The Peregrine Part 1

Is the Peregrine the perfect headphone amp? NO! So why should you get one?
First, no amp will satisfy everyone. Don’t expect any amp to make a poor source or headphones sound great. It’s just not going to happen. What an amp will do is provide the extra power to drive your headphones properly. By doing so you will get the best performance out of the equipment you have. The Peregrine includes features such as two switches for impedance matching. Impedance matching……What’s that? The Peregrine employs what I call “Safety first” design. Most all tube amplifiers use high voltage that is typically greater than 300Vdc. OTL (Output Transformer-Less) designs use an output capacitor to isolate you from these high voltages. Most other designs that do use an output transformer have the primary side of the transformer connected directly to the high voltage. In both cases a single component failure can result in high voltage directly at the output. The Peregrine uses output capacitors and toroidal output transformers. The result is that NO SINGLE COMPONENT failure can put high voltage on the output. These transformers provide isolation and efficiently transfer power from the output tubes to the headphones. The two switches allow you to change the turns ratio and output resistance in order to get the maximum performance out of your headphones. So, if your headphones are 32 ohms or 600 ohms, you will find a setting to get maximum performance out of them. Maximum performance is NOT ear-bleeding sound levels. The Peregrine will drive most headphones well past the sound level that anyone should listen. Maximum performance has much more to do with the level of detail and sound stage of the music.