Got a killer pair of headphones, but nothing to plug them in to? Want to listen to Hi-Fi audio on your cans, but don’t have a top-tier audio set-up? You’ll need an amp, and some of the best ones can be pretty huge (and expensive). If you’re short on space, then this new tiny desktop amp from Pro-Ject is just what you need.
The Pro-Ject Head Box E is a tiny metal box that will set you back just £89. But it can give your audio-listening a huge boost. This amp swoops in, all 390g of it, ready to take your cans to the next level.
Thanks to its micro footprint, the Head Box E is fully discrete. Pro-Ject has eschewed the usual integrated chip in favour of a proper, old-school, audiophile-grade circuit board. This promises cleaner performance, better repairability, and enough power (665 milliwatts into 32 ohms) for even the highest-impedance headphones. It’ll drive planar magnetics, vintage studio monitors, and just about anything else you throw at it.
On the back, there’s a pair of RCA inputs and a bypass output. Thankfully, this makes it easy to sneak this into your Hi-Fi set-up without tearing it apart. On the front, you get both a 6.3mm and a 3.5mm headphone jack, both of which can be used at the same time. That means shared listening sessions or testing A/B headphones like a proper audiophile.
It’s solid, sleek, and surprisingly premium-feeling for something that costs less than £100. The finish is a classic black body with a choice of silver or black front panels. It’s pretty subtle – just what you’d expect from such a dinky amp.
The Pro-Ject Head Box E is available now for £89/€119. You can pick it up from Henley Audio if you’re in the UK. US pricing and availability have yet to be announced.
