Class A, zero loop feedback headphone amp

Made by: Lehmann Audio

Supplied by: Henley Designs

HEADPHONE AMP
Tel: 01235 511166
www.headphone-amplifier.com

Lehmann BC Linear (£650)

Specialising in diminutive high-end hi-fi, Lehmann makes preamps, small power
amplifiers, phono stages and a rather special ‘Black Cube’ headphone amp
Review: Keith Howard Lab: Paul Miller

M
y very first hi-fi system a first-class sound source, and a first-class a headphone jack is inserted; and a
featured headphones headphone amplifier. On the face of it, volume control. Finish of the fascia plate
rather than loudspeakers, the latter shouldn’t be too difficult to and volume knob is optionally either
since when I’ve had a realise. After all, the headphone amp’s black or silver.
love-hate relationship with cans of more life is easy-peasy compared to that of Unusually, the Black Cube also has
varieties than Heinz. If you believe the the loudspeaker amplifier’s. Headphones three switchable gain settings with
propaganda that the last great barrier – even the lower impedance types – 10dB increments, selected via DIP
to wonderful sound is the listening room present a much easier load than the vast switches on the underside of the unit.
– which I don’t – then the headphone majority of loudspeakers, and a mere These are provided to accommodate
ought to have a lot going for it. And volt or three of signal is usually sufficient headphones of different sensitivity; I
yes, indeed, you can hear things via to have them generate deafening sound used the highest-gain 0dB setting for my
headphones that aren’t readily apparent pressure levels. But that transducer listening. (Confusingly, the 10 and 20dB
via even the best loudspeakers. proximity effect comes into play again, settings have progressively lower gain.)
But it’s as if having the transducer so that headphone amplifiers are
that close to your ear makes all the
infidelities of reproduced music, and
just as influential on sound quality
as their larger brethren.
‘A time-capsule vision of
the system you’re using to deliver it, the
more obvious. So for optimum results ALL YOU NEED
a bucolic English idyll
with the best headphones you must use Lehmann Audio’s Black Cube Linear ploughed under by WW1’
headphone amplifier has been on
LOCAL & GLOBAL sale for over five years and in that time Other technical features include a Class
has garnered numerous enthusiastic A output stage, as you’d hope, and zero
Negative feedback is a very useful reviews. Despite its name it is slim, global negative feedback (see box-out).
circuit technique for flattening narrow and deep but incorporates all
frequency response, lowering you really need in a headphone amp: a HARD-WIRED
distortion, suppressing hum pair of input phonos, of course; a pair As soon as I started playing music
and noise, and reducing output of output phonos, so that it can be through the Black Cube it was obvious
impedance. But for many decades inserted in a preamp processor loop that it sounded very different to the
some designers have claimed that or between pre and power amps; two resident Musical Fidelity X-Can v8 when
applying too much of it harms sound paralleled quarter-inch output sockets, driving either of the headphones used
quality. So-called ‘zero feedback’ one of which cuts the output feed when for the listening – Sennheiser’s fine
designs are a result but, as Lehmann
Audio carefully states for the Black
Cube, this usually means zero global
or loop feedback. Local feedback,
within the circuit, is still
present.

LEFT: A high quality

volume control and two
0.25in headphone sockets grace the
diminutive fascia. The preamp gain may
be changed from 0dB to +10dB and +20dB via
switches on the base of the chassis

