Sophia ‘Baby’ amp: my review

Posted on November 20th, 2007 by admin

I picked up my used Baby amp about two months ago and I’ve been using it in several contexts. On my desktop, it drives my old B&W V201’s (90dB 4 Ohms) quite well; in my main system it powers my Silver Iris 15 Open Baffle Coaxials; and alternatively, my Audio-Technica ATH-W1000 headphones - yes, directly from the speaker taps using a 10 Ohm resistor in parallel accross each output. My Baby has the upgraded binding posts, and a pair of Western Electric 396A’s doing input tube duty. The Baby really is compact, and moving it around is not a big deal. Nice and versatile.

This amp is a winner. It retails for 799-899 in the US, but can often be found on Audiogon in the 350-400 range. For that kind of money this is a tough amp to beat. With 4 x 6P1T Russian output tubes in a push-pull configuration, it makes about 10 watts per channel. Using efficient speakers with a benign impedance curve is advisable to get the best performance out of the amp.

Listening to it direct with reference-calibre headphones really highlights the amp’s resolution and dynamic abilities. By using the 40 Ohm headphones with a 10 Ohm resistor in parallel, the amp sees a constant 8 Ohm load….very nice. I can hear previously unheard low-level details on many discs, not just breathing and the usual studio artifacts, but even harmony vocals that were obscured before. Dynamic capability is pretty decent also, though the amp can sometimes be overtaxed by complex music. Most of all this is a very musical tube amp, but with no trace of euphonic tube distortion. The sound is clean and balanced.

Very recommendable as a great used amplifier value.