Brand new Little Dot MKIII with imbalanced channels and noise

Hi,

My first post, unfortunately not a happy one. I would like to share my first impressions about the Little Dot MKIII.

I received the MKIII this week and it came a problem of imbalance between the channels (sound shifted to the right). I swapped the tubes according to the manual, but the sound remained shifted to the right. After swapping the tubes, I also noticed a crumpling paper noise in the right channel when bass notes were played. To avoid doubts, this sound disapeared when I plugged the phones directly to my notebook. To complete my frustration, sometimes I heared a crumpling paper noise just by turning the volume knob. It's a kind of issue that could have easily been noticed in a quick quality control check.

This weekend I will try to clear the tube contacts with some kind of anti-oxid product, as a last chance. I intend to report the results here, as well as other impressions about the product and the support I'm receiving from Little Dot. I hope I have good news to give.

Thanks,

Alberes

I cleaned the contacts with de-oxidizing and the sound returned to the center!

The manual recomends, prior to powering the amp for the first time, to "clean the tube pins with eletronics or de-oxidizing cleaner to remove any grime or oxidation that have occourred". I hadn't. I followed the other first time steps, except for this one, as it was just a recomendation, I didn't have the cleaner and I didn't realize that this procedure could make such a difference.

There's still some noise when I turn the volume knob, by I read that this may be fixed with burn-in. The right channel noise disapeared.

Very happy now with my MKIII, and couting the days to get my hi-impedance headphones and appropriate source.

Alberes