Clone Audio Technica Class A AT-HA5000 FET Transistor Headphone Amplifier

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I'm looking to get the Breeze Audio HA5000 for my son to power Sennheiser HD58X Jubilees (essentially HD600). I've had good experience with a Breeze Audio tube kit in the past.
Breeze Audio HA5000 Pure Class A Hi fi Headphone Amplifier Portable Professional Amplificador Stereo AMP Audio Amplifiers-in Headphone Amplifier from Consumer Electronics on AliExpress - 11.11_Double 11_Singles' Day

This ARCAM Class A knockoff looks tempting too, and is also produced by Breeze Audio:
Finished E50 Silver Class A Headphone Amplifier HiFi Power Amp Based on ARCAM circuit-in Headphone Amplifier from Consumer Electronics on AliExpress - 11.11_Double 11_Singles' Day

I've also read good things about the JLH Hood 1969 design, though this knock off seems to have poorer parts quality than the two above:
Finished HIFI JLH HOOD1969 Single ended Class A Headphone amplifier 115V or 230V-in Headphone Amplifier from Consumer Electronics on AliExpress - 11.11_Double 11_Singles' Day
 
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That Breeze looks like a great deal for $100 shipping included. Just the case,power transformer, jacks, etc will cost you that much. From the OP's and others who have tried this amp it looks like a solid value. Someone should measure the output FFT and THD driving say 1Vpp or 2Vpp into a 50ohm load or 32ohm load.

Howto - Distortion Measurements with REW
 
All three links I gave are for Breeze Audio units. Do you mean the HA5000 clone, the Arcam clone, or the JLH 1969 clone?

I think I'm going to spring for this HA5000 clone in black. The photos here show a little more heatsinking (in addition to the main transistors which are sinked to the chassis) and Aliexpress has a 2 day sale starting tomorrow morning, which brings the price to $100 including US shipping.
Suitable for listening to music for a long time HA5000 pure Class A audio Professional headphone amplifier-in Headphone Amplifier from Consumer Electronics on AliExpress - 11.11_Double 11_Singles' Day
 
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The HA5000 first link. I am sure it works and sounds fine but if you did not like it, just the case, trafo and all the ancillirary stuff makes it an ideal chassis to install your own HPA. If you are looking for something that sounds great - there is a very nice all DC-coupled low distortion, but nice harmonic profile amp designed by TimS that I adapted. It uses 6 discretes (4 JFETS, 1 BJT, and 2 MOSFETs for the outputs).

It would actually fit perfectly in the space taken by the HA5000 and be able to use the same PSU. You can use the linear trafo as long as you have +/-15v to +/-18v.
 
Thanks XRK, your design looks really nice. I ordered the HA5000 clone, so will see how it works out! (Aliexpress has 2 day sale right now.)

I would be careful about buying anything on Ali Express. I have seen the Breeze Audio name on other products but anyone in China can use this name and build their own version, as they don't care about infringement. So you might not get the same quality. Bought mine on ebay as all comments were postive. I checked inside and sound quality is good but who knows if components inside are not fake name brands. Would like to see some measurements.
 
I would be careful about buying anything on Ali Express. I have seen the Breeze Audio name on other products but anyone in China can use this name and build their own version, as they don't care about infringement. So you might not get the same quality. Bought mine on ebay as all comments were postive. I checked inside and sound quality is good but who knows if components inside are not fake name brands. Would like to see some measurements.
Thanks for the heads up! I did not consider that there might be clones of the clone LOL. Just to be safe I canceled that order and instead ordered from the Breeze Audio storefront.
Imitation to Japanese HA5000 pure Class A headphone audio amplifier AC110V/220V Optional-in Amplifier from Consumer Electronics on AliExpress - 11.11_Double 11_Singles' Day
Cost is slightly less -- the only reason I didn't order here in the first place is that the Breeze Audio photos don't show the extra heatsinks near the filter caps, as seen on the "Music KTV Electronic Store" photos attached.
 

