TEST CONCLUSION

There are afew of my friends over at Audio360.org who believe that the HP4 headphone amplifier from E.A.R. represents the pinnacle of headphone amplification — both in design and in execution. It really is hard to disagree. Stylistically, it is by far the most elegant (and compact!) of the flagship headphone amps I’ve had access to, and having it grace my desk even for 5 minutes (much less a couple of months on loan) was enough to make me grin in an unhinged kind of way.

The HP4 made me want to touch it, to turn it on, to plug in and get lost. That’s about as much as you can ask for from any component, but the fact that this one actually can take you somewhere else shoots this amp to the very top of the design charts.

In short, I’ve heard amps that can do a lot of wonderful things. But I’ve never heard an amp that was clearly better than this offering from E.A.R. Different? Sure. But better? No. And none of those made me want to empty my wallet quiet as thoroughly as this one. It’s a work of art.