Headphone amps

[goraman]

The little dot is a very affordable way to get into tube rolling as there are a ton of inexpensive NOS signal tubes out there.
At reasonable prices not like NOS 12AX7 and others.

[goraman]

Another point to be made is the designer of all the little dot products is Sword Yang a very acompished engineer and well known in China as an Audio guy. He is creating original circuits using really good but affordable parts.
He knows what he is doing and everything he makes is well thought out and their assemblers do a great job in production.

[Jimbo]

I see that Little Dot have quite a range of headphone amps. Are any of the lower priced ones worth looking at?

[mightymonoped]

The Little Dot MK II is another gem. Can also be rolled. Mine was impressive enough to make me want to change my main amp.

Here it is with Mullard M8100.






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[Lawrence001]

I have a love hate with the M8100, they roll off at the top way to soon, no shimmer ,no sparkle ,midrange is very forward and smooth ,there is a lot of bass that extends low enough but it lacks definition and detail ,its just muddy in a lot of recordings .
The Voshkods have a really sweet top end, an open midrange that seems more balanced with the rest of the recordings, and bass is far better controlled and does not sound bloated and blurred. They are clearly the sweetest sounding tubes and with the 6h30pi music is just so open and effortless.
The right tubes really bring out the best these little amps can be .
My headphones are very revealing AKG Q701 with upgraded cables, they really hear deep into both recordings and equipment .
The better your source and amp the more options you have in headphones as some cans will reflect poor equipment down stream.

The better 6H30pi is a current Electroharmonics offering.
Made in the same factory as the famous (NOS) 6H30 DR supertubes as a direct copy. But they are reasonably priced unlike the NOS versions. The signal tubes are all NOS.
Another good tube is the JAN GE 5 star not to be confused with the standard GE tubes.RCA is another good choice .

The MkIV SE comes with the Electro Harmonix 6H30Pi gold pin as stock, along with the CV4010 as shown.

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[goraman]

The MkIV SE comes with the Electro Harmonix 6H30Pi gold pin as stock, along with the CV4010 as shown.

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The CV 4010/M8100 is exactly the same tube with different markings for the military.
It is good the 4 comes with better output tubes.

[goraman]

Yes, they make a lot of lesser amps .
But for me the 3 version 2.0 is the sweet spot because when the surplus of cheap outputs dries up that don't sound nearly as good as the 6h30 you will still be rocking.
And it leaves more room for future upgraded tubes.
If you can get the used 4 for the price of the 3 do it.
Or find a nice used 3 version 2.0 so you can upgrade the power tubes later. It's about not having to buy another headphone amp later and just rolling tubes as you please. The 6n6p tubes are what limits the 2 and 3 V1.0

[osh]

I recently bought a pair of Sennheiser HD650 headphones and an NJC Audio headphone amplifier. At the same time I had a valve buffer added to the line out of my Croft 25RS. I'm very pleased with how it all sounds.

[Jimbo]

I recently bought a pair of Sennheiser HD650 headphones and an NJC Audio headphone amplifier. At the same time I had a valve buffer added to the line out of my Croft 25RS. I'm very pleased with how it all sounds.

I have the Sennheiser HD650 on my wish list at the moment. Not heard of NJC Audio so will check them out.

[mikeyb]

I have the Sennheiser HD650 on my wish list at the moment. Not heard of NJC Audio so will check them out.

You can borrow my Senn 650's if you like, not being used at the moment so no bother to post them down to you.