CAYIN INTRODUCES THE ALL-NEW HA-300MK2 TUBE AMPLIFIER

The Cayin HA-300MK2 is the successor to the HA-300 and is a two-part tube amplifier for high-quality headphones. It is equipped with a 4.4 mm jack along with 4-pin XLR connections and a 3.5mm singled ended connector. Its external power supply has a complex circuit with four rectifier tubes and ensures a constant, equal voltage for all amplification stages. This power supply concept delivers clean power with minimal interference for the signal amplification of the main amplifier.

EMBEDDED WITH HIGH-QUALITY COMPONENTS FOR CLEAN SOUND

As one of the largest tube amplifier manufacturers in the world, Cayin designs and builds its transformers and ensures that even the minutest details are considered when developing them. The HA-300MK2 features 2 x 6SN7GTB, 2 x Gold Lion 300B, and 4 x 22DE4 tubes to deliver a powerful performance. It also uses a matched pair 300B Direct Heated Triode as output tube and a pair of 6SN7 as driver tube. The tube amplification circuit is operated in Single-ended mode, that’s why it is referred to as a SETA, and then feeds to a pair of output transformers for single-ended headphones, XLR-4 and 4.4mm balanced headphone output and one set of speaker terminals.

UTILISES THE COVETED 300B DIRECT HEATED TRIODE AND PX300B TUBES

A lot of tube enthusiasts consider the Directed Heated Triode (DHT) as the holy grail of vacuum tubes for audio applications. DHT refers to Triode tubes that use the cathode as the filament and will heat the cathode directly during operation. The 300B featured in the HA-300MK2 offers an attractive tonal characteristic with high linearity during amplification. Cayin HA-300MK2 also adopts a matched pair of Gold Lion Genelex PX300B as output tube for HA- 300MK2. This is a low-noise audio triode that offers frequency extension with a natural, sensible and realistic sound signature. This tube is considered to be an excellent upgrade tube by many 300B users and is often referred to as the best of the 300B tubes.

SETA CIRCUIT WITH TUNG-SOL 6SN7GTB AND GENALEX GOLD LION PX300B TUBES

Single-ended Triode Amplifier (SETA) is a vacuum tube-based design that uses a single-triode tube per channel to produce output without splitting the musical signal's plus/minus parts in each channel. Cayin recognised the beauty of SETA and HA-300MK2 employs the same 2-stage single-ended amplification with 6SN7 as the driver tube. It will boost the input signal to the appropriate level so that the 300B output tube will perform its second stage amplification at a very linear condition. For the HA 300MK2 implementation, Cayin uses a matched pair of Tung-Sol 6SN7GTB as a driver tube for almost the same reason as Genalex Gold Lion PX300B. These are super linear, low noise, high performance, highly reliable and natural-sounding driver tubes for SET amplification.

TRANSFORMER COUPLED BALANCED AUDIO ARCHITECTURE

HA-300MK2 is a transformer-coupled SETA. The output from the 300B output tube will drive a pair of proprietary output transformers which support both headphone and speaker outputs. If the 300B triode tubes are the spirit of the HA-300MK2, the output transformers are the flesh and blood of the amplifier. For transformer-coupled design, it is straightforward to support both single-ended and balanced driven in the same circuit. Since balanced headphone amplification is feeding opposing polarity signals to the left and right ear-cup of your headphone. This is achieved through a specific method of winding the transformer so that the positive polarity (aka hot) and negative polarity (aka cold) are driven in opposite directions, delivering a fully balanced output from a single-ended tube amplification circuit.

THOUGHTFUL CONNECTIVITY AND IMPEDANCE-MATCHED HEADPHONE OUTPUTS

The Cayin HA-300MK2 offers 3.5mm single-ended and two balanced headphone outputs: 4.4mm and XLR4, and these are optimised separately. The XLR4 output is a full-fetched output from the output transformer, while the 4.4mm winding is a level-matched, lower noise, lower power output with the same audio performance, making it more suitable for portable headphones. One of the features of Cayin vacuum tube amplifiers is the impedance matched headphone output. HA-300MK2 provides three headphone impedance settings, and the amplifier will optimise its output to handle the headphone loads according to the specified headphone impedance. Each impedance matched output is an independent secondary winding from the output transformers. Matching headphone impedance should produce a natural sound with well-defined bass reproduction.

EXPERTLY DESIGNED WITH TUBE REGULATED OUTBOARD POWER SUPPLY

The power supply for the Cayin HA-300MK2 uses a custom-built toroidal power transformer. This is a special circuit to supply different gain stages, and cayin has used 4 pieces of NOS RCA 22DE4 rectifier tubes to convert the incoming power source to DC for cleanest power with minimum interference for the amplification circuit. These are one of the best versions of the 22DE4 tube and when used as rectifier tubes in HA- 300MK2, they can easily last heavy usage of 5 to 10 years. The four 22DE4 are supposed to work independently from each other. HA-300MK2 also uses a custom make silica gel shock absorber as an anti-shock buffer between critical tube components, chassis mainframe and tube socket, eliminating the microphonic effect of the 300B DHT effectively and providing quiet and realistic playback from sensitive headphones.