Graham Slee Novo worth the extra?

[ellisdj]

Hello Guys

I am tossing up between the Project Head Box II or the Graham Slee Novo Headphone amp - it will be for my PC - mostly for gaming, but also some music listening. I only use Headphones so its for all PC sound

There is £120 difference in the price and the Headbox is rated to have much more power by the specs.

I have been listening to the Head box quite a bit - it makes a massive improvement over even a very good PC sound card output.

Its way more musical and it opens up the soundstage loads - however sometimes it sounds like it needs a bit more composure and control - but its still excelling in both of these areas compared to the output from the good souncard.

Will the Novo be £120 better?

The Novo is known as "a power house" froma few sites and yet is rated at lower power than the Head Box?

Headbox 330mW/30ohms, 60mW/300ohms

Novo Output: 150mW rms into 32 Ohms, 40mW rms into 600 Ohms

I will be using Sennheiser 558 Headphones with it - coming off a Auzentech Forte Souncard.

Has anyone gone from one to other or had a good listen / test.

I am most worried that I would spend the £120 more, it not be as powerful and also have an analytical sound which on PC based sound /music (not always the greatest quality) I dont think is a great thing.

Any help thoughts?

I ap[preciate it may seem overkill, but I love great sound

 

[ellisdj]

YES !!!!!

just bought one - its very early days but first impressions are extremely impressive.

its advertised as a power amp for headphones and thats exactly how is sounds to me - a powerful, but smooth sound, with lots of detail but presented nicely - not forced at you.

You can just keep turning up the power and the sound just keeps getting better - like a good power amp will.

Dont be thinking its not musical because thats its strongest point!!

nowhere near run in yet about 380 hours to go - but very happy so far.

:bounce:

 

[CnoEvil]

I'm glad it worked out....It's always good when you go for the dearer product, and it turns out to be the right decision.

Enjoy

Cno

 

[ellisdj]

Is gettign better all the time - very transparant sound - its actually amazing the sound you cna get from a decent set of cans and a good amp.

Using Foobar 2000 and Wasapi (just started using these) its quite amazing the results you can get from a modest outlay!!