HA-L7A: Yamaha’s First Audiophile-Level Headphone Amplifier Announced

The amplifier has an interesting L-shaped design, with two toroidal transformers mounted on the main frame above the power supply board to minimise the power supply path. The power supply also has independent transformers for the minute-signal circuitry in the front stage as well as the amplifier section in the second stage.

The HA-L7A runs on the ESS ES9038PRO DAC chip, with a dedicated master clock and crystal oscillator with ultra-low phase noise. The chip has a built-in eight-channel D/A converter that applies four-channel conversion to the left and right sides. With an output of 1,000mW + 1,000mW, the amplifier is powerful enough to drive most premium headphones, in addition to Yamaha's new flagship YH-5000SE headphones.

Yamaha has also implemented its Floating and Balanced Power Amplifier technology here, optimising it for the headphone amplifier with four sets of output stage circuits floating above the ground. Headphones can be driven without alternating between balanced and unbalanced to avoid sound quality discrepancies from different output terminals. All circuitry is also independent of the ground, eliminating external ground-related noise, so we are told.

Made out of aluminium, the chassis is sandblasted for a textural feel, with the master volume and mode selector dials located on the rightmost edge. Next to those dials, there's an OLED display for information such as the input source, sampling frequency, volume and which Sound Field preset is active. The chassis is made with rigid parts, including an 8mm thick extruded aluminium top, with the toroidal transformers mounted on a 2mm-thick steel plate to eliminate any adverse effects from vibrations. Weighing in at 5.3kg, the HA-L7A has dampers between each steel foot and the bottom panel for even more vibration dampening.

Yamaha's Sound Field effects can be found in the company's AV receivers and headphones, and in the HA-L7A, six presets are optimised for different use cases such as music, videos and more. In addition, the amplifier supports DSD 11.2MHz, or DSD256 if you prefer, as well as 32-bit /384kHz PCM files. There's also a Pure Direct function that bypasses all circuitry not present in the original source, such as DSP processing and DAC converters for analogue audio.

As for connectivity, the HA-L7A offers a 4-pin XLR balanced headphone jack, a 4.4mm balanced port, an unbalanced 6.3mm port, as well as a variety of other ports on the rear, including coaxial, optical, USB-B and built-in XLR and RCA pre-out/line-out ports. With those, the HA-L7A can even be used as a D/A converter or preamp.

Priced at £3,499, the Yamaha HA-L7A will be available in Q4 2023.

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