Announcing Vali, $119 Tube Hybrid Headphone Amp

November 25, 2013, Valencia, CA. Today, Schiit Audio announced the availability of Vali, a $119 tube hybrid headphone amplifier. Vali is the least expensive serious tube amp on the market, with regulated high-voltage rails, NOS Raytheon tubes, and high-quality parts used throughout. Like all Schiit products, Vali is made in the USA. 

 

“Vali is a great complement to Modi, Magni, and Loki, ” said Jason Stoddard, Schiit’s Co-Founder. “It continues to expand our line of extremely high-value, domestically made products. Now, anyone who's curious about tubes can try them out for a very low price."

 

Despite its low price, Vali delivers serious tube credentials and power output. Unlike many inexpensive tube amps that are run on sub-optimal voltages, Vali uses a 60V regulated supply for its NOS JAN Raytheon 6088 tubes, in addition to a 26V and 1.2V regulated supply for the bipolar output stage and the tube heaters, respectively. The end result is 650mW per channel into 32 ohms, which means Vali can drive many "difficult" headphones with ease.

 

"Vali uses what are called 'pencil tubes,' " added Mike Moffat. "They used to be used in many military applications, and our NOS tubes are actually 'JAN' rated, which means they meet Joint Army-Navy specifications."

 

Pencil tubes also last much longer than typical tubes, with an expected lifespan of 10,000-20,000 hours, which equates to 7-14 years of use at 4 hours per day. Because of this, the tubes are soldered into the boards, for greater reliability than sockets. If tube replacement is needed, Schiit will replace them for $20.

 

Vali also features a 2-year parts and labor warranty, which is 2X that of typical products in this segment, and a 1-year warranty on tubes, which is 4x a typical tube warranty. Vali is offered with a 15-day money-back guarantee, with 15% restocking fee.

 

Vali is in stock and shipping now, at $119 plus shipping. 

 

Founded in June 2010 by audio industry “old dogs” Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffat, Schiit Audio has a simple, if somewhat insane, mission: to bring superior performance, design, and quality to audio products at near-Chinese prices, while manufacturing in the USA.

 

Jason Stoddard was the former engineering lead at Sumo, designing power amps that included Polaris II, Polaris III, Andromeda III, Ulysses, Ulysses II, The Ten, The Five, as well as preamplifiers including Athena II, Diana, and Artemis, and Sumo’s first digital line: Axiom and Theorem.

 

Mike Moffat was the founder of Theta, Theta Digital, and Angstrom, and his audio history covers an impressive list of firsts, including the first standalone DAC, the Theta DSPre, the first use of digital signal processing and bit-perfect digital filter algorithms, the first DTS surround processor, and more.