Woo Audio WA5 LE Headphone Amp

"Most Versatile and Pleasurable Headphone Amp Ever"

Handcrafted in New York since 2008, the latest 2015 edition of Woo Audio’s WA5 headphone amp is a prominent example of trickle down technology. Woo Audio’s engineers were able to apply much of the no-compromise design philosophy from its flagship product, the WA234 MONO, which is the world’s first dual chassis monoblock stereo headphone amp and integrated amp.

Like its flagship big brother, the WA5-LE relies an all-tube design for its exquisite sound quality, utilizing the 6SN7 tube for the driver, a 300B tube for power, and a 274B tube for the rectifier. The WA5-LE provides up to 8 watts of power output into four-pin XLR and 1/4” stereo headphone outputs.

"The WA5LE may be the most versatile and pleasurable headphone amp I’ve used. Every headphone I threw at it, it caught and made sound extraordinary," raves Scott Hull in a Part-time Audiophile review for September 27, 2015.

"Is there any better headphone amp out there?" asks Redcarmoose in his Head-fi.org review for May 17, 2011 on a previous version of the WA5-LE. "The difference is like the subtle space between notes or the space and decay between the rhythm, but there is something else that is there, maybe it’s the 300bs, a smoothness, a velvety feeling like touching cloth, a softness that I have come to like and be addicted to."

High Power and Configurability

Thanks to its high power and its configurability, the WA5-LE will drive any pair of headphones you can realistically expect to find anywhere on the planet, and it will make them sound their absolute best.

The marquee feature of the WA5-LE consists of user-selectable High/Low Power, High/Low Impedance, and High/Low level Output switches located on the front panel. Using these switches in conjunction allows you to precisely optimize the synergy between your headphone amplifier and headphones to achieve the ideal pairing. With the WA5-LE, the glorious, sweet sound of the 300B vacuum tube has never been so accessible or so versatile.

Single-ended Triode Class A Design

The WA5-LE uses a single-ended triode, Class A, output transformer-coupled design for clean, clean, lush, and lifelike audio. The highly regulated power supply uses a pair of 274B tubes to provide the ultimate in quiet performance that can only be achieved with this kind of meticulous design.

All-Tube Design

Unlike many so-called vacuum tube headphone amps that are actually a hybrid design and use a tube to sweeten a solid state design, the WA5-LE takes a purist approach. It uses a 100-percent all tube design, relying on discrete components rather than transistors and ICs and with point-to-point wiring. This is audio done the Golden Age, old school way, but with state-of-the art sensibilities for premium performance with any source material, whether you listen to vinyl or like to stream hi-res digital music files.

Inputs consist of one pair of balanced XLRs and one pair of unbalanced RCAs.

Assembled in Brooklyn, New York, USA

Woo Audio takes great pride in the fact that its products are assembled in Brooklyn, New York, USA from foreign and domestic components.

• Headphones impedance: 8-600 Ohms
• Frequency response: 10 Hz-60 kHz, -2dB
• Power output: up to 8 watts via 4-pin XLR and 1/4"
• Signal/Noise: >= 95 dB
• THD: <= 0.08%, 1kHz
• Voltage: AC 110/220V, 50/60 Hz
• Dimensions (each): 8-1/2" H, 9"W, 17"D
• Weight: Amp Unit: 35 lbs, Power Supply Unit: 40 lbs

"The WA5LE may be the most versatile and pleasurable headphone amp I’ve used. Every headphone I threw at it, it caught and made sound extraordinary. Some headphones have sounded better with other amps, but usually along only one of several parameters, and no one amp has made this many great headphones sound as good as they can be. That’s another way of saying 'some amps suck at certain headphones,' but the WA5LE is very good to great with every headphone I used. That’s unique, in my experience."

"Ultimately, I have to say that this is the amp to lust after. Assuming you’re hot for tubes, like me. And that means an Editor’s Recommendation."

- Scott Hull, Part-time Audiophile, September 27, 2015

"It performs with anything you throw at it. It will show you if your phonostage is thin. It will show you if the grid going to your house is dirty. At the same time it will allow you to live a musical life. What emotion there is in the experience of the human hearing music. Is there any better headphone amp out there? From what I have heard there seems to be small differences. This is really how I feel. Other amplifiers out there are going to have small differences. In this price range somehow stuff starts to get closer together and not farther apart as you may first think. The difference is like the subtle space between notes or the space and decay between the rhythm, but there is something else that is there, maybe it’s the 300bs, a smoothness, a velvety feeling like touching cloth, a softness that I have come to like and be addicted to."

- Redcarmoose, Head-fi.org, May 17, 2011