DACS CLARITY HEADMASTER

Headmaster

"As a D-A converter and headphone amp, the HeadMaster is simply in a class of its own at this price level — which, for me, makes it something of a bargain. I trust its deliverances on location, and I now intend to rely on it exclusively for headphone duties in my mastering room. Whereas other headphone amps have come and gone and not really been missed, the HeadMaster is here to stay." (Eric James, Sound on Sound review, November 2009)

Overview

Reference monitor controller for critical listening; the Clarity HeadMaster is a D-A converter, monitor controller and headphone amplifier. D-A conversion from Crookwood coupled with DACS' renowned clarity and detail in the analogue domain, creates a uniquely impressive, multi-purpose device.

Ideal for recording, mastering and mixing engineers and producers, the Headmaster has been designed for critical listening from a variety of analogue and digital sources.

Headmaster Side on

The rear panel of the DACS HeadMaster hosts the digital and analogue inputs, as well as the headphone and monitor outputs.

"Of course, this was very much a subjective test between the Benchmark and HeadMaster, purely to give a useful point of reference, and it can’t be considered a proper ‘shoot-out’ between the HeadMaster and the DAC1. To do that, I’d have had to set up conditions in my mastering room to test their abilities operating as monitor controller (D-A and gain-controlled analogue stage) and pure D-A converters feeding a separate preamp as well.

But I can certainly say that I was not at all disappointed with the HeadMaster. To give an idea of the quality on offer, it didn’t better my current main mastering setup (a DCS D-A and Nagra preamp) in either configuration, or when fed by an analogue signal derived from the DCS, but then it comes in at almost a tenth of the price. If the current financial crisis began to hit harder and I had to start selling off equipment, while I’d hesitate to part with these much-beloved components, I’d have no hesitation in trusting the HeadMaster to provide the material for professional mastering judgements. It is, as you’d expect, at least as good on this score as the larger Crookwood controllers, which a number of studios already trust to route more complex setups to their monitors." (Eric James, Sound on Sound review, November 2009)

Click here to view the Clarity Headmaster's Technical Specifications