A little package arrived on my desk from Germany recently and it contained a Corda Headsix portable headphone amplifier from the Meier Audio. The Corda Headsix is a limited edition headphone amp specially created for the members of Head-fi.org. A total of 600 pieces were built and a percentage of the profits made from the sale of this amp will be donated to Head-fi.org to fund the forum. I salute the company for taking the effort to contribute back to the community.


Now, on to the Corda Headsix. According to the product literature, this amp is essentially a Corda Move portable headphone amplifier without the crossfeed and DAC components. This design keeps the size small and circuitry simple, whilst retaining the wonderful sonic signature that has made the Corda Move very popular among headphone enthusiasts. I can attest to the sound quality of the Corda Move as I've auditioned a piece a couple of days ago. That gave me a level of confidence to order the Corda Headsix, without auditioning it.


Contained within the package that I received was a small screwdriver, a mini to mini cable, 4 pieces of adhesive rubber pad, instruction manual and the Corda Headsix headphone amp. The amp is encased in a brushed aluminum casing and come in either black or clear/silver. I selected black as I wanted some contrast between the faceplate and the body. Holding the amp in my hand gave me the feeling that it was solidly built and despite the small size, it weighed quite a bit. This is due to the thick aluminum used to make the casing.
Situated on the front face plate is an input jack, output jack, a volume control knob and LED power indicator. The on/off switch for the amp is incorporated into the volume control knob. The front face plate can be removed from the body by loosening two screws. The small screwdriver provided can be used for this purpose, although I find that it does not provide enough torque and I have to use my own.

On the rear face plate is a hole with access to the DC input and a rotating locking mechanism. The rotating locking mechanism allows the rear faceplate to be removed easily by rotating the rotating locking mechanism anti-clockwise. A simple but elegant implementation in my opinion. A 9V battery can be inserted into the amp, after removing the rear faceplate. Do take note of the polarity of the battery during installation.


The Corda Headsix has two gain modes, high-gain and low-gain. Mine came in high-gain as I did not specify that I wanted it in low-gain when ordering. No problem there, all I need to do is to change the gain myself. Disassembly was relatively easy, remove the two screws on the front faceplate, remove the rear faceplate and carefully push the circuit board from the rear towards the front. Once the circuit board is out, set the two jumpers to low-gain and reassemble the amp. Information on how to set the gain can be found on the instruction manual. I took the opportunity to take some shots of the innards of the amp while it was disassembled. This should give you a good feel on the quality of the construction.

After reassembly, I sat down to have a listen. I selected a couple of my favourite tracks on my iPod and ran it through the Corda Headsix via the lineout port. I was impressed. The same warm signature of the Corda Move was present in the Corda Headsix. The bass was controlled and tight, mids was warm and treble was sweet. I spent the next few hours enjoying my music, switching between my E2C, SR80 and MS Pro. While running the E2C through my amp with no music playing, I discovered that a hissing sound becomes very apparent when the volume control was set around 1 to 2 o'clock position. The SR80 and MS Pro did not exhibit this phenomenon though. This is not a problem for me as I will never listen to music at such a high volume. Believe me, 1 to 2 o'clock of volume through a canal headphone is really loud and can damage ones' hearing.

My dislike about the Corda Headsix is the curve aluminum casing, which caused a problem when I wanted to piggyback it to the back of my iPod and the position of the input jack. The piggyback problem was solved by mounting the included rubber pads in the amp package onto the back of my iPod. That kept the amp from sliding out of place. The input jack was situated to the side of the amp and caused a slight twist to the line-out dock cable which I've made. I could make another one with a longer cable, but I think an input jack in the middle of the amp would be better and more conveniet. I hope Meier Audio can take this into consideration in their future design.

Would I recommend the Corda Headsix to others? Definitely! It is designed and made in Germany, priced at an affordable level and sounds really good. Forum postings suggest that burning-in the amp for over 100 hours will refine the sound further, I'll let the amp burn-in and see how well it performs after that. I'll find out soon enough.

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