The TTVJ Portable Millett Hybrid headphone amp is the first of it's kind - a battery-powered tube headphone amplifier, small enough to fit in your pocket!
Like the popular "Millet Hybrid" design, this amp uses a vacuum-tube gain stage followed by a solid-state buffer. But that's where the similarity ends.
The portable uses subminiature vacuum tubes that were designed for pre-transistor hearing aids and portable radios. These tiny tubes draw only about 15 milliwatts of power each, compared to 3-4 watts or more for other small-signal tubes. This enables the amp to run for dozens of hours (over 40 in typical use testing!) on a single battery charge.
Power is supplied by a built-in lithium-ion battery, similar to those used in cell phones and digital cameras. A very special power supply circuit generates a higher voltage and a lower voltage to supply the tubes and the solid-state output buffers. Special care was taken to optimize both the efficiency of the power supplies (to provide long battery life) as well as their sonic characteristics. (Don’t ever let anybody tell you that power supplies don’t affect sound!)
Recharging the battery is simply a matter of plugging in the supplied AC adapter and waiting 1-2 hours.
The portable is capable of driving about 8 volts RMS into high-impedance headphones, and it also does fine with low-impedance 'phones. So it will drive almost anything.
Oh, and it sounds good, too.
1-866-444-3910 or 1-406-285-3910
