Specifications

HEAT / SAFETY

The taboo consumes 75 watts from the wall outlet so it puts out less heat than a 75 watt

light bulb and should have no problems on a shelf in an equipment rack. If the shelves

of your rack are wood, allow 4 to 6 inches above the tallest tube in the amp. If you

don’t have that much space there is a danger of the wood drying out over time and

eventually cracking. This can be avoided by adhering a piece of aluminum foil to the

bottom side of the shelf above the ampliﬁer. While no harm will come to the ampliﬁer

with 24/7 operation, it is good practice to turn off tube gear at night while you sleep

and when you are away from home.

DESCRIPTION

The Taboo MK III is a reference grade class A tube headphone ampliﬁer speciﬁcally

designed for planar magnetic headphones such as the LCD-2 and LCD-3 and similar

planar or hard to drive low impedance headphones.

It is hand-built and silver soldered using a point-to-point minimalist topology where the

least number of solder nodes combined with the shortest wire lengths and best

audiophile parts bring you absolute transparency that is simply not heard in mass

produced products.

It employees a unique ﬂoating output stage and two forms of cross feed. One is non-

invasive and one is totally immersive. These are called lucid mode.

The Taboo MK III is a single-ended ampliﬁer with one output tube per channel, driven

by a single input stage. It’s the simplest and purest topology.

The ampliﬁer is compatible with EL84/6BQ5 output tubes and Russian 6P15P-EV

output tubes which is what it ships with.

The input stage is compatible with 6922, 7308, and some 6DJ8 or 6N1P-EV

Rectiﬁer tubes that can be used with this ampliﬁer are 5U4, 5AR4, 5Y3GT or pin for pin

compatible substitutes. The ampliﬁer draws 100 milliamps, well below the rating of

most rectiﬁers.

O W N E R S M A N U A L

Decware High Fidelity Engineering Co., East Peoria IL, USA www.decware.com