[sharkz]

For $100, I would just look for a used Little Dot 1+. Jumper adjustable for impedance and they are supposed to be one of the better sounding tube hybrids with Grados. I have an Indeed G1 and am currently looking to upgrade, just want something a bit sturdier. The Indeeds are great at $40-60, but getting into $100 makes them less of a great value. Just my two cents.

 

[DocBlasto]

 
Quote:

For $100, I would just look for a used Little Dot 1+. Jumper adjustable for impedance and they are supposed to be one of the better sounding tube hybrids with Grados. I have an Indeed G1 and am currently looking to upgrade, just want something a bit sturdier. The Indeeds are great at $40-60, but getting into $100 makes them less of a great value. Just my two cents.

Hey, I really appreciate all of this feedback. I was wondering about the Little Dot... they're a beautiful little package. I'm hoping that whatever amp I buy will be happy driving both of my "good" headphones. I'm practically sold on the Little Dot because I love the form factor and the twin tubes.
 
I wonder if they'll supply any sparkly treble to my DT770 Pro-80's.
 
EDIT: On second thought, I guess that's DACs and EQs are for. I read that the Little Dot 1+ is great for headphones up to 250ohm or so. This may be my next amp!
 
EDIT EDIT: Anyone have any experience ordering things through Ali Baba or Ali Express? 
 
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs/333649482-Little-Dot-I-Hybrid-Headphone-Amplifier-6JI-standard-Quality-guarantee-100-Grinding-and-tubes-One-year-wholesalers.
 
Little Dot I+ shipped for $110. Too good to be true?

 

[Jazzyfi]

I never heard the 6 type tubes. Mine is the 12 type tubes so I actually cannot give any recommendation about those. But looking at general point of view, 6922 is better than 12au7, and of course more expensive. I think Indeed will be a better choice than Little Dot especially if you are into modding. The possibility with Indeed/bravo is endless, depending on your skill and electronics understanding of course. If you try to search on rockgrotto you will see how many people are really into this small thing. Solderdude also made a complete tutorial in pdf with signal measurements.
 
Quote:

Thanks for the info, Jazzyfi. My Grado SR225's are my primary love, mostly because of those sparkly highs. I wear Beyers at work for comfort, build and practicality, so if the G2 have better treble, I'm all about it.
 
I'm on eBay now and it seems like the Indeed G2 costs about $100 shipped, which isn't all that much  more than the other brands/labels. I see they're available with the 6922, 6N11 and 6N23P tubes. For your preferred sound, do any of those three stand out? I've seen some of these discussed elsewhere on the board, but damn of I can find them again.

 

 

[Bacci]

I recently ordered parts (20$ or so) through Aliexpress, arrived after 2 weeks as advertised, seems they're legit.
Quote:

 

Hey, I really appreciate all of this feedback. I was wondering about the Little Dot... they're a beautiful little package. I'm hoping that whatever amp I buy will be happy driving both of my "good" headphones. I'm practically sold on the Little Dot because I love the form factor and the twin tubes.
 
I wonder if they'll supply any sparkly treble to my DT770 Pro-80's.
 
EDIT: On second thought, I guess that's DACs and EQs are for. I read that the Little Dot 1+ is great for headphones up to 250ohm or so. This may be my next amp!
 
EDIT EDIT: Anyone have any experience ordering things through Ali Baba or Ali Express? 
 
http://www.aliexpress.com/product-gs/333649482-Little-Dot-I-Hybrid-Headphone-Amplifier-6JI-standard-Quality-guarantee-100-Grinding-and-tubes-One-year-wholesalers.
 
Little Dot I+ shipped for $110. Too good to be true?

 

 

[DocBlasto]

 
Quote:

I recently ordered parts (20$ or so) through Aliexpress, arrived after 2 weeks as advertised, seems they're legit.


 

From what I've read, it's like a less policed version of Amazon. They have problems with some vendors, but I'll just read my ratings carefully and not buy anything that looks outright fishy. This vendor seems to sell only audio stuff like amps, DACs and tubes, and his feedback (from all over the world) is very good.

 

[Teoman]

I just got this in today. There was some power in it already, so as soon as I switched it on, it was lit. Attached the PSU, then hooked it up to my audio interface and started noticing a "Buzzzzz" sound. I have it going Dual RCA to Headphone output, is that why, or is it normal for this and other tube amps to have such noise? The headphone output on the Bravo amp seems messed up also... it was mono till I tapped on the headphone socket.

