Graham Slee NOVO Headphone Amplifier

Novo Headphone Amplifier Scores Hat-Trick

Because the budget Novo headphone amplifier has a delightfully lively sound What Hi-Fi? Sound & Vision gave it a best headphone amplifier award three years in a row - this is a hi-fi amplifier for headphones!

As reviewed, the little Novo is supplied with an outboard basic power supply which automatically adjusts to your electricity supply voltage, but it can be upgraded later on by swapping to the PSU1 power supply (see Power Supplies).
 

Specification Reviews

Discretely Inspired

Discrete? Surely we meant to say discreet?

The Novo is both: it's discreetly small - a definite miniature in a world full of behemoths; and it's discrete because that's the circuitry it uses - discrete transistors.

Discrete transistors? Yes, you heard right! Most budget headphone amplifiers let an op-amp do all the work. We wanted to show that we're capable of more than that.

The result is a very capable headphone amplifier, so capable that headphone manufacturer Shure bought some and Sennheiser featured it in a promotional video driving its flagship headphone.

You may never have heard of the Novo headphone amplifier before today, but now you have. It's definitely worth your consideration if you're after a budget headphone amp - a hi-fi amp for headphones!

Novo rear panel 'daisy-chained' input/output sockets plus aux ground

Basic outboard power supply