[tradja]

I was part of the ipodstudio group buy for the LDII. Mine is still running (knock on wood), but out of the 20 on that group buy, what, 4 are still running?

The builder and US rep seem to have been reasonably cooperative with replacements, but most of the replacements seem to have been defective also.

The sound is sublime, to my ears. It is my first tube amp. In short, I really like the spaciousness, depth, warmth, realism, bass, and surprisingly, detail and clarity even compared to my Pimeta (which I like a lot).

The microphonics are mostly present with insertion of a plug into the headphone jack. Like htbyron, I wouldn't at all call it black dead silent, but it is really unnoticeable with music playing.

I just feel like it is a ticking time bomb. For the price and buying an unknown amp, I accept that that was the risk. Until recently, my plan was to enjoy the heck out of it until the caps blow, but now I am very curious to find an upgraded cap that I can commission a local or headfi tech to safely replace the suspect caps with.

The solid-state Little Dot Micro amp that was "thrown in" with the group buy kinda got lost in all the hubub surrounding the LDII failures, but it is a great little amp on it's own, better than my first cmoy by a long shot. I just wish I had need for a portable amp.

 

[Aliacha]

The first LD2 I had worked for a week, then it left a pool of liquid under the case. The second one blew in a day and a half, one of the small white film caps was blown in half, 2 resistors were burnt up, and one of the small caps exploded into the case. The third one has been working for 2 days without problems, though it does have a new circuit design and the old tubes I bought don't work with it (the volume with the old tubes is very low)