Ferrum OOR Headphone Amplifier Reviews

5 Rating 3 Reviews

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909.931.9686

Email:

joel.m@upscaleaudio.com

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2058 Wright Avenue,
2058 Wright Avenue
California
91750

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Helpful Report

Posted 2 years ago

“The Ferrum OOR is excellent, when paired with the Hypsos power supply it is essential listening and will please anyone who likes tweaking their gear settings to get just the right listening experience. I have a pair of Mr. Speaker (now Dan Clark Audio) Aeon open back planar headphones and a set of Hifiman Sundara open back Planar headphones. The Aeon headphones are relatively easy to drive per their specs, but I always found them lacking with most headphone amps or when used with my receiver. The OOR and Hypsos changed that. The Sundara headphones are really brought to life by the OOR as well, and punch way above their price range when powered with the OOR. Since my headphones are relatively efficient I set the OOR to lower gain, which gives a wider range on the volume knob without the headphones breaking up. This lessens the dynamic punch, but improves clarity. Even on the low gain setting the OOR has more than enough power. Bumping up the gain to the center gain setting then adds some dynamics and punch. The high gain setting would work perfectly for inefficient headphones that are nearly impossible to drive with anything else. Even though both the headphones I have are on the more efficient side, they have never sounded loud enough or open and detailed enough when used with other headphone amps. The OOR and Hypsos achieve an outstanding level of clarity and detail without being overly bright and the capability to set the gain level on the OOR and the voltage via the Hypsos opens up endless possibilities. When playing music through the OOR I can set the Hypsos to the lowest voltage that works with the OOR and that creates just a bit of warmth, almost like compression/sag. It helps tame some of the bright immediacy of the planar headphones. Then when I want more headroom and immediacy I can increase the voltage to the normal 24v or beyond up to 30v as allowed by the Hypsos with the OOR. The combination or OOR and Hypsos is also quite easy to use. I can easily go from 22v listening to a jazz album that I want to sound warm and a bit recessed to 27v-30v for listening to a classical album where I want more immediacy and headroom. While I have just begun to listen/experiment with this combination, so far, I like what I hear.”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 years ago

“The Ferrum Oor + Hypsos is excellent. I had a Schiit Jotunheim but wanted an amp to match the caliber of my Sennheiser HD800s, ZMF Verite and ZMF Atrium. There are several reviews on this amp on YouTube, and I would mostly agree with those reviews. It is very punchy, very detailed, and very well-defined, all with a pitch-black background. It doesn't add anything to the music like some amps do, especially tube amps, but rather it just sits back and lets you hear the music as it was intended. It isn't bright or warm, rather it just is. I don't have any insane headphones like a 1266, but I do have a Beyerdynamic DT880 600ohm, which distorted my Jotunheim and even distorted some tube amps I tried. This is the only amp I have ever found that can drive the DT880 600ohm perfectly fine with no distortion or clipping. One thing that surprised me was that I didn't expect I would change the voltage on the Hypsos at all. I thought I would keep it at its stock 24V and never think about it. But I found that depending on my mood and the type of music, I do change it often. Higher voltages make it bright and very energetic, which I sometimes like, especially with metal. The lowest voltage, 22V, makes it more relaxing and even tube-like. Much of the benefit of tubes is that while they are usually less detailed and technically capable than solid state, they can be smoother, more relaxed and more euphonic. While the 22V setting doesn't make this on par with a high-end tube amp, it does smooth out the music to make it more relaxing and thus gives you much of the benefit of tubes.”

Helpful Report

Posted 2 years ago