between our regions frequently.