Dragon tube headphone amplifiers

The list of design criteria was long one for the new Dragon amplifiers. The goal was no less than to match the legendary performance levels of the Milo and Headtrip solid state headphone amplifiers at even lower price points with the addition of the incorporation of the musicality of tubes in the design. We started with a list of features that we felt were absolutely required in a product that we wanted to put the Wells Audio name on. First, and an absolute necessity was the ability to drive any headphones on the market regardless of load. It had to also have gain adjustability to work optimally with the most efficient to the least efficient headphones on the market. the ability to use multiple types of tubes as well as have multiple ground settings to maximize noise reduction was also included. The Dragon has a tube gain stage followed by a extremely low noise solid state gain stage. This results in the beauty and attributes of tubes with the current to drive hard-to-drive headphone loads in a way no all tube amplifier can match. The Dragon puts out up to 5 watts of power with up to 1 amp of current drive. This results in a musical presentation that is extremely powerful and quiet with state-of-the-art levels of dynamics, separation, soundstage size, image density, resolution with the anticipated accompaniment of tube harmonics, timbre, linearity and tonal beauty. The Dragon is the most fully realized design yet from Wells Audio and is built in a designed in a modular manner to easily incorporate further levels of further sonic upgrades. There is currently the base Dragon model, followed by the Level II and the Level III.

Dragon features:

• Up to 8 different switchable gain settings

• 4 switchable ground settings

• .500 milliamps of gain

• Choice of 12BH7 or 6DJ8 tubes

• All wire and PCBs are cryogenically treated

• XLR inputs are standard

• Premium Rike S-cap2 output coupling caps used

Dragon Level II Features in addition to Level I:

• Bybee AC Noise Filters

• Upgraded 17v power supply

• Power increase to 1 amp of current

Dragon Level III upgrades in addition to the Level II:

• 4 Wells Audio proprietary DC Noise Filters

• Mundorf capacitors in tube gain stage filter caps

• Khozmo Opto Sensor attenuator

• Upgraded 17v power supply with film bypass treble and midrange caps and hexfred diodes

• Hexfred diodes instead of fast diodes in solid state gain stage

• WBT RCA inputs

• Furutech IEC

• Cryogenically treated tubes

• Solid aluminum billet feet and attenuator knob

• Chrome tube guards

• Upgraded Rike copper foil, polyproylene, paper-in-oil output coupling caps

  Dragon Specifications

• Input impedance 25k

• Output Impedance 1 ohm @ 500mV out

• Signal-to-Noise-Ratio 93dB, unweighted

• Noise Floor <200mV, 10Hz to 100kHz

• Crosstalk, 4-pin jack -88dB @ full output into 32 ohms (1kHz)

• Crosstalk, 6.3mm jack -68 dB @ full output into 32 ohms (1kHz)

• Frequency Response -0.1dB @ 20kHz,—0.5dB @ 20Hz

• Power Output into 10 ohms 1.5W (3.9V)

• Distortion into 10 ohms .085% @ 1.5W, .006% @ 1V output

• Power Output into 32 ohms 2.4W (8.8V)

• Distortion into 32 ohms 0.22% @ 2.4W, .01% @ 1V output

• Power Output into 600 ohms 200mW (11V)

• Distortion into 600 ohms 0.23% @ 200mW, .008% @ 1V output

• Power Consumption at Idle 310mA @ 120VAC

• Input Sensitivity 250mV in for 5.6V out (12BH7 set to 18dB)

• Gain Options with 12BH7 0dB, 6dB, 12dB, 18dB (tube gain only)

• Gain Options with 6DJ8 6dB, 12dB, 18dB, 24dB (tube gain only)

• Grounding Option, All Models Direct, Capacitive, Resistive, Parallel RC