Musical Fidelity MX-HPA Fully Balanced Headphone Amplifier

"Refined, Engaging, Silky-smooth"

Musical Fidelity's studio reference-quality MX-HPA fully balanced headphone amp has been a labor of love for everybody at the British audiophile company. Musical Fidelity has been making high performance headphones for some time and CEO and founder Antony Michaelson has always been a great headphone fan. Although the company's critically acclaimed M1 HPA headphone amp is very good, Antony wanted to go even further and build a head amp that was truly magnificent.

"The MX-HPA fully balanced headphone amp is the result of decades of experience of making high quality headphone amplifiers," notes Antony. "Relatively, the MX-HPA has about the same performance into headphones as the incredible Titan has into loudspeakers. That is, it is awe inspiring, limitless and any other hyperbole you can imagine. It is thoroughly amazing."

Unlike the vast majority of headphone amps that are sprouting up today, the MX-HPA isn't a headphone amp/DAC or headphone amp/anything else. It's a pure analog design headphone amp, period, for the purest hi-fi headphone listening performance you can imagine.

"Heartily Recommended"

"The compact MX-HPA sounds refined, engaging, silky-smooth but not soft or over-warm, and with a notably fine bass," reports Steve Harris in England's Hi-fi News magazine. "The MX-HPA really does provide great sound for the money and is heartily recommended."

Downright Mindboggling Technical Performance

The MX-HPA’s technical performance is impressive, to say the least, if not downright mindboggling. Typically distortion from 20 Hz to 40 kHz is less than a miniscule 0.005%. This is serious stuff, and it translates into a truly lifelike and accurate headphone experience that drills deep into your source material. The signal-to-noise ratio is better than 120 dB ('A' weighted), giving you an exceptionally quiet 'black' background for your music. Needless to say, since this is a Musical Fidelity product, the frequency response is ruler flat from 10 Hz to 20 kHz (-0.1 dB).

This amp is capable of a short term peak of 10 watts (for one cycle) and should be able to drive just about any 'phones you plug into it. It has two gain positions selectable from the front panel – 18 dB (8X) and 24 dB (15X).

Innovative Two-way Combined XLR and 1/4" Output Jacks

The MX-HPA is genuinely fully balanced from beginning to end. Inputs are either balanced or single ended. Connections consist of one pair of line-level XLR balanced inputs and one pair of line-level RCA inputs. And here's a great feature that you probably haven't seen before. The output is one pair of three-pin XLR and 1/4" stereo jack two-way combined connections. That's right, either/or (or both, if you prefer to look at it that way). This little wonder will automatically convert single-ended inputs to balanced.

• Fully balanced headphone amp
• One pair of line-level XLR balanced inputs
• One pair of line-level RCA inputs
• Innovative two-way combined XLR and 1/4" output jacks
• Automatically converts single-ended inputs to balanced
• High/Low gain switch (front panel)

Output

• Power: 1.8 Watts per channel into 8 Ohms (27dBW)
• Maximum output voltage: 19 Volts RMS, 20Hz to 20 kHz
• Onset of clipping: 54 Volts peak-to-peak, balanced

• THD+N >0.005% typical, 20Hz to 20 kHz
• Signal-to-noise ratio: >120dB ‘A’-weighted
• Input impedance: 50k Ohms
• Frequency response: +0, –0.1dB, 10Hz to 20 kHz
• Gain, LO position (volume max) 18db (8x)
• Gain, HI position (volume max) 24dB (15x)

• Mains voltages: 90-250VAC 50-60Hz universal worldwide supply
• Consumption >0.25 Watts standby (Orange LED lit); 15 Watts maximum (Blue LED lit, full power output)

• Dimensions: 8-2/3" wide, 2" high (including feet), 9-1/2" deep (including connectors)
• Weight: 5 lbs.

"But the compact MX-HPA sounds refined, engaging, silky-smooth but not soft or over-warm, and with a notably fine bass. Even if the balanced option is an attempt at future-proofing rather than a useful option for now, the MX-HPA really does provide great sound for the money and is heartily recommended."

-Steve Harris, Hi-fi News magazine