Cayin C9 Portable HeadAmp
C9 is probably the most sophisticated portable headphone amplifier for both earphones and headphones in the market. Cayin firmly believes that when the amplifier excels in control and equipped with appropriate volume management, there is no such thing as over-powered. Even IEMs will perform at a different level when we have ample power. Unfortunately, from what we observed, most, if not all, high-end headphone amplifiers are designed with full-size headphones in mind, portable amplifiers are mostly DAC/Amp with emphasis on digital audio technologies. Given the rapid development of high-end IEMs in recent years, Cayin believes there is a market for the ultimate portable headphone amplifier that can bring out the best of these high-end IEMs, especially when they are equipped with demanding dynamic, planar magnetic, and/or EST drivers, and yet versatile enough to cover a lot of full-size headphones in portable scenarios.
Tech Specs
- Fully balanced, fully discrete, 4-channels high-fidelity headphone amplifier delivers up to 4,100mW (at 16Ω) or 2600mW (at 32Ω) per channel.
- Select between Vacuum Tube and Solid State timber on both balanced and single-end inputs.
- The tube timber circuit is designed around a pair of KORG Nutube vacuum tubes.
- Switch between Pure Class A and Class AB amplification modes.
- Dual input mode: regular LINE input mode and PRE-amp input mode (or known as pure power amplifier mode).
- Supports 3.5mm SE and 4.4mm BAL for both input and output, the amplifier will also optimize BAL to SE or vice versa.
- 4-channels ALPS potentiometer with a pair of stereo electronic volume.
- Removable battery module with 4x user replaceable Sony18650 rechargeable lithium batteries.