General Information While I am not a professional reviewer I had my share of equipments I lived with. First with speaker system then I swithed to headphones a couple of years back. I had a lot great systems. Like the Raal SR1b/VM1-a/Star 8 combo, or a full Aires Cerat system (Heléne+Genus) with the 1266TC (incl. Superconductor cable) but I always had my heart at Grado. No matter what I tried, how high I jumped I just never found a better emotional communicator (in headphones) as Grado. So, after all the experimentation where I sampled (meaning...

General Information The Verum 1 (mk2) was an impulse buy back in March...I got them 2 weeks ago (end of July). I did not heard them before, I decided to try them out based on some of the reviews. As usual, before I dive in, a bit of backrgound and playground The system in which the Verum 1 (mk2) is used: - A special headless audio PC with analogue PSU, oven controlled XCO, Paul Pang USB card. On the software side it runs audiolinux with Roon. At present it functions just as a server, it is physically and electrically separated from the rest of the...

General Information I would like to be clear right at the start, the while I met several times with the man behind TMP I am in no way associated with the manufacture, I have no interest in selling their products and I paid for this item full price. That being said, TMP is a small Hungarian manufacture. One unique point is the so called "direct tube drive" circuit. All the products (DA converters, integrated amplifiers, phono equalizers and headphone amps) makes use of it. A small tube drives a FET output stage, but in a rather unconventional way. I...

I fell into the Grado hole with the HEMP. Therefore this review will be a bit of a comparison too. A bit of backrgound and playground The system in which the HP2i is used: - A special headless audio PC with analogue PSU, oven controlled XCO, Paul Pang USB card. On the software side it runs audiolinux with Roon and HQPlayer embedded - Aqua LaScala Mk2 Optologic with "yellow T" Brimar tubes - TMP Ant, a Hungarian made hybrid amp. My version has an external PSU and the best available parts, like Silver Mundorf condensators, TKD potentiometer...