fi Nano iDSD silver (original) > Little Dot Mkiii Impressions:

Just got both of these for a low-budget laptop/headphone setup as I'll be working at home more now. The Little Dot has the stock valves and has not been used much as the original owner didn't like headphones. Also included were two new matched pairs of Russian military valves - 6N6P and 6J1P-ev. He also had a pair of Grado SR-80s for which we arrived at a deal.

It was a busy weekend, but I had time to unpack the Nano and get it working with Tidal/MQA. The Nano also seems to have been little used and was running the original firmware. I installed the driver and tried it with Tidal. Pops and clicks galore as well as audio slowing down then stopping completely. Just like vinyl ...Updated the firmware to the latest, then everything worked fine, thankfully.

I've not had a lot of time to listen, but some initial impressions:

* Little Dot sounds great, very pleasant to listen to and not at all noisy. I'm not going to throw all kinds of tubey adjectives around, but it strikes me as a solid, capable amp, regardless of how it makes it's power. I suspect it's on the lowest gain setting, so I was using most of the available volume knob travel for 600 ohm Beyers and about 10:00 to noon for the Grados. I'll open it up at some point and check.

* The Grados were an impulse buy and I hadn't researched them, but I was pleasantly surprised. They were very revealing on the top end, especially reverb trails which could almost be too much at times. On the mono "Porgy and Bess" and "Sketches of Spain", Miles's trumpet could get just shy of strident at certain points, but trumpet in real life can be strident. Johnny Cash's "American Vol. 4" was lovely and I had to share it with my wife to justify my purchases. Acoustic guitars, very well rendered. The bass was fine, not overbearing which is fine for me. The transients on bass guitar and drums were excellent as evidenced on some Who tracks from "Who's Next" and Quadrophenia. I didn't think these would be good for rock, but they conveyed a good overall sense of the music, if not a huge wallop.

* The Beyer DT770 600 ohm - I do love these. There's enough gain from the Little Dot, but I may up the settings to see how it goes. I've always had a soft spot for Beyer phones and these Manufaktur 770s were a bargain. Extremely confortable (moreso than my 250 ohm Pros) and better balanced.


I haven't even tried the inbuilt headphone amp on the Nano, and I'll eventually try the Russian valves in the Little Dot. Still in the honeymoon, but so far, so good.