Woo WA5-LE

[George Prentice]

I have been a long time Woo owner, WA6, then WA6-SE for about ten years. I read about the Focal Utopia headphones, but was concerned that my equipment was not up to the task. I went ahead anyway. I was very happy with the result. The Focal are fast with much better bass and really blow away my older headphones. I still like my Beyerdynamic T1s, but they are at a different level of performance. Well, you know how this goes... since I got such an improvement from contemporary headphones, what would happen if I upgraded my Woo Amp? I was concerned that I was already at such a high level of performance that the $5K wouldn’t be worth the small incremental improvement. As you all know high end gear requires break-in... I don’t have to wait for days to pass to conclude the upgrade is absolutely worth it. The upgrade was not remotely subtile . The improvement is somewhat like moving from a thin un-amplified source to a dedicated amplifier. The WA6-SE sounds thin across the spectrum in comparison. I guess this is how a pursuit can stay intriguing for a lifetime. Oh no... now there are about $4K of possible tube upgrades... but how could that possibly be significant when the amp is already operating at such a high level? Hmmm, guess audiophilia is why it is called a disease.