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AliExpress is fine for ordering clones. Many vendors sell the same clones. There is buyer protection with AliExpress - when you receive an item, if it doesn’t match the description file a dispute before “accepting” it. They always resolve issues to my satisfaction. I have ordered hundreds of items over past 6 years and maybe 5 disputes. But to be sure, you are getting no name items branded with similar names line Breeze or ZeroZone etc.
 
AliExpress is fine for ordering clones. Many vendors sell the same clones. There is buyer protection with AliExpress - when you receive an item, if it doesn’t match the description file a dispute before “accepting” it. They always resolve issues to my satisfaction. I have ordered hundreds of items over past 6 years and maybe 5 disputes. But to be sure, you are getting no name items branded with similar names line Breeze or ZeroZone etc.

I've used AliExpress before and have some degree of confidence in the system. But yeah I guess:

  1. there's no guarantee that the Breeze Audio store has anything to do with products branded Breeze Audio
  2. nor is there any guarantee that the team that creates one Breeze-branded item has anything to do with the team that creates another one
  3. even worse is the implication that a Breeze-branded item might be an identical-looking copy created by an entirely different team than the "original" designer -- but with crappier parts etc. This is a major deterrent to buying merchandise from China in general
  4. finally, based on the reviews I've seen it is pretty common that the item you receive will vary from the photos provided by the storefront
In this case I haven't seen this amp branded other than Breeze, but it is sold at numerous storefronts and photos of the layout vary slightly. I am hoping the variation is due to changes by the same manufacturer and that I am getting the more recent version, but maybe that is wishful thinking!
 
Quick review of the Breeze Audio HA5000 clone purchased from the Aliexpress Breeze Audio store...

The order arrived 8 or 9 days after placing the order. The amp was shrinkwrapped and then wrapped in bubble wrap. The black finish looks great, no scratches or chips.

I did not open the chassis to check whether this was the version with the additional heatsinking.

The amp runs surprisingly cool. You can just barely feel the underside getting warm where the output transistors are sinked to the chassis. This makes me a little suspicious of the Class A claims, and I wonder if there is an adjustment to increase the bias voltage...

Using Sennheiser HD580 headphones, 300 ohm impedance, the amp is dead quiet even at maximum volume -- no hum or hiss at all. Volume level at 12:00 was sufficient with most sources and full volume gain provided unhealthy levels to my ears. Potentiometer tracking was fine, the image was stable as I turned the knob from the lowest level to the highest level.

The sound quality seemed to give a clear view of the recording: I was able to discern how various recordings were mastered differently in their attention to soundstage width, frequency balance, etc. The absence of added distortion or hum/hiss let me hear when guitar amps were switched on, subtle add-on percussion, vocal layering. Being a Class A amp I was expecting more dynamics, but did not notice more "jump factor" than my Class AB amp otherwise provides. Frequency extremes were well presented, with sibilance neither accentuated nor reduced.

My original concern was over sound quality, since as noted earlier there's little guarantee about parts quality or circuit implementation. But I was happy with the sound and the professional presentation and was left with a confident feeling about this unit.
 
I did some more listening to the Breeze Audio amp, this time using Sennheiser HD-598SE headphones. These have 50 ohm impedance, 6x lower than the HD-580.

The underside of the chassis got a little warmer with these phones in place of the HD-580's, though still nowhere near "hot". I have another small Class A headphone amp (Audio Alchemy V1.0) which melted its rubber feet off the first year I owned it!

Due to the HD598's increased sensitivity the comfort range for the volume knob was from about 10:00 o'clock to 2:00 o'clock depending on the recording. In contrast I found myself in the 12:00 to 4:00 range using the HD580's.

(NOTE: I believe this amp has internal dip switches to adjust sensitivity for different headphone types. I have not opened it up so I'm not sure whether it is set for low impedance or high impedance phones. I'm giving the amp to my son who uses 150 ohm headphones so the default gain setting should be fine.)

With the HD598's lower impedance/higher sensitivity, I can just discern volume control tracking error with the knob at the very bottom of its range, where the music is barely audible.

Also the HD598's higher sensitivity allows me to hear a very slight hum in the top of the volume range, around the 5:00 o'clock setting. I have not found any recordings that would be comfortable to listen to past the 2:00 setting so this is not an issue.

