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Just received this morning, now is still burning in. I swap out the 12AU7EH for a Sylvania NOS, and added more thermo grease. Here are some pictures, and i will try to post some review once i got enough listening done.
I am a happy man.
The orginal box
Back connection, known to be a tricky place. i will discuss more on upcoming review.
The front
Closeup
Open top with the original tube (12AX7EH + 12AU7EH)
Another open top. You can see the thermo grease here.
My little setup. Will be getting new headphone for my LC.
I should have update this earlier, but end up using whole day rolling tube to find 'my sound'
First of, what to say? This is my first tube amp, and possibly the last one for a long time to come. I decide on Firestone's Little Country (LC) for a few reason: 1) The design, Good looking and small enough since i move a lot. 2) Easy to use while good sounding, i am not familiar with tube amp and at most just doing tube rolling, so simplicity is prefered. 3) Easy to get. As i am in Australia and Firestone have a official dealer here. The thing is, I can get other tube amps but none fit in all three catagories as well as the LC for me.
OK, now for the packaging and what is in the box.
Packaging is simple. In it, the LC it self with a simplified menu with almost no writing except some comparison of headphone combination, a warrenty writen in Chinese, one power cable, one S-cable for connecting the power supply (lower) to the amp (higher), one allen key for opening LC, and one 1/8' to 1/4' stereo plug adapter. In the amp, you will find a 12AX7EH and a 12AU7EH installed. I must say the design and material used are all very classy, but since the amp is priced quite high, i guess this is obvious. The whole frame is made by thick aluminum and quite heavy. The front panel seems to be powder coated rather than printing, a very nice finish. Overall Firestone has put together a good looking headphone amp, but i do hope they have put in a better menu.
Now for the amp itself. I will also put in some other info i read from different website in here.
For the original tube, i must say i am very disappointed. They sound muddy and weak high and low range. As the designer said in one forum (in chinese), changing the original 12AU7EH will greatly improve the sound, and so i did. I swap out the 12AU7EH with a Sylvania 12AU7A NOS. Suddenly it sound much better, with good sound stage and well balance on all range. It is a little bit laid back, but not as much as many 'real' tube amp (LC is a hybrid). I personally dont find LC to be warm (maybe slightly) after the tube change.
In the same Furom, the designer also mentioned that 12AX7EH sound 'not bad', and it seems to be true. I have some JJ 12AX7 at hand, so i try out some combination with both the original tube and the NOS tube. I found out that although JJ tube has great sound stage, it can not work with my NOS tube. They have great sound stage but become too bright for me, unless they are only used for Jass or R&B. Both EH tube are bass heavy and muddy, so puttng them together in the first place is definately not a good choice (even the designer said so, he choose them because they both are in production and designed for AC). However, as discussed by the designer, the main problem is the 12AU7EH. The Sylvania tube i got is quite bright with a good sound stage, when combine with 12AX7EH, they belanced each other out, making LC sound GREAT! Sylvania bring in the detail and sound stage, while EH got the lower range covered. I will properly getting more tubes to test out different sound, and i will post once i get to test them out.
Here is another problem LC got: the S-power cable. It is known that when not connected well (loose), LC will burn out anything that you plug into it, no matter it is a headphone or a power amp. The cable must be checked every time to ensure tight connection. I did not find my cable getting loose by itself, but there is other who reported it as a problem.
Now, If you did not find rolling tube and checking cable to be a 'turn off', i will say give LC a try and you might love it as i do
Congrats on your purchase! Have been using a Cute beyond for a few months now and was thinking of upgrading to the LC for some tube rolling fun.
I actually did a brief audtion of the LC some time back and realized that it can get pretty warm thus not sure if its a good idea for you to place it so close to your laptop though.
Do you need to crank up the volume several notches when you listen to your music? If memory does not fail me i remembered having to adjust the volume knob to about 9.00pm to 9:45pm at times while for the Cute Beyond, the max was only 8:45pm when using it with the HD600.
It can get quite warm for LC, yes. But there is fans poinsting at my desktop at the moment, so i guess that shouldnt be a problem. I has been running LC for the last few day under both fans cooling and no cooling condition, and found no problem. I also didnt read anything about heat problem when i am doing research on LC, and so far most are just worry. As long as you are using LC on room temp. (25C) condition, heat shouldnt be a problem. (it might seem close, but actually there is at least 1 inch between LC and everything else)
Oh, here is something i forgot to mention, there is a gain switch in the LC, and i am on high gain so volume is not a problem. Personally find low gain being too low for me. But setting it on high gain means anytime when i turn my volume over half, noise will start to increase to a noticable level, but not so bad anyway. I am mostly using slightly less the half in volume most of the time. (roling tube also affect the gain, so mine is different from the original tube).
The S-cable is quite strong by itselt, it is the connection join that has the problem. Some user find their connection loose by itself and 'fry' their headphone, but most do not have a problem. I check everytime i turn LC on, and didnt find it loose at all. I guess this a less common problem, but a problem none the less. If the cable is L-shaped in the first place, i guess this wont be a problem at all.
FireStone's Little Country in da house!
Linear Mode