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 LAB
REPORT
LEHMANN AUDIO
BLACK CUBE LINEAR (£650)
You might think that any good line preamp would be equally
adept at driving a pair of headphones, but this is not always
the case. While a preamp can typically be assured of driving
a power amp with an input impedance of 20kohm or more,
many headphones present an impedance that’s far lower –
often down to 20ohm. So a headphone preamp needs a very
low output impedance if you’re not to experience a seriously
modified response with low impedance cans. At 5.9ohm (flat
from 20Hz-20kHz) the Black Cube Linear is low enough for all
but the most taxing of in-ear ’phones (which have been known
to drop to 7ohm). The amp’s native response [see graph 1,
below] is not as ruler flat as, say, PS Audio’s GCHA [HFN, July ’07]
which held true to within one-hundredth of a dB from 20kHz-
100kHz, but figures of –0.4dB/20kHz and –5.3dB/100kHz are
perfectly sensible.
Lehmann’s Black Cube Linear also scores with its fabulously
low distortion, just 0.0003% through bass and midrange and
rising to an insignificant 0.0025% at 20kHz [see graph 2,
below]. Noise is vanishingly low too, sufficient to raise an A-wtd
S/N ratio of 99dB in its +10dB gain mode. This is 20dB ahead of
the PS Audio amp tested two years ago! These figures, together
with its maximum output of 9V and input overload of 6.1V,
suggest the Black Cube Linear is as near a bomb-proof solution
ABOVE: Not two inputs but a combination of L/R stereo input and variable preamp as you’ll find. Readers are invited to view a comprehensive QC
output, controlled off the same volume control as the two front headphone sockets Suite test report for the Lehmann Black Cube Linear headphone
amp by navigating to www.hifinews.co.uk and clicking on the
red ‘download’ button. PM
new HD 800 (reviewed on page her hands over her ears at Paul
76) and my established budget Buckmaster’s searing, discordant
favourite, the Audio Technica strings which open and punctuate
ATH-AD700. Despite negligible this track. It was always one of
differences in their frequency the better sounding items on the
responses, the Black Cube album and is even better on the
consistently sounded warmer and SACD release [Island B0003607-
fuller-bodied. 36, CD layer].
Hilary Hahn’s violin tone on her
recording of Vaughan Williams’ FOOD FOR THOUGHT
lyrical The Lark Ascending [DG That angry hornets’ nest of an
00289 474 8732, CD layer] was opening should unsettle you
sumptuous and the orchestral with its anharmonic intensity ABOVE: Extended frequency response (black, 20Hz-
accompaniment rich and before the bitter lyric provides 100kHz) vs. output impedance (red, 20Hz-20kHz)
haunting, a time-capsule vision of reassurance that this really is Elton
a bucolic English idyll ploughed John and not Second Viennese
under by WW1. It was a sound School. Lehmann’s Black Cube
that drew you in and sustained its Linear handled the changing
emotional grasp. moods superbly, dishing up the
This hard-wiring to the human sweet and sour of this remarkable
core of the music was also very piece of early-’70s progressive
apparent on vocals, male and pop as if its experimentalism were
female. Eric Bibb’s heartfelt ‘I freshly minted.
Want Jesus To Walk With Me’
(from the Opus 3 Showcase HI-FI NEWS VERDICT
sampler SACD 2100, CD layer),
The Black Cube may look
for example, conveyed such ABOVE: Distortion versus extended frequency at 1V
unprepossessing but it’s a very
supplicant intensity – which Opus out from the headphone socket (+10dB gain setting)
fine headphone amplifier indeed.
3’s unadulterated recording does
It measures well and delivers
everything to preserve – that HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONS
unusually clear insight into
I happily set aside my staunch
the ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ aspects Maximum output level 9Vrms
atheism to share in the spiritual
of music making, not just the
experience. Output impedance 5.9ohm
‘what?’. All the hi-fi virtues are
Elton John’s ‘Sixty Years On’ – Input sensitivity (re. 0dBV) 329mV (+10dB gain setting)
there but it’s the manner in
from the eponymous Elton John
which the Black Cube draws you Input overload 6100mV
album – I’ve mentioned in these
into a musical performance that A-wtd S/N ratio (re. 0dBV) 99.0dB
pages before as a real surprise
marks it out from the crowd. A Frequency response (20Hz-100kHz) +0.0dB to –5.25dB
package for those who hear the
fine sound at a great price. Distortion (20Hz-20kHz, re. 0dBV) 0.00025–0.0025%
name and think of popularist pap
like ‘Rocket Man’ or ‘Candle In Sound Quality: 88% Power consumption 5W
The Wind’. My mum probably likes 0 - - - - - - - - 100 Dimensions (WHD) 118 x 52 x 315mm
both those songs but she’d clap

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