Sound quality with the HD598 headphones was as described above for the HD580's: good clarity, accurate low bass and high treble without emphasis. Any sound quality limitations I heard were due to the original recording and not due to the amp.
 
I'm glad you experimented with more sensitive headphones.

The noise you can hear may be due to the proximity of the transformer. For the photos I have seen, it´s right next to the RCA (very bad place) and also very close to the output transistors.

I see some selectors on the board but I don't know what they are for. The original design does not have them.
 
I read your review of the Breeze Audio HA5000 clone with strong interest. I have the Sennheiser HD-600 and HD-598. The HD-580/600/650 is the best selling series by Sennheiser and ranked very high by high end reviewers. The HD-598 is the best value over the ear phone by Sennheiser in my opinion. Its high sensitivity allows it to be driven by portable device, but a dedicated headamp will bring the best out of it.

I like my headphone and headlamp combo to have a tight bass, neutral frequency and, most importantly, a sound stage in front of me with depth instead of "inside the head".

A class A headphone amplifier will run pretty warm in idle and even warmer driving the HD-580. Breeze Audio may have turned down the bias current to make their product more reliable at the expenses of sound quality. Nothing fundamentally wrong in running a headphone amp in Class AB mode. If possible, biasing it to Class A mode can have significant improvement in sound.

Based on the pictures that NTSBuilding posted, there are 2 trim pots per channel, one for zeroing output DC and one for bias tuning. Breeze Audio is pretty good in their after sales support. Write them for instruction. Ricotjuh has built the ZeroZone clone. You may ask him for help too.

I did some more listening to the Breeze Audio amp, this time using Sennheiser HD-598SE headphones. These have 50 ohm impedance, 6x lower than the HD-580.

The underside of the chassis got a little warmer with these phones in place of the HD-580's, though still nowhere near "hot". I have another small Class A headphone amp (Audio Alchemy V1.0) which melted its rubber feet off the first year I owned it!

Due to the HD598's increased sensitivity the comfort range for the volume knob was from about 10:00 o'clock to 2:00 o'clock depending on the recording. In contrast I found myself in the 12:00 to 4:00 range using the HD580's.

(NOTE: I believe this amp has internal dip switches to adjust sensitivity for different headphone types. I have not opened it up so I'm not sure whether it is set for low impedance or high impedance phones. I'm giving the amp to my son who uses 150 ohm headphones so the default gain setting should be fine.)

With the HD598's lower impedance/higher sensitivity, I can just discern volume control tracking error with the knob at the very bottom of its range, where the music is barely audible.

Also the HD598's higher sensitivity allows me to hear a very slight hum in the top of the volume range, around the 5:00 o'clock setting. I have not found any recordings that would be comfortable to listen to past the 2:00 setting so this is not an issue.

Sound quality with the HD598 headphones was as described above for the HD580's: good clarity, accurate low bass and high treble without emphasis. Any sound quality limitations I heard were due to the original recording and not due to the amp.
 
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The dips with settings are “on” for 600ohm headphones, according to one seller.
Like other audio power amplifier, the HA5K clone is a constant voltage device. Low impedance loads draws more power at the same volume position and the control must be turned down. Set it to lower gain can improve the subjective S/N. Based on the S/N spec, the lower gain setting is 6 db. No information on the higher gain setting. The original HA5K gain is 15 db.
 
So how does this board compare to the original circuit?

Still looking for something that’s as good as the Weiliang E5 I have.
The Breeze Audio HA5K clone and the Weiliang E5 are very, very similar in topology. The device selection (quality) and bias setup will determine how they sound. Both should sound very good when biased to Class A mode.

No one has the original Audio Technica HA-5000 circuit schematics nor the service manual. It is hard to tell.
 
Thanks, I have some schematics that I had found on the various ha5000 threads, and it does appear that they are all nearly exactly the same. There’s even one that I’ve labeled “original”, would have to dig through the threads again and try to find out how I made that assumption.
I will dig out my E5 schematic and see how it compares in the interim.
 
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