"Breeze" headphone amp

I just got a "Breeze" headphone amplifier, apparently based on the Audio Technica HA5000.



It is connected to the RCA out of my preamp wich is connected to a Oppo UDP-205



What do I think? Well, I have just started seriously listening to it and I am deeply impressed, especially considering they are almost giving this away, it cost me $110 delivered. Crazy, there is no way you can buy the parts that went into this for anything near that...
What have I compared it to? The headphone output of my Oppo UDP-205, which according to Oppo: "The headphone amplifier is connected directly to the ESS SABRE PRO DAC and offers a unique performance advantage over standalone headphone amplifiers. Compared to the built-in headphone amplifier in our previous generation BDP-105/105D players, the new design offers more power and higher performance." https://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-udp-205/
Well, whoop dee doo, it completely destroys the Oppo headphone output. The Oppo out sounds polite, a bit strained with some glare compared to be Breeze.

I have always taken a minimalistic approach to hifi, believing that less is normally more. I never would have thought that going through 2 pairs of interconnectes, a preamp and a separate amp would sound better than something that is connected directly to the DAC chip. Well, I have learned that more is sometimes more. In this case, much more.

I have never been 100% happy with my Sennheiser HD-600s. My take on them was nice, polite but a little veiled. Well, today i like my Sennheisers much more .

 

Hi there, I was looking for a review of this amp and came across your post. Would you be able to make more comparisons with respect to some of the other popular amplifiers out there such as Topping, Violectric, Singxer SA-1, etc ?

 

Glad you like the amp! I can't help but believe the Breeze Audio amp offers good performance per dollar. Probably 10+ years ago I was piecing my first serious computer audio rig setup together (finally branching away from CD's) and I happened to buy this little guy:






Just a run of the mill cheap Chi-Fi DDC, USB -> SPDIF for me, never messed much with any of the other outputs. But for the $50 some odd dollars this thing cost me it's actually kind of silly good, imho. No, it's not last word detail, but for $50??? I can't complain. And you might be able to slip it back into my rig without me noticing too much. Some day it will be gifted to a worthy budding audiophile in need of some financial help along with my ancient Oritek modded Zhaolu (don't start, haha, I know this was a mistake) and Douk Audio U3 class A amp. That's one heck of a free starter rig for someone just trying to taste what hi-fi has to offer, imo.