Hello,
 
 
I'm want to try a tube headphone amp, after some little research I found the following:
 
Aune T1
Little Dot MKII
Little Dot MKIII (Can find it cheaper on Ebay)
 
The Aune T1, as I understand, uses it's tube with the integrated DAC and the amp section is solid state. But it's supposed to sound very tubey...
About the LD Amps I hear different opinions, some say they sound the same, other hear improvement...
 
Right now I only own a FiiO E18 DAC/AMP and would use the DAC part for feeding the amp.
 
Headphones I will use with the amp are: HiFiMAN HE400, NAD VISO HP50 and Alessandro MS1 2009 edition.
 
I don't want to buy different tubes and to roll them, I'd like something simple but with the desired tube sound. 
Any recommendations, considering my DAC and cans?
 
Thanks

Schiit vali

davidsh said:

Schiit vali

Click to expand...

Schiit Vali is a hybrid, and although it puts enough power into all of my headphones which are low impedance, I'm not sure how good it'll power a HD650 that may come in the future...
 
And it's a hybrid, was thinking about something more vintage looking

Neither of the little dots will have power enough for the he400 to shine. They are not made for low impedance headphones. The aune t1 is indeed viable.
From what I have heard, the vali does quite well with the hd650.
 
If you want to pay that much there's also the pretty sexy garage 1217  Project Ember. It seems to compete on the level of the lyr. The other garage 1217 might be worth considering as well, yet some of them don't have the power for lower impedance headphones.

davidsh said:

  Neither of the little dots will have power enough for the he400 to shine. They are not made for low impedance headphones. The aune t1 is indeed viable.
From what I have heard, the vali does quite well with the hd650.
 
If you want to pay that much there's also the pretty sexy garage 1217  Project Ember. It seems to compete on the level of the lyr. The other garage 1217 might be worth considering as well, yet some of them don't have the power for lower impedance headphones.

Click to expand...

There is the Little Dot I+ which has 800mW @ 32 ohms, this seems to be a better match for all my headphones, right?
Also the aune t1 seems to be a tube dac and solid state amp...but looks stills very nice..
 
But then again, I'm looking at a hybrid...
 
Project Ember looks nice, but above my budget...and it looks like it could get very dusty inside  
 
Any other recommendations? Thanks

Nah.. Can't come up with anything else.

IMO, the Little Dot 1+ should have plenty of power for the HE-400. 800 mw should be fine. That's more than the Vali. I had the LD MKIII, and it did not have enough power for my HE-400. There was clipping at high volumes on some songs. The 1+ is a hybrid however. I agree with david that the MKII and MKIII aren't made for low impedance headphones as they are OTL designs, but the 1+ is supposedly designed to work better with low impedance headphones vs the other Little Dots.