Valencia™

Balanced Headphone and Power Amplifier

Valencia was designed with three clear purposes…

• Be the world’s first dedicated balanced headphone power amplifier.
• Be one of the world’s cleanest measuring headphone amplifiers.
• Be one of the most powerful headphone amplifiers available today.

These were just a few of the ambitious goals when Orchard Audio teamed up with long-time audio commentator Z Reviews to design Valencia. We at Orchard Audio are proud to present this breakthrough in headphone amplifier technology.

Valencia boasts a refined class AB design that accurately and effortlessly pushes any modern headphone from 16Ω to 600Ω, inside an absolutely pitch-black noise envelope. We minimized components and eliminated all complications to the signal path. You won’t find a gain selector, secondary inputs, or volume control on Valencia. It is purely a power amp.

Measuring a SINAD of 118db, Valencia is the pinnacle of a modern transparent amplifier. Never before has a headphone amplification system been designed to traverse with so little interference. Audiophiles often ask if an amplifier is warm, sibilant, or adds weight and depth to the sound.
Valencia adds nothing.
No noise.
No distortion.
No limitations.

A power amp for headphones introduces some new challenges for audio enthusiasts. Using a power amp means that the user must control the volume via pre-amp or other means. Your choice of DAC, pre-amp – be it solid-state Class-A – or a tube, will greatly affect the sound of your headphones when running off of Valencia. Having 15 watts (@32Ω) of extremely clean power puts responsibility on the listener. Control of the input voltage is necessary to prevent possible damage to both a headphone and the listener’s hearing. With care, Valencia can run even the most sensitive IEMs with a completely black background if the source gear shares a near-zero noise floor.

Valencia features a single set of Balanced XLR inputs on the rear and a single 4-pin XLR output on the front. Every unit includes a 4-pin XLR to 4.4mm Pentaconn adapter.

RCA to XLR adapters may be used with the rear inputs. These adapters lower the potential output power of the amp, which may benefit some users of more sensitive headphones. Alternatively, should your source be only RCA and you wish to use the full power of Valencia, Orchard Audio sells an active RCA to XLR Converter for this use case.

Single-ended headphone connections (e.g., 1/4″ / 6.35mm) are not supported by Valencia.

Additionally, a complete set of speaker-style banana taps is located on the rear of the unit. These can be used for high-efficiency speakers (>=95db/w), as Valencia supports an 8Ω load with a ~7-watt output, maintaining the same pitch black background that headphones enjoy. NOTE: These taps are active at the same time as the headphone jack so it is NOT recommended to use both simultaneously!

A soft off-white LED power button is located on the angled front fascia and a hard-off power supply switch is located above the 90 to 264 Volt AC input on the rear, making Valencia worldwide compliant directly out of the box.

CAUTION: Valencia is strictly a power amplifier; the user must provide external volume control.

Features

• Fully balanced design
• Exceedingly low noise and distortion
• Neotech OCC wiring for 4-Pin XLR
• Independent linear regulators for each channel
• Gain: 14dB
• Signal to Noise Ratio: >134dB (a-weighted)
• Input Impedance: 44 kΩ
• Power (RMS):
  • 0.81W into 600 Ω
  • 1.62W into 300 Ω
  • 3.24W into 150 Ω
  • 7.5W into 64 Ω
  • 9.5W into 50 Ω
  • 17W into 32 Ω
  • 10W into 16 Ω
  • 8W into 8 Ω
• Universal AC Input
  • Works from 90 to 264VAC
• Size (L x W x H): 9.5″ (24.15cm) x 9.25″ (23.5cm) x 3″ (7.62cm)
• Weight: 5lbs (2.3kg)

• 1 x Valencia
• 1 x 4-Pin XLR to 4.4mm adapter
• 1 x 6ft US power cable
  
  • While the device only ships with a US power cord it is compatible worldwide (see features above).
•  Instructions

The block diagram on the left shows Valencia’s overall design concept.

• The input stages use a heavily filtered power supply.
• Each channel has a dedicated linear regulator with 1,000uF of capacitance.
• The audio chain consists of three (3) stages. Each stage is of a fully balanced design.
  • The input stage provides ESD protection and an input impedance of 44kΩ
  • The gain stage increases the signal by 5x (14dB)
  • The signal is then buffered by paralleling multiple devices to allow the amplifier to output up to 1.2A of current.
• The wires from the circuit board to the 4-pin XLR connector are Neotech 16AWG UP-OCC Copper
• The AC/DC converter is an industrial-grade unit from Mean Well.