Cayin Soul 170HA: A Beastly TOTL Vacuum Tube Headphone/Speaker Amplifier wth KT170
Apr 24, 2024 at 5:23 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 429
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170HA Susvara 01.jpg
170HA Vacuum Tubes.jpg

170HA Front Top Panel.jpg

170HA Front Panel.jpg


Cayin will debut a new Headphone/Speaker Amplifier at Munich High End 2024. The Soul 170HA, as the name implies, is part of our Soul amplifier series, and it will use the KT170 vacuum tube as the power output tube.

The Soul 170HA is the first-ever Headphone amplifier designed around the KT170 vacuum tube, we know this is going to be a big hit to the Personal Audio community so we have kept this amplifier away from press radar, which is not an easy task since we have a lot of press visitation during the 30th anniversary month. We will ship out the final Engineering prototype to the Munich High-End (9-12, May 2024) later this week, after we complete the photo shoot. The Soul 170HA will be a huge integrated amplifier even by speaker amplifier standard, it will be priced above the HA-300MK2. I don't have a lot to share at this point, for obvious reasons but we shall provide more details and product photos on 9th May, right before the Munich Show.

170HA Front Panel with description.jpg


170HA Rear Panel with description.jpg

Soul 170HA Specification.jpg
 
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Apr 24, 2024 at 5:26 AM Post #2 of 429
Soul 170HA Tube Glow.JPG


Cayin will debut a new Headphone/Speaker Amplifier at Munich High End 2024. The Soul 170HA, as the name implies, is part of our Soul amplifier series, and it will use the KT170 vacuum tube as the power output tube.

While Headfiers probably are unfamiliar with the Tungsol KT170 vacuum tube, it was one of the biggest news in the HiFi vacuum tube community in the past 5 years. Due to the success of the KT120 and KT150 tubes and the popularity of these tubes with High-End Audio manufacturers, Tung-Sol announced the KT170 tube to provide a beam tetrode with even more power and higher specification in November 2020. Cayin was honored to work with Tung-Sol and became one of their off-site test center during the development stage, and we gained first-hand experience with the KT170 before the official announcement. We debuted our first all-new designed KT170 integrated amplifier in a domestic HiFi show back in May 2021, introduced the Soul 170i integrated speaker amplifier, and rolled out the Soul 170i integrated amplifier with 4xKT170 later that year. At our 30th anniversary, we have introduced the Pearl 30i, with 8x KT170, as the benchmark amplifier for our 30 years of track record in vacuum tube audio.

The Soul 170HA is the first-ever Headphone amplifier designed around the KT170 vacuum tube, we know this is going to be a big hit to the Personal Audio community so we have kept this amplifier away from press radar, which is not an easy task since we have a lot of press visitation during the 30th anniversary month. We will ship out the final Engineering prototype to the Munich High-End (9-12, May 2024) later this week, after we complete the photo shoot. The Soul 170HA will be a huge integrated amplifier even by speaker amplifier standard, it will be priced above the HA-300MK2. I don't have a lot to share at this point, for obvious reasons but we shall provide more details and product photos on 9th May, right before the Munich Show.

If you are interested in finding out more about Cayin's KT170 amplifiers while you are waiting, please check out the Soul 170i YouTube review by Thomas, a renowned audio reviewer of The Absolute Sound and HiFi+.
 
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Apr 24, 2024 at 5:26 AM Post #3 of 429
170HA Empyrean.jpg


170HA K1000 02.jpg
 
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Cayin Stay updated on Cayin at their sponsor profile on Head-Fi.
 
http://en.cayin.cn/
Apr 24, 2024 at 6:02 AM Post #4 of 429
Soul 170HA Tube Glow.JPG

Cayin will debut a new Headphone/Speaker Amplifier at Munich High End 2024. The Soul 170HA, as the name implies, is part of our Soul amplifier series, and it will use the KT170 vacuum tube as the power output tube.

