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