Little DOT MK III Mods??
Jan 28, 2011 at 7:07 AM Post #76 of 200

 
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Hey, is there anyway to remove the circuit board from the case without desoldering everything? that seems the only way to get it out for me. I have a MKIII with a v1.0 board



I ended up cutting all the wires to the transformer and labeling them but I wouldn't recommend doing it. My LD MK III had a hum and one of the large caps had come loose. I'm going to make a larger cabinet for it. A couple wires to the volume pot came loose so I had to cut that.
This is going to be a big pain in the butt but I like the sound of the amp. 

 
I told you so!!! And I agree that this amp sounds good - with some modding of the caps.
 
 
Feb 6, 2011 at 3:45 PM Post #77 of 200
Phew, Finished all the mods I needed to do to my MKIII, now for the hard part: getting it back in the chassis! Anyone got tips on getting it back in all in one piece? I broke two wires that i had to re solder so far, and I'd rather not have any more causalities. everything is still soldered to the transformer, and it just seems IMPOSSIBLE to get things back in their place. getting this thing back in makes pulling it out seem easy!
 
Feb 8, 2011 at 11:23 AM Post #78 of 200


Quote:
Phew, Finished all the mods I needed to do to my MKIII, now for the hard part: getting it back in the chassis! Anyone got tips on getting it back in all in one piece? I broke two wires that i had to re solder so far, and I'd rather not have any more causalities. everything is still soldered to the transformer, and it just seems IMPOSSIBLE to get things back in their place. getting this thing back in makes pulling it out seem easy!


I've managed to get the board back into the chassis of my MKIV about a dozen of times, believe it or not. But I ended up prolonging two of the wires to the transformer by simply soldering a little piece of extra wire onto the existing wire. This made the task much easier and doesn't affect the sound IMO. As I've mentioned before it really helps if you desolder some of the wires before you start working on the board. The signal wires aren't hard to solder back on only the wires to the transformer.
How the people who assemble this amp manage to do it is a complete mystery to me
confused_face%281%29.gif

 
I don't recollect if I've mentoned it already but I also removed the two caps that sits right before the headphone out (a pair of 3.3µF Solen look-alikes on the MKIV) and replaced them with a straight hookup wire. My electronics engineer friend told me they only serve the purpose of preventing the amp from blowing up if you feed a DC signal INTO the headphone out. As I'm not likely to do that and as we all know that a capacitor sometimes is a necessary evil it's better to avoid it if possible. And so far my amp hasn't blown up and I get the benefit of avoiding the enormous russian K75-10 caps that Pricklely Peete suggested.
Exactly what these look like on the MKIII I don't know but I think they are the two red ones near the headphone out - probably WIMAs.
 
Mar 31, 2011 at 12:49 AM Post #79 of 200
I have a LD Mk III and I have changed both the driver and power tubes to M8100/CV4010 and 6H30. So far, that's all I've done, but it is sounding really good driving my Denon D2000 phones with the new JMoney ear pads and re-cabled with Moon Audio Blue Dragon.
I might purchase the HE-5LE phones. But, will the LD Mk III drive them? Or, does it take more current to get them to really sing?
If you could help me out here, I'd sure appreciate it.
Thanks...
Hugh
 
Apr 1, 2011 at 9:51 AM Post #80 of 200


Quote:
I have a LD Mk III and I have changed both the driver and power tubes to M8100/CV4010 and 6H30. So far, that's all I've done, but it is sounding really good driving my Denon D2000 phones with the new JMoney ear pads and re-cabled with Moon Audio Blue Dragon.
I might purchase the HE-5LE phones. But, will the LD Mk III drive them? Or, does it take more current to get them to really sing?
If you could help me out here, I'd sure appreciate it.
Thanks...
Hugh

 
I haven't tried the HE-5LE with my LD amp but I've tried them with my MAD Ear+ which I would say produces about the same amount of power. Though I know the 6H30/6H6 tubes are able to produce a lot of current I wouldn't know for sure. My MAD Ear+ had to be turned all the way up to just get them to play at a decent level. These cans are VERY hard to drive and I don't think I would recommend them with the LD. In stead I can wholeheartedly recommend the Audez'e LCD-2 which is also an orthodynamic can like the HE-5LE. The synergy of my LCD-2 and my modded LDMKIV is nothing less than a miracle! It's at least on par with the best STAX equipment at less than 1/3 of the price.
Also the HE-5LE is a very forward sounding can. The music is coming from within your head while the LCD-2 is much more laidback with music playing in front of you and thus doesn't create listening fatigue. On top of this the LCD-2 is very easy to drive.
 
