[Benzoate]

Greetings all. I'm currently working up the courage to put together a quality headphone rig for myself as I will be moving back in with two of my friends. As of now, I'm thinking about Beyerdynamic DT 880's and a Little Dot tube amp, probably the MK III as it is the top end of my price range—I had been considering the Matrix M-Stage but have since read that a tube amp can tame some of the DT 880's brightness. 
 
Anyway, my real question isn't how well that setup would pair, I'll save that for later, when I actually am closer to having the funds. What I want to know is how much heat an amp like the Little Dot produces. I often read about people switching out their tube gear for solid state during the summer because of all the heat produced. Admittedly, that is usually referring to speaker, not headphone setups. Since I'll be living with roommates, you can imagine that I wont have air conditioning, so sad though it may be, heat is something of a factor. Not that I wont tolerate some heat, just not a ton. 
 
Thanks for your advice, 
Jack

 

[TMRaven]

150-200f / 65-94c
 
They do produce heat, but not as much as a computer.

 

[DemonicLemming]

The tubes themselves get pretty hot, but overall most tube amps don't get hot enough to do much to affect the temperature of a room (unless you're listening in a broom closet).  I've had Class A solid state amps that got much hotter than either my of tube amps.  A big all-tube pre-amp and power amp setup for speakers could likely warm things up some, but most headphone amps are so small, it's really not an issue.

 

[Benzoate]

Alright, thanks for the replies, folks. That's pretty much what I figured, but I thought I'd make absolutely sure. 

 

[Gatepc]

I wouldn't worry about it. You can only feel the heat on my if you get within 4 inches of it and its not enough to effect the room. If you touch the tubes though you can get burned. I know I accidentally bumped the power tubes on mine and it was hot enough that I pulled my hand away quite quickly.

 

[Tilpo]

My experience confirms the posts made in this thread as well.
They tend to get quite hot, but because of their small surface area you don't really notice it. Some more expensive amplifiers like the Little Dot MKVI+ need cooling fans because they get too hot, but then again it has a dual mono design with 5W per channel.
Normal tube amps on the other hand do not need cooling fans, and do not have a noticable effect on the room temperature, if that's what you want to know.

The only notable thing about tube amps is that they produce light, but it's very dim, and it looks beautiful in my opinion.

 

[RevMen]

My LD mk III has been on for about 6 hours and I can safely touch all of it except the sides of the power tubes.  The body, tube tops, and transformer cover are "warm," the tube sides are hot.  It's really not that much heat.
 
Also, I use this rig with Beyer DT 880s.  They're both great pieces of equipment but I think they don't go together as well as they might with others.  I didn't really like the sound until I added an Audio-GD NFB-3, which has a pretty smooth sound.  Changing out the driver tubes for Mullard M8100s helped quite a bit, too.  I tried 2 other DACs previous, at DAC-WOW and a V-DAC.  Those are both good DACs, and the V-DAC does sound like the highest quality of all of them, but the only one that plays well with this rig is the Audio-GD.

 

[Benzoate]

Quote:

They're both great pieces of equipment but I think they don't go together as well as they might with others.  

What do you mean by this, exactly? That the DT 880 would sound better with a different amp, and LD MK III with different headphones? If so, I can understand that. It's frustrating though, since the only other tube amps I can recall hearing as mating well with DT 880s are considerably more expensive.