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Little Dot MK II vs APPJ PA1502A


JordiMB

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Hi everybody! Greetings from Barcelona!

This is my first post and I want to thank the attention of anyone who responds.

 
I'm interested in buying a tube headphone amplifier, but I have a low budget so it would be interesting to hear some advice from more experienced owners.
 
Looking for through the web I have ended with two interesting candidates: the Little Dot Mk II and the Appj PA1502a. Both have received quite good reviews (not many, but there are some) for the price so I'm undecided. The Little Dot is a class A OTL push-pull amp, while the Appj seems to be a class A transformer output single ended.

As for the behavoir with different headphone impedances this is what I got:

APPJ :   0.13W into 600 ohms   0.26W into 300 ohms   0.5W into 100 ohms   1W/32ohms

Little Dot:  300mW into 300 ohms     200mW into 120 ohms     100mW into 32 ohms

I can see the two amps have opposite power behaviors from different impedance headphones. That's not really a problem because I have to get a replacement for my dying old AKG k121 from the 90's, so I can buy new cans that fit the new amp (by the way, doubting between the more neutral Beyerdynamics DT 880 or the more temperamental Grado sr80).

So... what do you recommend from your experience? Any help wellcome.

Thank you very much in advance.

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Jordi, Little Dot is a POS or POJ (piece of shit/junk). I don't know the other one, but probably too.

Join the dark side and build one of these: Crack and get yourself some decent headphone like the Sennheiser HD600. Cheap shit always will be that, just shit.

Now read your welcome PM thoroughly and don't post more question like this ;D

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3 hours ago, Torpedo said:

Yup, a learned a lot from my other-side experiences. You may try too, just don't try poison, not a pleasant return.

Well,there goes half the food that our civilized society consumes on a regular basis.

Back to my liter of classic Coke and fries cooked in cottonseed oil.

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  • 11 months later...

This is an old topic.

Yet I find no useful responses.

The crack is waste of time unless you want to empty your wallet while learning to assemble a simple tube amp.

The torpedo is the only recommendation I can see as a very good sounding solution, and a favorite with me.

Yet it does not do low impedance headphones well.

The Little Dot definitely earns it's POS rating due to cheap quality, but is value priced appropriately for beginners, and a reason I started with tubes.

So the obvious reason I am posting can now be obvious, is that the APPJ PA1502A is a different story.

 

It has the most modern design, and most probably a threat to anything priced under $600-800, once upgraded.

It can hold it's own easily with a crack or Torpedo , but only once you (DIY ) upgrade it's coupling and cathode caps.

Same applies to all these amps using cheapo WIMA as coupling caps anyways.

But the advantage of the APPJ lies in the more modern PSU and elimination of a Transformer there.

I don't see any hybrid or tube amps using surface mount devices on their boards, or a switching power supply to eliminate the PSU Transformer.

Very smart and very compact.

So there you go.

I know this site likes to bash,  but I speak from experience.

None hear has stated they tried ALL of these mentioned amps.

I HAVE.

So I am only posting for those that Google and find this thread.

So they won't go waste their money on a crack.

Simply because it is an expensive alternative.

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