Little Dot MK III Headphone Tube Amplifier

Packaging - excellent, the unit was so well packaged that it was bullet-proof - the tubes were mounted in the unit and packed so well that there was no chance for any damage. The Tube Amp - was as described and there was no damage, all cords, manuals and power/RCA cables were included. Now about the sound - my unit came with 6H6P-PI power tubes and JAN-GE-5654 driver tubes(small front tubes). I have Sennheiser HD-650 headphones which are superb and are a wonderful match-up with the Little-Dot - If you can get into a pair of Sennheiser cans, they are more than worth it, the sound is excellent. I also have a set of Audio-Technica M50X cans which are very good but not in the same league as the Sennheiser's. With the stock tubes, the sound was really very good and I had no complaints. But I knew that I would not be able to resist swapping tubes eventually. I first tried the 6ZH1P-EV Voskhod Rockets and found that the sound instantly became three dimensional and had much greater clarity. You get a much greater impression of space with these. The GE-5654 Jan(joint army/navy) tubes were quite good, but apparently almost all GE 5654 tubes are somewhat 2-dimensional and are kind of up-front and close feeling. I also got a similar set of 6ZH1P tubes from the Svetlana plant which were just slightly better than the Voskhods, but only very slightly - they are identical in appearance. I tried a set of Amperex 5654 tubes which were about the same as the GE's - nothing to write home about, but are ok. I then tried a set of Mullard M-8100's and they are great! So for me it is a toss-up between the Russian 6ZH1P-EV's and the Mullards which are warmer and fuller sounding but just slightly lacking in clarity compared to the Russian tubes. But I have to say that the Mullards are flat-out great -sounding tubes. I have not yet tried swapping out the larger power tubes as most reviewers state that they can't tell much difference after swapping them out (also known as tube-rolling). My experience with the Little Dot MK111 has been wonderful - I listen mostly to classical music and the sound from this tube-amp is about as real as it gets. Piano sonatas are breath-takingly good and so are string quartets, cello music, flute and classical guitar music. IMHO, solid-state is not on the same par as tube amps - tubes just sound better and are much closer to listening to a live performance. I really love my Little Dot and now couldn't imagine being without it - every time I turn it on and slip on my headphones it's like, oh yeah! - this is the sound I've always been looking for! I have had it now for about 4-5 months. I am now sold on tubes and will be looking at tube-amps for my main system in the future. I would like to point out that tubes need to warm up well before they sound their best - mine seem to really start sounding good after about 10-15 minutes and sound sublime at about the 30 minute mark. I highly recommend the Little Dot headphone amps - if you are considering one, I don't think you will be disappointed. I also recommend buying from Amazon as it is easy to return a unit to them in the event you wind up with a lemon. I think that is quite rare as the engineering on these units is excellent, but it can happen. The quality of the electrical components used in these units is also excellent, so the chance of getting a bad one is very slim. So if you are are looking for that just-right-sound, buy one!

This review is for the Little Dot Mk III. Per the owners manual, mine came with "General Electric GE5654 and Soviet 6H6PI tubes, ALPS-16 volume pot, Rubycon filter caps, German ERO coupling caps, CHIEMI-COM output caps matched with German WIMA". In other words, nice tubes right out of the box, which is a rare and welcome surprise, along with some other goodies that help defer the itch to tweak right away. The sound is very nice right out of the box too, and this little amp easily drives my Seinheisser Massdrop 6XX (HD-650 equivalent), HiFiman 4XX (400I equivalent) headphones. Setting the internal gain switches is imperative here in order to get enough gain for these power hogs, since the Mk III comes set at lowest setting. Happily the switches are easily accessed from underneath the amp without openning it up - a very nice touch. Overall the sound quality is well rounded, full and rich. Good soundstage and punch with smooth highs that are articulate and sparkly, never harsh. Add the ability to tube roll and fine tune the sound to your headphones or personal taste, and it's a homerun. There's plenty of info on line regarding this, one good one can be found on the Head-Fi forum. Google is your friend here. I've paired the Mk III with the iFi Zen Blue bluetooth DAC, and cast via an LG V30, which is a winning combo as far as ease, convenience and fidelity. I also tried going direct from my LG V30 headphone output into the Mk III using an 1/8" to RCA adapter, also with very good results. Obviously care must be taken to give the Mk III good ventilation, and also be aware that the tubes will pick up interference from a cell phone, or DAC if placed too close. I can't speak to the longevity of this amp as I've only had it for a few weeks. Generally speaking, if a tube amp is gonna go South, it'll do it early on. So far everything has been quite stable, with no inconsistencies in output or sound. I wouldn't expect there to be any issues. Conclusion: you'd be hard pressed to find anything that'll beat it at twice the price. Recommended.

