Little Dot DAC_I Review and Comparo - Page 3

Compare:

Little Dot MK VII Technical Specifications:

Inputs:
Balanced: 2x 3-Pin XLR
Single-Ended: 2x RCA
Outputs:
Balanced: 4-Pin XLR
Single-Ended: 6.35mm TRS (1/4" Stereo jack)

Frequency Response: 6 Hz - 200 Khz (- 1dB)
THD+N: 0.001% (2 V RMS @ 1000 Khz)

Suitable Headphone Impedance: 8 - 600 ohms
Input Impedance: 20K ohms
Signal-To-Noise: 95 dB
User Selectable Gain Settings: Low (4x) and High (8x)

Power Output:
2800 mW @ 8 ohm
2600 mW @ 32 ohm
2000 mW @ 120 ohm
800 mW @ 300 ohm

Power Consumption: 25 VA
Measurements:
Metric: 275mm (length) by 217mm (width) by 61mm (height)
English: 10.83 inches (length) by 8.54 inches (width) by 2.4 inches (height)
Weight: 3.5 kg or 7.71 lbs

Available in either 120VAC or 220VAC




Little Dot MK V Technical Specifications:


Dual-Mono design essentially has two independent amplifiers, one for each channel.

Dual-supply transformer, dual rectifier, double filtering, bi-symmetric regulator

MCU for source input switching, ON/OFF protection, stand-by control

Premium Vishay-Dale resistors, Matu****a filter capacitors, WIMA coupling capacitors, ALPS-27 Potentiometer, Van Den Hul/American CMC RCA input jacks, OMRON relay
Includes transient voltage suppression diode to shunt off voltage spikes.
Frequency Response:
10HZ - 100KHz (-0.5dB)
THD+N: 0.05% (100mW @ 300 ohm, 1KHZ)

Suitable Headphone Impedance: 32 - 600 ohms
Input Impedance: 20K ohms

Power Output:
300 ohms: 187mW
32 ohms: 500mW
DC Offset: R/L +/- 3mV
Power Consumption: 12W (228V * 0.053A)

Measurements:
Metric: 275mm (length) by 210mm (width) by 60mm (height)
English: 10.83 inches (length) by 8.26 inches (width) by 2.36 inches (height)
Weight:
3.5 kg or 7.71 lbs

Available in either 120VAC or 220VAC

Based on this figures, MKV and MKVII should be night and day in term of available voltage swing for your HD650 (basically, twice as much):

MKV: 187mW @ 300 ohms, gives 7,5 Vrms, which is equivalent to 21 Volt peak to peak

MKVII: 800mW @ 300 ohms, gives 15,5 Vrms, which is equivalent to 45 Volt peak to peak

I've ordered an M2Tech HiFace USB to BNC out, as I've seen there's no way around this. I was hoping I could buy a gadget capable of playing 24/96 but only Cowon A3 and Logitech Media Transport can do this and it's not cheap..!

Bear in mind that the MKVII rating is while in balanced mode, which is good for nearly twice the voltage swing, and by extension, almost four times the power. I don't believe I've ever seen its rating for single-ended output, but it's possible that it could be as little as 1/4 of its balanced output rating.

THanks for the write up, how is it compare to your arcarm cdp analog outs.

Dac_2 will be released soon according to the builder "Sword Yang". That is a dac and a headphone amp as well. Looks like dac_1 but has a attenuator in the front.

The whole point of buying a balanced amp is to use the balanced outputs.

Despite this helpful review and a few other useful comments dotted around head-fi, there doesn't seem to be a wealth of experience with or opinion on this DAC. None the less I was encouraged to read the words 'neutral' and 'detailed' in a number of the observations that do exist and decided to take the plunge. I'll be pairing it with the Little Dot MK IV SE - so there's an obvious synergy (if only cosmetic) and convenience here - and the HD 650. The only other external DAC I have any experience with is the uDac, so it'll be interesting to see how the two compare - though obviously given the price difference, I'm hoping the DAC_I will bring a lot more to the table.

I can assure you that it is a very detailed dac.

I have both DAC_I and DAC Magic, and would like to contribute to this topic a little. I did compare both DACs on my system through Toslink (AKG K701 recabled with APS V3 and BADA PH12 amp). To my ears, DAC_I sounds more clean, open, thin, detailed, and cold. In contrast, DAC Magic has thicker and warmer sound. The different between the sounds of these DACs are kind of substantial although they use the same chip. I am not sure whether the cleaner sound in DAC_I is related to the torroid transformer. In my system, DAC Magic seems to add more fun into it.

Is it possible to connect a DAC_I  to my studio monitors using the RCA outs and to a MKVII using the balanced out, and being able to switch between the two?

I see that it's got two DIP8 opamps on swappable sockets...but what are they? LM4562NA?

 

Yes,both outputs are active,you can feed them to whatever you want.

 

 

Hi, could you elaborate some more? :) I'm choosing between this 2 and would like to hear more of your views. The terms "clean, open, thin, detailed and cold" seem to contradict each other slightly - in my understanding we have 3 positives and 2 negatives ;) Maybe you could elaborate to give us a better understanding .... 

 

I see you have the Dac_1 for sale so of course that says something ;)