With the "HPA V202" and the "HPA V222", the German company now offers two new models, with either balanced or unbalanced amplifier setups. The smaller Violectric HPA V202 has connections for headphones via 6.3mm jack or 4.3mm Pentaconn (unbalanced).
The HPA V222 has a fully balanced output stage with four output stage circuits. Thus, it is supposed to be able to drive balanced wired headphones with perfect electrical signal separation. For this purpose, it has both a balanced 4-pin XLR jack and a 4.3mm pentaconn connector located on the front panel. An additional 6.3mm jack drives classic, unbalanced headphones. Both headphone amplifiers can also be employed as a preamplifier.
Volume control is provided by a high-quality RK27 potentiometer, which the user can precisely control via an all-aluminum knob on the front. The pre-gain circuitry allows for the amplifier stages to be precisely matched to the headphone model. This aims to guarantee an optimal working range of the volume control and amplifier stages even for headphones with particularly high or particularly low efficiency, as the manufacturer promises. In addition, the output stages are supposed to enable optimal adjustment even if the connected headphones have more exotic parameters.
The Violectric HPA V202 and HPA V222 are said to be available from the end of October 2022*. The price is expected to be around €900* for the HPA V202 and around €1200 for the HPA V222.
*Availability and prices for Germany.