Enigmacoustics Athena A1

Single-Ended Triode Vacuum Tube
Hybrid Headphone Amplifier

Truth to the Source

The Athena A1 is an audiophile’s dream. From its three dimensional soundstage to its ability to faithfully articulate voices and instruments, to separate and fix them in space, the Athena A1 is an engaging and musical headphone amplifier.

Designed by a virtuoso engineering team, it is the first headphone amplifier from ENIGMAcoustics. It is also represents the culmination of an exhaustive design effort, hundreds of hours of listening, miles of response curves, and carefully selected parts.

Driven in pure Class-A mode, the premium grade Genalex Gold Lion ECC82/B749 tubes – chosen for their sonic purity and low noise – provides the foundation for Athena A1’s single-ended front end. A full wave rectifier is followed by LC smoothing filter with huge and powerful audio grade capacitor. The Class-A MOS/BJT hybrid output stage is extremely solid and robust (only the renowned BJT is considered) and it is a great complement to the single-ended triode front end. Together, they render music that flourishes with all the harmonic hues of live music.

The output stage exhibits extremely low output impedance, which ensures compatibility with low impedance headphones; and its high output voltage swing also allows Athena A1 to effortlessly drive high impedance headphones as well.

Elegantly presented, the Athena A1 features a strikingly attractive visual design, glass exterior, and state of the art construction. This innovative and bewitchingly musical vacuum tube headphone amplifier may well have re-written the book on SET (Single-Ended Triode) design.