The sound was better than my Topping VX1, sound stage was something I've never witnessed before and was great while I had it. These are with my HD 598. The bottom end is rather lacking and seems to be missing a lot of details there. The mids and highs though, pretty darn good. The design is uglier than sin. It doesn't look like a 300 dollar device by any means. It is built very well though. The coating they used just felt and looked meh. The whole front plate just felt cheap with ugly screws in it. Once you get it, it def looks cheap. The gain switches are irritating to use. They decided to put it in the inside of the amp on the bottom with a small hole cut out so you can use some tiny screw driver with a flashlight to see what you're doing. With as big as this unit is, putting it somewhere else would have been more preferable. To change the gain I have to unplug everything, turn it upside down to get some decent light into it then use a micro screwdriver to move the tiny little switches to where they need to go. I guess it's not a HUGE problem once you find the combo you like but when you're playing with it to find the settings you like, it's irritating. After a few weeks it developed a really high pitched problem so now I gotta go through the hassle of returning it. [edit] After getting a new amp (Schiit Asgard 2) I discovered it was a ground loop issue which I resolved. I'm going to up the stars to a 4 but now that I've heard another amp and how much better it sounds at a cheaper price, I don't miss it at all. I got the Schiit Asgard 2 as a replacement for 20 dollars less (with shipping too) from their website and the sound from it is superior in every way that I didn't think was possible, and that's on a solid state. I would urge anyone looking at this amp to look at the Asgard 2 or save another 100 bucks on top of the cost of the topping and get the Valhalla.

I have had this amplifier for 5 months now and remain very pleased. I play high fidelity streaming music from my computer through the USB port to a Topping D3 DAC into the Little Dot. My headphones are a Grado 225e and Bowers and Wilkins P7. The original tubes were good, but replacing the driver tubes with 6HM5 tubes and the power tubes with 6H30pi tubes brought the amp to a new level. I did not need to flip any switches or move jumpers for these tubes. I love the sound so much that I spend hours each day listening to music. I have compared this amplifier with both solid state amps and the Bravo Audio Ocean. The Little Dot MK III is head and shoulders above the other amps (although the solid state amps were not top of the line). I got the "tube rolling" bug and have tried over a dozen other driver tubes and 3 other power tubes. The 6HM5 tubes are the best of the best and I would not spend money on any other driver tubes. The power tubes do not make as much of a difference. The "tube sound" is a bit warmer than solid state amps in general. I listen to blues, jazz, classical rock, alternative rock, and classical music. All sound great with the Little Dot. I especially like the tube sound with hard driving blues. When I turn up the volume, the sound becomes more expansive as well as louder, but the increased sound stage is most apparent. I cannot imagine anything sounding better than my current setup. I may upgrade the DAC at some point to see if I can squeeze more musicality from the system. I would definitely purchase again. My purchase was from Amazon so I got Prime shipping and that satisfied my impatience once I made my decision. I was not going to wait for it to come from China.

You might be looking through reviews of this amp and see everyone talking about how warm and tubey this amp sounds. That's what I did before I bought this and I was incredibly excited to get it in the mail. 4 days later, however, I'm getting ready to send this back. Why? Well it sounds completely identical to my solid state amp. Well how do I "know" this amp doesn't sound different than a solid state? I don't "know." What I do know, however, is myself and 4 others have done blind tests with 4 different pairs of headphones (AKG K7XX, Sennheiser HD 6XX, MrSpeakers Aeon Closed, and Audeze LCD2C) using the Voicemeter program to mirror audio to multiple sources and a Little Bear audio switcher, giving us an instant change between sources for the most accurate and efficient possible comparison. The results of this test is that neither myself nor the others who tested could discern a single difference between the Little Dot MK III and a cheap solid state amplifier. This is with stock tubes and ~30 hours of burn in. No warmth, no soundstage increase, no effect on the bass, no 2nd order distortion, nothing that any of us could tell. The amp itself is nice, it's well built and is structurally and in design an improvement over the Little Dot 1+ and Little Dot MK II. It's quite large and has a good weight to it, from a build stand point it's a fantastic amp. If you want tube sound, look elsewhere. I highly recommend caution against anyone claiming this amp does anything to sound, which somehow seems to be nearly everyone who recommends this amp which confuses the hell out of me. Could new tubes alter the sound? Possibly, I'm personally not willing to invest anything more into this amp as the stock tubes aren't bottom line trash and should already be making at least a small difference.

Out of the box, direct from China, I didn't like the sound. Checked out some tube-rolling forums and ordered some old-stock CCCP tubes that were suggested. Excellent, everything improved. This little tank has been going strong for several years now. I have Grado SR325is cans that seem to be great fit. Smooths out digital sources well. Non-fatiguing.

The Little Dot MK III is excellent. After I set it up to work with my Grado 325e Headphones the sound was detailed, full, and warm, and the tubes aren't broken in yet. I usually never give five stars, but I made an exception for the Little Dot MK III. I would recommend TLDMKIII to anyone who is interested in hearing excellent, detailed musical sound. It's great for Jazz, Classical, or any genre you listen to.

I'm 62 and I go back to the solid state days but I also heard some tube systems. Back in the 80s when I was a young adult buying stereoes the tube system were way too expensive for my budget. But you know dreams never go away. now adays you can get an entry level tube system so I got the Little DotMK3 and paired it with Audio Technica SR50BT headphones and Kantu 6 Powered speakers. hooked up with just a Dell computer. The tubes clears things up amaisingly. It has a smoother sound with a little bit of increased sound but the sound is so much more clearer. now I wonder what the other ones sound like because the Little Dot3 is roughly $282 . The one thing they could have done was include Bluetooth with it. I routed a Avantree Oasis Plus in between the computer and the Little Dot3 , but you can never get the same sound outof Bluetooth playback.