Feliks Audio Envy Headphone Amplifier

Class A single-ended transformer-coupled, balanced amplifier, powered by 300B tubes. Handcrafted in Poland

New in 2022, the Feliks Audio Envy is a single-ended class-A headphone amp with a transformer-coupled output, designed to handle planar magnetic or dynamic headphone with an impedance between 16 and 600 ohm. The voltage is adjustable from low gain, which will drive most headphones on the market, to medium which provides extra power for especially power-hungry planar magnetics, to the mighty high voltage tap which we only really recommend using for the Abyss 1266 and HifiMan Susvara.

The Envy will drive even the most demanding of these headphones with up to 8 watts of power. Its heart-stopping design is offered with extensive customization options, and there are multiple inputs and outputs (including balanced XLR) for great flexibility in use. Headphone impedance selection is from 16 to 600 ohm.

The Standard Edition includes Electro-Harmonix Gold 300B power tubes and premium copper wiring.

The Performance Edition includes Full Music 300B with nickel anode power tubes and UPOCC (single crystal copper) wiring. The Performance Edition offers some improvements to resolution and transparency, and a slightly richer and more linear tone, though both versions sound excellent.

Handcrafted in Poland

Feliks Audio is a boutique manufacturer of hand-crafted tube amplifiers, with over 20 years of audio solutions development experience. All products are in-house engineered, tuned, and assembled in Lubliniec, Poland.

While they are primarily known for the OTL designs, the Envy is the first headphone amplifier from Feliks to feature the use of an extremely high-quality custom-spec output transformer. Despite this design difference, it offers a sound which is in line with the famed transparency and clarity of Feliks amplifiers.

The Envy was designed from scratch to be a flagship, destination tube amp, and Feliks has created a masterpiece. It is built on a solid metal chassis and finished with beautifully oiled solid wood. The wood is carved from a single piece, which combined with the custom transformers brings the amp to a mighty 33 lb weight.

High-Quality Parts

The volume control uses an Alps Rk27 potentiometer, and two-stage preamplifier uses CV-181 tubes and Jantzen Superior Z-Cap coupling capacitors. Power tubes are the directly heated 300B tubes, and the output transformers are custom-made high-end audio devices made by EDIS Ogonowski. The mains transformer is also an audio-grade unit by EDIS.

Biasing is fully automatic bias so no manual tube-biasing is required, and the electrical circuits are a zero-feedback design. The power tubes are heated with DC via a special circuit that's separate from the audio path. The power supply for anode voltages is based on MOSFET transistors and low-noise current sources. There are no transistors in the signal path of the circuit.

The XLR balanced inputs use symmetrical high-end audio grade Lundahl transformers. Audio source selection is made using high-end relays, which are placed directly behind the input connectors, in order to limit interference and noise. The careful selection of all these precision parts leads to a cleaner, clearer signal path, and makes for a tube amp that is remarkably transparent, resolving, and uncolored.

The amplifier is made using "point to point" technology. All wired connections are custom-made from single crystal copper (UPOCC) with a Teflon dielectric. Point-to-point wiring must be done by hand, and is the wiring scheme of choice in classic amplifiers. Not only does it allow for greater longevity and make repairs easier, it allows the use of higher quality wire and more direct signal connections without grounding or planing challenges common in PCB design. Everything about the Feliks Envy is designed as a heritage-quality lifetime ownership amplifier.

The Envy will work excellently with all headphones, though we recommend for an amplifier of this size and cost, that you use a high-end flagship unit. The Focal Utopia, Hifiman Susvara, Meze Elite, Audeze LCD-5, DCA Expanse, or Abyss 1266 are the caliber of headphone that deserves to be partnered with the Envy.

Specifications

Output Power: 8 W

Tube Complement: 2 x 300B, 2 x PsVane CV-181 mk2 (6SN7)

Inputs: 2 x RCA, 2 x XLR

Input Impedance (RCA, XLR): 100 kΩ, 10kΩ

Outputs: 1x RCA pre, 1 x XLR pre, 6.3mm, XLR headphone

Dimensions: 13.7" x 13" x 7.3"  (35 × 33 × 18.5 cm)

Weight: 33.3 lb