August 11, 200817 yr I know they don't get many (any?) mentions over here and this will probably mark me as irretrievably jejeune -- but, for the money, I've been pretty happy with the Little Dot MkIVse I picked up used on HF. Anyway, their new balanced tube amp is apparently now available at a fairly tempting $724 shipped to the U.S. and I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on the basic design? Haven't been able to locate any specs, though they explicitly say it was designed to be able to drive K1000s. Any idea what the driver tubes might be? Pity about the gold tube sockets, but what are you gonna do?
August 11, 200817 yr Author If so, I apologize but I couldn't find it. Or any other mention of Little Dot, hence my groveling intro. Edit: Aaaand ... here it is of course. Off to do some reading. Please feel free to delete this.
August 11, 200817 yr No worries, I can't find it either but I know there was some information posted at some point. I have several questions/concerns about the design of that thing and the chassis that they have it shoe horned into. At first blush it's pretty similar to the Menace but with double the output tubes which means that they've got a lot of heat to deal with in a really small space. As it is just the heaters for the output tubes are dissipating 60W. And if they were trying to get the specs similar to Pete's HA-2 there's a ton of heat generated by the cathode resistors and I don't see anything near big enough to deal with that. Hell, on the Menace I had to use 50W power resistors and external heatsinks to keep things in line.
August 11, 200817 yr Wait, found it. http://www.head-case.org/forums/headphone-amplification/3706-global-economics-101-little-dot-mk-vi.html
August 11, 200817 yr Author Thanks Nate. If I do take a chance on one, I'll be happy to send it up your way so you can have a listen and a poke around inside, should you care to.
August 21, 200817 yr Author Looks like you were right about the heat issue. The first ones have started to arrive and, according to the HF thread, they now have (loud and crappy) cooling fans shoehorned into the case.
August 21, 200817 yr Are those LED fans? AWESOME RICER AUDIOPHILES The top pic shows Delta's : loud as FUCK.
August 21, 200817 yr Guess it was far too much work to redesign the PCB with a lot of ventilation slots and a new chassis design...
August 21, 200817 yr Hey, that's a pretty good idea. I wonder if I could put fans in my headphone cups to keep my ears cool. shouldn't interfere with the sound too much. Hmmm, I see a patent with my name on it... *strokes chin*
August 21, 200817 yr I know they don't get many (any?) mentions over here and this will probably mark me as irretrievably jejeune -- but, for the money, I've been pretty happy with the Little Dot MkIVse I picked up used on HF. New. Custom. Title.
August 21, 200817 yr Author New. Custom. Title. I do feel bad for them. Their US agent is as nice a guy as you could hope to meet and they were really, really good about a resistor issue with the MkIVse that affected me and a few other owners on HF. No fuss, took it straight back and sent me a new one -- and I was the third owner of that particular unit and said so. This looks like last-minute panic after a few early-production models went up in smoke. The designer was saying on their forum quite recently that it would be passive-cooled only.
August 22, 200817 yr I hope folks don't leave them on for days at a time unattended for "burn-in". They might just experience more burning then they bargained for.
August 22, 200817 yr phhhttt! I'm going to get one anyway. I don't use headphones that much these days, but the few phones I've kept are terminated in 4-pin XLR, and I have balanced source. For US$700, I'm willing to give balanced a try.
August 22, 200817 yr OK Hopstretch, I just put my order in. Don't be chicken, just dew eet. Don't let the mob here pressure you... (I guess this hobby is only fun until you lose an eye...or burn down your house?!)
August 22, 200817 yr Love the Heat Mizer with the LD VI in his clutches. Good luck and check to make sure your insurance is up to date...
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now