Medousa
A fully-balanced
hybrid headphone amplifier
Whether it be the pleasure of revisiting old recordings or the bliss of letting yourself go to the strums of rock, Medusa is the go-to amplifier when the urge to rediscover and reconnect with your music takes over your system.
Crafted in a sleek stainless steel chassis and artificially aged wooden sides, Medousa is elegant at first glance. However, its true sophistication lies on the inside.
Medousa contains a gain stage, including a high-quality double triode valve tube, which can be upgraded to an even more sophisticated equivalent if you wish. The gain stage is being followed by a solid-state current buffer. Moreover, four mono-block modules maximize the symmetry between all four of its channels. As in all our amplifiers, Medousa adapts to the load whether you use low or high-impedance headphones. That is to say, that power remains almost the same.
Additionally, thanks to Medousa’s linearity that reaches way over the hearing range, your music will have depth and will be transformed into a fresher, vibrant sound.
Furthermore, while optimal performance comes from using the amplifier in a fully-balanced mode, the versatility of Medousa allows you to use an unbalanced input and/or output, according to your needs.
3500 EUR
- Headphone impedance: 8-600 ohm
- Frequency response: 3 Hz-145 kHz, -1dB
- Output power (per channel): 335 mW (8 ohm), 326 mW (600 ohm)
- Power consumption: 17 W
- Power supply input voltage: 230 V/50 Hz or 115 V/60 Hz
- Dimensions (W x H x D): 300 mm x 110 mm x 335 mm
- Weight: 4800 g
- Character: Deep, wide and fun, slightly bright
Tube-based amplifiers never appealed to me. They sounded too creamy or even muddy; unsuitable for precise reproduction. Of course, they had their own vintage charm, but they simply were never for me. Balanced amplifiers had a similar effect. Sure, people raved about them but they never fully guaranteed a superior sound quality. These amplifier types were simply, two individually “meh” methods in a sea of various approaches.
So I challenged myself: What if I combine these two techniques together? What if I,
- used tubes in the faster SRPP mode rather than the standard class-A mode?
- made the amplifier hybrid, where a solid-state current buffer is used at the output instead of a transformer for a faster, more linear process and more adaptive to different loads?
- made it a completely balanced set-up with balanced input, balanced architecture, and balanced output?
The result completely surprised me. I had discovered an incredible outcome – a successful combination of all the benefits of “tube” and “balanced” amplifiers in a single, efficient system.
