Headphone Zone and Muse HiFi bring a portable vacuum tube DAC and headphone amplifier to India

The Headphone Zone X Muse HiFi M3 Ultra was built to change that. It is a portable vacuum tube DAC and headphone amplifier, small enough to carry and priced at Rs. 9,999, and one of the easiest and most affordable ways an Indian audiophile can hear real tube sound for the first time.

What makes the M3 Ultra remarkable is not only that it makes tubes portable. It is that the tubes are real. At its heart sit two authentic, military-grade JAN6418 vacuum tubes originally produced by Raytheon, tubes that Muse HiFi spent years learning to work with before shrinking them into a design this small. This is one of the smallest portable DAC and amplifiers in the world with genuine vacuum tubes inside. Not an emulation, not a digital imitation of the tube sound, but the real thing, doing real work on your signal.

The Warmth of a Tube, the Detail of a Modern DAC

Tubes have a reputation for warmth, and the M3 Ultra has it. Vocals gain body and texture, mid-bass feels fuller and more natural, and there is a lushness to the mid-range that portable gear rarely gets close to. What surprises people is how open it stays. The treble is airy and extended, the background is genuinely black, and the soundstage is wide, one of the best you will hear from something this size. Paired with an ES9028Q2M DAC and a dedicated ES9603Q amplification stage on a fully balanced circuit, you get the warmth of a tube with the detail and space of a modern DAC. That combination is the whole point.

A Tube You Can Actually Carry Around

The reason tubes have stayed on desks is that they are fragile and temperamental on the move. Muse HiFi solved that. A Triple Anti-Vibration technology cancels the microphone effect, the ringing and noise that vibration usually causes in a portable tube, at three levels: a fully balanced circuit, a purpose-built algorithm, and a patented silicone damper. The tubes sit behind a “World Gate” open frame that shows them glowing while it protects them, and the design has been drop, impact, and vibration tested. A low-power JAN6418 design keeps the surface temperature at around 33°C even after five hours of listening, where traditional tube devices often run between 45 and 60°C. At 55 grams, it disappears into a pocket.

Serious Sound for Your IEMs and Headphones

The M3 Ultra is built to get the very best out of IEMs and efficient headphones, exactly where most listeners spend their time. The fully balanced circuit delivers up to 460mW at 32Ω from the 3.5mm output and 480mW at 32Ω from the 4.4mm balanced output, with distortion held to just 0.0003% and a noise floor at or below -115dB, so even the most sensitive in-ears sit in silence. It decodes Hi-Res PCM up to 32-bit/384kHz and plays native DSD256, connects over USB-C to any Android phone, PC, or laptop with no drivers or setup, and remembers your volume when it powers off.

“For years, if you wanted to hear what a tube does to your music, you needed a big amplifier on a desk and a serious amount of money. Most people never got that chance. That is what makes the M3 Ultra special. Two real tubes, in something you can slip into your pocket, at a price that finally makes tube sound something you can just try. Once you hear the difference, it is hard to go back to an ordinary amp.”
– Raghav Somani, Founder and CEO, Headphone Zone