Now, it's so heated up that it would burn an egg instantly. Is it normal for it to get this hot?

Hooked up my D2000 instead of AKG K702, as I wasn't too fond of what the bravo provided them as it stands either, and there is a huge "CLICK" noise when I turn the device off and on, so I was a little worried to damage my K702's.

Here it is on my messy desk;
 


Cheers

 

[Ultrainferno]

V2 build quality seems to be dropping

 

[Jazzyfi]

Sorry to hear your problems. I always advice people to buy Indeed G2 instead of Bravo V2 if they are not into modding. The buzz sounds like it doesn't have a proper grounding (ground loop problem), it can probably be solved by hard wiring the input and output ground points to the power supply ground. Make sure the ground offset is not more than 1mV. The headphone socket might need resoldering.
Btw, you shouldn't use low ohmic headphone with this amp. Its way too sensitive. I tried it with my ES3X and I hear dc everywhere.. Tried with my HD25-1 and it gives nice result but not better than my iQube. But with my DT880 600 ohm it really shows what it can do. It drives the DT880 with enough voltage swing, bass is really deep (if you change the output cap to 2200uF), treble really shines (if you change the fet to IRL510), and the DC buzz, click, etc is automatically filtered because of the high ohmic.
Quote:

I just got this in today. There was some power in it already, so as soon as I switched it on, it was lit. Attached the PSU, then hooked it up to my audio interface and started noticing a "Buzzzzz" sound. I have it going Dual RCA to Headphone output, is that why, or is it normal for this and other tube amps to have such noise? The headphone output on the Bravo amp seems messed up also... it was mono till I tapped on the headphone socket.

Now, it's so heated up that it would burn an egg instantly. Is it normal for it to get this hot?

Hooked up my D2000 instead of AKG K702, as I wasn't too fond of what the bravo provided them as it stands either, and there is a huge "CLICK" noise when I turn the device off and on, so I was a little worried to damage my K702's.

Here it is on my messy desk;
 


Cheers

 

 

[Jazzyfi]

Apparently indeed just made an improvement for their headphone amp only (without pre amp function) version. Indeed MK2 6922. Its cheaper than the G2 version with pre amp.
Nice price, 70$. Better components, nice tube 6922 electro harmonix , IRF510 nice treble and good headroom when biased to 15.5V (irf have 4V Vgs instead of 2V IRL), more cap for the power supply filtering (but still 25V -_-'), panasonic output cap, too bad its still 1000uF.
 
Grounding looks really good, with ground plane instead of spaghetti traces, should eliminate the common ground problem. This should be good out of the box! Only mod I can think of is the bypass cap for the bias resistor.
So for those who want to have a nice out of the box, this is the one.

 

[Jazzyfi]

Uhhh, from the picture they even already put a wima bias cap next to the bias resistor! Nice!

 

[swbf2cheater]

Im supposed to get one of these in the next few days hopefully ( was actually due last week but still haven't gotten it )

 

[ostap]

I'm starting to regret my purchase of Bravo V2, I'm having troubles with it all the time. First there was horrible EMI problem - discussed few pages ago in this thread. Seller sent me another item (just the amp, without tube or power cord) and it seems the EMI buzzing is better (though still annoyingly present). Now I've noticed another annoyng sound, which probably comes from the crappy pover cord. It is constant "hummmm" of low tone, probably 200 hz frequency or so. It sounds like car engine from a distance. Two things about this sound are weird: it is present only in the right channel and when i touch bottom side of the transformator box on the power cord it either goes silent or changes to higher tone. sometimes, it silences itself for no obvious reason and appear few seconds later.
So I have hummmmmm in right ear and buzzzz in both ears which changes as I move the headphone cable. How can I enjoy music with that?
 
argh, why don't things just work...
 
I think I would be better off selling my DAC and getting uDAC instead of adding Bravo to my DAC.
 
The only think I like about Bravo so far is the looks, I can say nothing about sound because it is constantly interfered with this buzzing and humming. damn!

 

[Ultrainferno]

Don't forget this mini amp is only 50$ shipping included. I agree that it sucks to have a not good working one, but you can't expect much for that price

 

[ostap]

I wouldn't complain if the sound quality was at 50$ level, but thing worked properly. But having 200$ sound which you can't enjoy because of parasite noises coming from power cord, headphone cable and who knows where else from sucks hard.

 

[allyl]

Changed out the MOSFETs and input/output caps today and it really seems to have made quite the difference. Certainly sounds better than one would expect for $50 or so and $15 worth of parts.