Rupert Neve Designs RNHP Stereo Precision Headphone Amplifier

I replaced another headphone amp purpose built for the Meze 99 classic headphones and it was a brilliant move. The old amp vocal clarity and the high end was mush. The Neve is crystal clear; the vocals are transcendent, and the bass has lots of whoomph. I'm using the Neve amp with wired Focal Celestee, Meze 99, and Sony 1000 XM5 Bluetooth or wired headphones. My sources are a McIntosh MVP 861 CD player and steaming from a Node 2i. The McIntosh is hooked up via L/R XLR balanced cables and the Node is connected via L/R RCA cables. When I stream from the Node using Tidal, the streamed music uses the Node DAC. A better external DAC may be my next upgrade. I appreciate the simplicity of the Neve and if you have McIntosh gear, the green light from the Neve blends in like an old, familiar buddy. It could use a dimmer for that light. The Neve defaults to the “A” output when you power it off and then power it on again. Some users report that this amp is unattractive. That’s not an issue for me - it’s all about performance for me. I appreciate the Rupert Neve heritage - Neve was the inventor of the audio mixing board. Google him for his full story - it's legendary in the music biz. For the price, the Neve is a brilliant piece of sonic engineering that rivals' amps that costs 6 times as much. Hope that helps!

Decent for the price range. I still think if you can snag an Alex Cavalli Liquid Platinum on sale and swap the tubes for a Genalex Gold Lions, then that combo will smash this both in terms of quality, punch and musicality. Liquid Platinum is available on sale sometimes at 499$. Genalex gold for 150$...I would say go for it.

First, I am an audiophile, composer, musician, and armchair recording engineer. I fully appreciate the fine details of great audio. This amp has changed my life! For years I've been listening through my Sony 7506 headphones directly from my computer, or through a Focusrite Scarlett Solo. I figured these were of high enough quality that I didn't think twice about it. I'm 66 years old and figured my ears were not as great as they used to be. No matter what I listened to, I could hear and cringe at the shrill high frequencies. I got used to it and simply kept the volume down. I decided to see what a really good headphone amp would do. Maybe it wouldn't change a thing. Well, I got this Neve today and cannot believe my ears! The shrill is completely gone, and I can crank it up, no problem! It is so weird because I still prepare to cringe at the usual spots, and the shrill never comes! It'll take time to lose that reflex. The warmth is amazing, like a tube amp! My ears are fine, thank you! I love this thing! I can easily tell the difference in audio quality between various recordings. I'm going through a lot of DVDs and listening to my favorite music like I've never heard before! I may even upgrade my headphones to Sennheisers. Why not! My ears and new amp deserve it!

Neve quality and sound for your headphones, like plugging into a Neve console! I use DT880 Pros (250 ohm), and love the sound. But be forewarned, this unit is about sound quality, not brute volume. At normal line level input I need to nearly max out the volume on the RNHP to push my 880's. The good news is that the Neve design can handle the input- so if you push more into it, you will get more volume out of it. I recommend this unit 100%

If you don't know what's behind the name Rupert Neve - do an internet search. These are pros doing pro gear and many of the recordings you own were produced with their technology in the game. This little headphone amp lives up to the legendary reputation of the company and its more-than-iconic founder. I own headphone amps from McIntosh and Stax that are more than 10x the price and I LOVE the sound of this amp. One of my favorite pairings: this amp and a pair of Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro 250 Ohm. And if I could I would give a sixth star for customer service I would: my unit developed a distortion issue shortly before the warranty expired. I contacted Rupert Neve, sent the device in, and their service was excellent. Turned out the issue was a minor one: the amp was ok, but the power supply had an issue. They kept the amp on the test bench for over a week to make sure there's no other issue, informed me via email (written by a human) on every step along the way and finally sent me the amp back with a new power supply. You won't find anything better in this price range (and in MUCH higher ranges). It's as simple as that.

Lovely amp, but Headphones into my MacBook sound better than a 3.5mm trs canare cable from the MacBook out to the input on the Neve Amp. I don't know why. Im using Meze 105 headphones, too. I don't need it for that, though. It's for a home studio and does great in that scenario.

Punch line: the amp is truly great with my beyerdynamic Amiron at 250 Ohms and signal coming from Fiio M11. The sound is very well described by other reviewers, especially "Aaron Ott". Headroom, detail, power, soundstage. My intention has been to improve on Fiio M11's internal amp for these 250 Ohm headphones. When connected to Fiio w/ standard 3.5mm cable the power just wasn't there. The experience was improved with special audiophile cable from beyerdynamic (OCC copper, made in Korea) -- balanced. But still I suspected a dedicated amp would work better. My first experience with RNHP was not all that great and I seriously considered returning it. The only reasonable cable I had at home was Audioquest Big Sur 3.5mm to RCA -- to input 'B' of RNHP. Even using LineOut from Fiio, the result was rather poor -- worse than with the aforementioned balanced cable straight from the Fiio. Disappointed, I tried another configuration just to test the RNHP, this time balanced cabling from RME ADI-2 DAC. Better but still not convincing: the idea was to use RNHP for Fiio, in a different room, not with the RME DAC; that DAC already has a great headphone amp. What finally worked was a very short 3.5mm aux cable marketed by Fiio, made from OCC by Oyaide in Japan, connecting 3.5mm single-ended out from Fiio to RNHP's 'C' input. Finally I got the sound described by other positive reviews here and the amp is a keeper. I got this positive experience of "these headphones never sounded better" and "I never heard this piece of music so well." But I have to agree with the non-raving reviewers on ergonomics. Rather annoying to have to unplug headphones for powering up/down. Looks: acquired taste but I wouldn't mind less DIY esthetics. And crazy bright LEDs behind input selector buttons: you'll need to cover them with something to listen in darkness; I think one can easily read by this light. I am wondering if I can open up the device to remove the LEDs. It's a shame that such a great sounding amp would still have these easily fixable deficiencies. Still a keeper for the sound at the reasonable price.

If you were wondering, as I was, if Amps could get much better than the THX AAA offerings (I own the AAA 887 and SP200) then this is definitely the amp to check out. To put it simply, I was not expecting much of an improvement... if any at all, but I was curious to try it out. Long-story short, it completely subverted my expectations. The only caveat I would mention is it's power output rating is quite low in comparison, only pushing out a quarter of a watt at 44 ohms. However... that power gap narrows considerably with 300 ohm and 600 ohm headphones... putting it pretty much neck to neck with the THX amps in terms of power output. The only area you may REALLY have an issue is with very hard to drive planars, otherwise you'll probably be fine. For me personally... I've decided to sell off both THX amps and just live with this one for the time being. In my opinion, despite giving it a generally positive review, Zeos undersold this amp. It's just really fantastic and an absolute bargain at the $500 price point, given the sound quality.