It's interesting that you like the 6H30 powertube better than the 6H6P. While I don't own the MKIII amp and only listened to it briefly the 6H6P tubes outperforms the 6H30P-EV in my MKIV amp by a great margin IMO.
 
Apr 3, 2011 at 4:54 PM Post #81 of 200
 
Hi guys! Some time ago I decided to check what’s in my MK III. I dismantled the front panel and a couple of wires connected to the pot fell off. I have no idea how to fix it :frowning2: Could you provide some schematics how to wire the pot to the main board please? I wouldn’t like getting rid of the amp since I spent small fortune on the tubes. Please help!
 
Apr 5, 2011 at 12:12 PM Post #84 of 200


Quote:


Hi guys! Some time ago I decided to check what’s in my MK III. I dismantled the front panel and a couple of wires connected to the pot fell off. I have no idea how to fix it :frowning2: Could you provide some schematics how to wire the pot to the main board please? I wouldn’t like getting rid of the amp since I spent small fortune on the tubes. Please help!


On my MKIV the pot is soldered directly onto the board to four soldering points with no wires attached.
 
http://www.littledot.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=815&sid=30a6313093903f4c3755ff2a4900334e
This links to the Little Dot forum website. More specifically the MKIII. There's a lot of pictures there showing both sides of the board. Maybe you can figure out where they are missing. Logically it should be somewhere near the cutout. Exactly where each wire go I don't know. They each have a different color right?
You could try to email David of Little Dot. He's usually apt to answer questions.
little.tube@gmail.com
or try to pm Prickleley Peete.
 
 
 
 
Apr 11, 2011 at 2:36 PM Post #88 of 200
Hey Sebastian........hows the MK IV and the LCD-2 working for you ? Any more changes to the amp since the last round of mods were talked about ?
 
I lent my Mk III to another head fi'er (at the last meet I attended, Fall 2010) and woudn't you know it I haven't heard back from him for over 4 months now....last time we talked he was enjoying the modifyed Mk III vs his stock Mk III to a great degree. Hopefully I hear from him soon...I kinda miss the little guy (my MK III). Jeez I hope that head fi member is alright.....
 
Peete.
 
 
 
Apr 13, 2011 at 4:49 PM Post #89 of 200


Quote:
Hey Sebastian........hows the MK IV and the LCD-2 working for you ? Any more changes to the amp since the last round of mods were talked about ?
 
I lent my Mk III to another head fi'er (at the last meet I attended, Fall 2010) and woudn't you know it I haven't heard back from him for over 4 months now....last time we talked he was enjoying the modifyed Mk III vs his stock Mk III to a great degree. Hopefully I hear from him soon...I kinda miss the little guy (my MK III). Jeez I hope that head fi member is alright.....
 
Peete.
 
 


Hi there Peete,
 
the modified MK IV and LCD-2 combo is a KILLER!!!
I have two other serious amps to compare with. My canadian Mapletree MAD Ear+ Purist HD and my german Violentric HPA V181 (balanced). As much as I love the Violectrics dynamics, exact details and transparancy I prefer the LD MKIV with the right tubes. These are mainly the russian 6J1P-EV or U.S. Tung-Sol 6AK5W (1950's) input tubes and russian 6H6P power tubes. All NOS tubes.
Just before I bought the LCD-2s I read that they didn't go well with tubes. NOT true. The SQ is everything I have ever dreamed of. Nothing less. I could go on elaborating my impressions if I had the time. All I can say is: my search is over.
 
Some more here in my previous posts:
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/439449/little-dot-mk-iii-mods/75#post_7376692
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/439449/little-dot-mk-iii-mods/75#post_7260946
 
 
Apr 27, 2011 at 2:14 PM Post #90 of 200


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Hi guys! Some time ago I decided to check what’s in my MK III. I dismantled the front panel and a couple of wires connected to the pot fell off. I have no idea how to fix it :frowning2: Could you provide some schematics how to wire the pot to the main board please? I wouldn’t like getting rid of the amp since I spent small fortune on the tubes. Please help!
 
Hey Sonda, that's exactly what happened to me. I need a close-up pic, or something, to see how the potentiometer is wired. Could someone post a close-up of the pot and how it connects to the circuit board? Even something hand drawn would be great. 



 
 

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