While Headfiers probably are unfamiliar with the Tungsol KT170 vacuum tube, it was one of the biggest news in the HiFi vacuum tube community in the past 5 years. Due to the success of the KT120 and KT150 tubes and the popularity of these tubes with High-End Audio manufacturers, Tung-Sol announced the KT170 tube to provide a beam tetrode with even more power and higher specification in November 2020. Cayin was honored to work with Tung-Sol and became one of their off-site test center during the development stage, and we gained first-hand experience with the KT170 before the official announcement. We debuted our first all-new designed KT170 integrated amplifier in a domestic HiFi show back in May 2021, and
introduced the Soul 170i integrated speaker amplifier, and rolled out the Soul 170i integrated amplifier with 4xKT170 later that year. At our 30th anniversary, we have introduced the Pearl 30i, with 8x KT170, as the benchmark amplifier for our 30 years of track record in vacuum tube audio.

The Soul 170HA is the first-ever Headphone amplifier designed around the KT170 vacuum tube, we know this is going to be a big hit to the Personal Audio community so we have kept this amplifier away from press radar, which is not an easy task since we have a lot of press visitation during the 30th anniversary month. We will ship out the final Engineering prototype to the Munich High-End (9-12, May 2024) later this week, after we complete the photo shoot. The Soul 170HA will be a huge integrated amplifier even by speaker amplifier standard, it will be priced above the HA-300MK2. I don't have a lot to share at this point, for obvious reasons but we shall provide more details and product photos on 9th May, right before the Munich Show.

If you are interested in finding out more about Cayin's KT170 amplifiers while you are waiting, please check out the Soul 170i YouTube review by Thomas, a renowned audio reviewer of The Absolute Sound and HiFi+.
Wow!!! This is exciting news.
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 6:48 AM Post #5 of 429
Wow you took my request directly. I mentioned "make it a headamp" in some facebook post of the Soul 170i and you did.

I'll be there at munich high end, to give it a listen. Any chance to meet you personally @Andykong ?
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 9:18 AM Post #6 of 429
Wow you took my request directly. I mentioned "make it a headamp" in some facebook post of the Soul 170i and you did.

I'll be there at munich high end, to give it a listen. Any chance to meet you personally @Andykong ?

That was in the N30LE thread (HERE). I did consider quoting you when I started this thread, so I tracked down your request, and my initial writing was "but he doesn't know we have a prototype that we keep away from his radar" :sweat_smile:
 
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Apr 24, 2024 at 9:35 AM Post #7 of 429
Wonder if these will make other tube manufacturers to start developing their own KT170s... one can hope!
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 10:36 AM Post #8 of 429
That was in the N30LE thread (HERE). I did consider quoting you when I started this thread, so I tracked down your request, and my initial writing was "but he doesn't know we have a prototype that we keep away from his radar" :sweat_smile:
Exactly that post was what I meant. :)
Wonder if these will make other tube manufacturers to start developing their own KT170s... one can hope!
PSVane just released their KT150, I assume they are also working on a KT170.

Overall there is very little of New developments here though
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 11:48 AM Post #9 of 429
Exactly that post was what I meant. :)

PSVane just released their KT150, I assume they are also working on a KT170.

Overall there is very little of New developments here though
Always good to have more options, especially some that aren’t coming out of Russia.

Are all KT-series tubes interchangeable? Could you use KT66/88/90/120/etc tubes in this?
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 12:10 PM Post #10 of 429
Looking forward to a demo at socal
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 12:57 PM Post #11 of 429
Looks like a great room heater, which a good tube amp should be!
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 1:23 PM Post #12 of 429
I really wonder wether the price will be closer to a Feliks Envy, which is already over the Ha-300 Mk2 or closer to the Pearl i30 at 22.000€
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 1:26 PM Post #13 of 429
I really wonder wether the price will be closer to a Feliks Envy, which is already over the Ha-300 Mk2 or closer to the Pearl i30 at 22.000€
I would doubt it would be that high. I would think 5 to 6 thousand but there are many variables, obviously.
 
Apr 24, 2024 at 2:28 PM Post #14 of 429
Hmmm....intresting.
 
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Apr 24, 2024 at 2:31 PM Post #15 of 429

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