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Review of Little-Dot MKIVse - Page 52

post #766 of 833
4/2/09 at 2:04pm
You can get a voltage regulator from APC or similar. They will step down the voltage if too high. I have the APC line-r 1200 and seems to work pretty well for a reasonable price. I don't run my amp through it but I do run my digital audio equipment through it. I can actually here it click on sometimes. My voltage runs around 120-126v depeding on whether poeples air conditioners are running or not.

If you want to test you power filter to see if it works, then just stick multimeter probes in it and see what it measure. Try it before and after the filter.
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post #767 of 833
4/2/09 at 3:09pm
My electrician actually talked me out of a whole house surge suppressor. His reasoning is that surges that can take out sensitive gear are most likely to enter through the ground line, not the two 110V current carrying lines that whole house suppressors protect. His strong preference is to intercept a surge between the outlet and the gear.
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post #768 of 833
4/2/09 at 11:43pm
I thought we were talking about chronic line voltage variation rather than voltage spikes (power surges).
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post #769 of 833
4/3/09 at 10:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by McPanse View Post
My electrician actually talked me out of a whole house surge suppressor. His reasoning is that surges that can take out sensitive gear are most likely to enter through the ground line, not the two 110V current carrying lines that whole house suppressors protect. His strong preference is to intercept a surge between the outlet and the gear.
Your electrician is very honest, not so much with the one I last dealt with.
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post #770 of 833
4/3/09 at 11:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FSonicSmith View Post
Maybe I should start a separate thread about this, I dunno. I recently splurged on a pair of 6H30DRs to replace the EH gold pins that come standard on the Mark IVse. At first, I feared I had wasted my money because the sound was substantially the same, particularly with my AKG701s which are not yet fully broken in. But after about 15 hours of burn-in for the new tubes, things changed dramatically, and particularly with my stock Denon 2000s. I should note that the stock driver tubes were replaced with NOS Voshods right out of the gate when I received my amp more than a month ago. Signal is coming from my Classe CDP.5 thru DH Labs ICs purchased custom from Moon Audio. I was not thrilled at all with the sound of the Denons with the EH 6H30PIs. The bass was bloated and not well controlled and the treble was harsh. With the DRs, the treble is silky smooth and the bass is tight and powerful. Right now I am listening to Andrew Bird's Noble Beast and the sound is rich, organic, and has cohesion that I was not getting with the EH stock tubes. The second track of Drive By Trucker's "The Dirty South" is called "Tornadoes" and opens with a startlingly thunderous set of drum strikes that are both tuneful and powerful, and oh so pleasing with the Denon 2000s. This is great synergy, and most unexpected since the D2000s are thought to need solid state. I was beginning to believe the naysayers of the LD line-up, and was beginning to have doubts about the ultimate sound quality of the Mark IVse. Time will tell as to durability and reliability, but there should be no doubting the potential SQ once source, tubes, and phones choices are matched up. I just hope my 701s eventually flesh out and give as much pleasure as the Denons.
Have you tried changing gain?
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post #771 of 833
4/3/09 at 1:07pm
Quote:
Have you tried changing gain?
I'm not sure I follow you. I am very happy with the sound and am not looking for help or complaining. I was remarking that with the Denon D2000s, the DR tubes do make a significant difference.
But, to answer your question, I had set the gain for 10X right away based on David's (of LD) recommendation to use 10x for the Denon 2000, AKG 701, and even my humble Audio Technica ATH-AD700s, well before I installed the Voshod drivers and 6H30DR powers. I see no reason to back the gain down now at this point.
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post #772 of 833
4/6/09 at 12:38am
One thing is for sure. And that is LD/David service is second to none.
What a quick turn around time for repairs on my MK IV SE.

Thanks, David.
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post #773 of 833
4/6/09 at 2:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by McPanse View Post
My electrician actually talked me out of a whole house surge suppressor. His reasoning is that surges that can take out sensitive gear are most likely to enter through the ground line, not the two 110V current carrying lines that whole house suppressors protect. His strong preference is to intercept a surge between the outlet and the gear.
I have a few Brickwall Filters protecting my equipment. Probaby the best protection you can buy without spending a fortune. They are not based on MOV's which are prone to failure and possible fire hazard. Check out this website..

How It Works - Brick Wall
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post #774 of 833
4/7/09 at 7:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Max F View Post
I thought we were talking about chronic line voltage variation rather than voltage spikes (power surges).
Fair enough! I replaced my outlets with ungrounded GFCIs and bought a 2,160 joule surge protector with a voltage meter that's been reading a steady 122 volts, so I'm not so worried about voltage variation at this point.

Plus, I received assurances from David at LD that the problem shouldn't reoccur since "the incoming heater voltage is going to be regulated." He said in a previous e-mail that the circuit had been revised to accommodate higher than normal outlet voltage (130v or so) which he believes caused the heater voltage to oscillate too high and eventually led to the failure of the power tubes and burn out of the circuit.

Anyway, the amp is still under warranty for another 4 or 5 months. If it fails again after that, I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay to have it fixed, given that I'd be paying $100+ round trip shipping to China plus repair costs.
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post #775 of 833
4/23/09 at 11:02am
Okay you guys. I have a question. One of my 6H30Pi tubes decided to kill itself. The volume is a lot lower in that tube. Obviously I need a new tube. Now I can buy either another Electro-Harmonix or get a Sovtek one. I spoke with David from Little Dot about this and he said that it shouldn't be a problem to mix the two different brands.
My question to you is should I buy the Sovtek or the Electro-Harmonix one? What is the better one? I am about to order from here.
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post #776 of 833
5/13/09 at 4:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by apatN View Post
Okay you guys. I have a question. One of my 6H30Pi tubes decided to kill itself. The volume is a lot lower in that tube. Obviously I need a new tube. Now I can buy either another Electro-Harmonix or get a Sovtek one. I spoke with David from Little Dot about this and he said that it shouldn't be a problem to mix the two different brands.
My question to you is should I buy the Sovtek or the Electro-Harmonix one? What is the better one? I am about to order from here.
I don't know if you've already purchased your single replacement tube, but I've got an odd number of relatively new Sovtek 6H30Pis. I don't use any of the three since I bought the Russian 6N30P-DR Reflektor Plant Supertubes, but I wanted to keep 2 of them for burning in new driver tubes. Do you want it? I don't want any money for it, just the cost of shipping it to you!

But in response to your original question, I've read that only 5-10% of the sound is really affected by the power tubes, so it probably won't hurt it noticeably to have 2 different brands of the same type of tube in there. If you mixed a DR tube in there with a PI, that would be a different story. As long as they output the exact same power (which they technically should do), it should be fine!
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post #777 of 833
5/13/09 at 4:54pm
For those interested, I'm selling my brand new Little Dot MK IV SE (latest revision) with the the Russian 6N30P-DR Reflektor Plant Supertubes and sylvania tubes.
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post #778 of 833
6/29/09 at 11:35pm
Am planning to get MKIV SE real soon, can anyone advice me on the configuration I planning below?

ipod >ipod LOD>ibasso D10 (DAC)>ipod mini jack to RCA cable>MK IV SE (AMP)>Sennheiser HD650
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post #779 of 833
6/30/09 at 7:06am
USA little dot owners, did you get hit with any customs fees on delivery?

I have a III on the way and im worried ill have to pay up :/
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post #780 of 833
8/27/09 at 3:40pm
Where can I get me a set of 408A G Elect 5 star?
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