Headphone Amp Valves In Semi-glow

[Nathan Wright]

This is not a commercial image. I took it for a review I did of the ALO Audio Studio Six headphone amp (4.995$ USD) this August. It is a pretty damn nice amp. Despite using valves, it meets the low Ω requirements of portable headphones and earphones as well, which tend to wobble impedance curves and cause massive fluctuations in response frequency.

Naturally it comes with enough power to speakerise your most troublesome headphone. Amazing amp, amazingly hard to get.

 

[Chris Dodkin]

loving the clean look of the image, with the lighting on the valves, and just enough light on the body of the amp to define it's shape

 

[Pete Askew]

Absolutely and beautifully lit.

 

[Beth Carter]

sweet shot, love the lighting. love the mix of modern and retro.

 

[Brian Moore]

I agree wholeheartedly with Chris, Pete and Beth.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Yes very nice!
You should us links to your reviews ... there are a lot of us with an interest in hifi here!

 

[Nathan Wright]

You know what? Camera gear and hifi gear have a lot in common and a lot of crossover. Seems the same with bicycles and to a lesser extent, automobiles. Thank you to all for the encouragement. If this were a commercial shoot I probably would have either shot at higher sync to fade the top into hardware vignette and straightened the lines. Also, a slightly wider lens might have made this shot look higher class.

 

[Bobby Deal]

This I a very well crafted image that shows the product to a great advantage. Perhaps just a little bit of angle would deepen the dimensionality of the image. I might also consider adding a small bounce card and adding an overhead light source aimed slightly forward just a bit to fill the lower half of the front face just a little more and finish sculpting the faces of the 1/4" jacks and knobs.

It looks like you lit this with opposing lights on a 45 degree angles and either a strip box on axis or OCF for front fill this's the rectangular specular highlights across the center of the jack faces

The forward reflections of the tubes are quite nice and the addition of a large soft overhead source would bring the shadows forward helping to sculpt the and separate them from the upper back panel.

Regardless though as I said this is a nicely crafted image with a lot of dimension and drama and I look forward to seeing more of your work with audio components as it is some of the most well crafted audio images I have seen online in a while

 

[Nathan Wright]

I think you are spot on with that small thesis. Had I been doing this shoot for anything but a review, I would have worked differently. But now I wish I did. Thank you very much for the pointers and the encouragement.