Headphone Reviews

Woo Audio WES (starting at $4990)
The Woo WES is the largest amp of the group sporting a quad of EL34 output tubes fed by a quad of 6SL7 driver tubes on the headamp, which can sit atop or aside the matching chassis of the main power supply. Two 12AU7 tubes mounted on the rear of the headphone amp perform phase splitting duties for the single unbalanced input pair. A front panel knob can select between two balanced inputs and the lone single ended feed. The amp I auditioned was the stock amp without any of the upgrades.

I must say the Jack Woo has wooed me towards tuby sounds of late. I've had the pleasure of playing around with his WA3 and WA6 with Sennheiser HD 600 and HD 800 cans lately, and I have to tell you I'm enjoying it immensely. After 20 years of working on solid-state headphone amps it feels liberating to say, "Fine, I'll take as much even order harmonic distortion as you'd like to dish out." Living the lush life lately has certainly cured me of any latent masochistic objectivist austerity tendencies I may have had.

Ha!

Anyhow, Jack's lush Woo WES dishes out the juicy tunes amply. In some ways this was my favorite amp. I found myself wallowing in the scrumptious voice of Rickie Lee Jones with her "Pop Pop" album, and swept up in the dancing breeze of Anna Caram's Brazilian jazz vocals on her Chesky releases. Yummy.

Unfortunately, while the WES was superb with sweet acoustic music, it tended towards a bit sloppy when faced with driving dynamic tracks, and slightly confused with large orchestral works. Running the volume control up only served to make matters worse.

I'll recommend the Woo WES for all those who love the lush sound of tubes. Its creamy delivery combined with the brilliant articulation of the SR-009 is a great combination for acoustic chamber and jazz ensembles. But if your tastes run the gamut into driving rock, EDM, and large orchestral works the improved driver control of the next two amps might better suit you.