[gibosi]

Yes, indeed, enjoy!

And if you can find them at a good price, the older embossed C3gs are well worth trying, IMHO. The embossed Siemens is very close to the silk-screened version, with a little less mid-range bloom to my ears. And the Lorenz is quite different, with less treble and air, and correspondingly, more bass and lower mid-range presence.

 

[kamzak88]

Hi Kamzak88,

Which LD do you have, have you not got the reference guide?. If you have the LD MK3 there will be a hole on the underside with two sets of red gain switches, one for right and left channels, here is the LD MK3 ref guide explaining what to do,go to page 8, hope this helps.http://195.84.101.101/~goranl/projects/nad_stereo/little_dot/LittleDot_MKII_Guide.pdf

I have LD I+ and I dont have manual. I know where is gain switches but i dont know how set this

 

[dobigstuff]

I have LD I+ and I dont have manual. I know where is gain switches but i dont know how set this

kamzak88:

If your Little Dot 1+ has the small red box (with the gain switches) when switch 1 is "on" and switch 2 is "on" that will be low gain (2.5)

 

[dobigstuff]

Use your ears. everyone is different but usually your range on the Volume Knob is about 9:00-12:00

 

[Ronvdp]

You will love those! Completely changed my view of the LD MK3. Just getting back into the headphone thing and I’m really glad I held onto this amp. I did get a DAC which I never tried before and it is a serious upgrade to go along with the nice quality audio from TIDAL.

 

[dobigstuff]

You will love those! Completely changed my view of the LD MK3. Just getting back into the headphone thing and I’m really glad I held onto this amp. I did get a DAC which I never tried before and it is a serious upgrade to go along with the nice quality audio from TIDAL.

Ronvdp:

Did you also change your Power Tubes to the 6SN7's?

 

[OctavianH]

Yes, indeed, enjoy!

And if you can find them at a good price, the older embossed C3gs are well worth trying, IMHO. The embossed Siemens is very close to the silk-screened version, with a little less mid-range bloom to my ears. And the Lorenz is quite different, with less treble and air, and correspondingly, more bass and lower mid-range presence.

Ok, mine are different, I guess based on the serial number they are newer. These were the ones I could find at a decent price here. I will try them and see later if I will want also embrossed ones.

 

[gibosi]

Ok, mine are different, I guess based on the serial number they are newer. These were the ones I could find at a decent price here. I will try them and see later if I will want also embrossed ones.

Based on your pictures, I would say that my silk-screened C3g are newer than yours. Mine came in those bright orange and blue boxes, which are definitely from the mid-1970's. Your yellow and blue boxes are older. And further, on mine, the serial number is silkscreened on top while yours have the paper band around the middle.

Regardless, they are all wonderful tubes and the differences are subtle. Enjoy.

 

[OctavianH]

I was worried that they are not identical, but I guess I have to ignore this. This guy I have received them from lives in Budapest and claims they are brand new. When the adapters will come I will try them with the Jan Philips 6SN7 WGTA. I guess this is my last upgrade for LD.

 

[gibosi]

Yours might not have been manufactured in the same month, but still given the similar boxes and labeling, I would guess they were manufactured around the same time, perhaps within a few years of each other. So for all intents and purposes, I would say yours are identical.

For example, I have a backup pair of embossed Siemens shown below. Notice that the difference in the serial numbers is quite large. And further, the one of the right has gold pins while the other doesn't. Still, swapping these tubes from left to right, I can hear no difference.



Moreover, this backup pair sounds identical to my closely matched pair shown below. So I keep the matched pair safely stored away and listen to my backup pair.

So again, no reason to worry. I am sure that your two tubes are virtually identical.

 

[gibosi]

Hi I'm thinking about a Little Dot I+, how does it do with IEMs? I'm looking to connect it to an Audioquest Dragonfly RED from my laptop. Also how long do the tubes take to warm up? I'm using Shure IEMs

It looks like no one has responded?

The Little Dot 1+ was explicitly designed for low-Z headphones, such as IEMs. So it is a much better choice for your Shure than the LD II, III or IV.

The tubes used in the LD 1+ heat up rather quickly, less than 5 minutes.

So I encourage you to go for it!

 

[Johnnysound]

Hi Gibosi ! My Siemens C3G are s/n 59737-59738, bought NOS (along with a used backup pair) from a german guy that offered the tubes in this forum a long time ago...at a quite reasonable price. Swapping for the backup ones makes absolutely no difference in sound. And the backup tubes are obviously much older, have lost the band with the s/n, all that remains is a small piece of a blue/yellow sticker, as you can see... I understand C3Gs appeared in late sixties or so, and I am wondering if my backup ones are around first generation. In any case, these are from a very different batch from the new ones, probably many years older, but sound virtually the same, showing great consistency, and obviously great quality control in the C3gs production. This is not very usual with many other tubes....

 

[Topodomain]

C3g's seem to get ridiculously expensive and rare. I wonder would it be possible to make adapters and heater voltage source (like in 6as7 power tube mod.) and get c3m or something similar working? Would it be safe for LD IV SE?

C3c's would look cool

 

[Johnnysound]

Searching a little bit, the C3g was first introduced in 1952 (that's way older than I tought !) and there are C3gs with all kind of labels: blue/yellow, blue/white, blue/yellow/white, plain yellow and even white bands with the serial number. No idea how is this related to the year of manufacture, and C3gs have no date code, I think it appears only in the original box. I can say that narrow, yellow bands (the most common) belong surely to later models made in the seventies, while wider blue/yellow labels can be much older. Finally, found a pic of a Siemens C3g with blue/yellow label from 1961, positively dated. This was a great find, because the broken labels of my backup tubes do look really old, and now I know they are vintage units. Really nice, of course, have to hear these tubes in detail, and even risking contradicting myself about my last post, no seventies tube can sound as good as a late fifties or early sixties tube, I don't know why, this is just one of the tube myths...

 

[gibosi]

Searching a little bit, the C3g was first introduced in 1952 (that's way older than I tought !) and there are C3gs with all kind of labels: blue/yellow, blue/white, blue/yellow/white, plain yellow and even white bands with the serial number. No idea how is this related to the year of manufacture, and C3gs have no date code, I think it appears only in the original box. I can say that narrow, yellow bands (the most common) belong surely to later models made in the seventies, while wider blue/yellow labels can be much older. Finally, found a pic of a Siemens C3g with blue/yellow label from 1961, positively dated. This was a great find, because the broken labels of my backup tubes do look really old, and now I know they are vintage units. Really nice, of course, have to hear these tubes in detail, and even risking contradicting myself about my last post, no seventies tube can sound as good as a late fifties or early sixties tube, I don't know why, this is just one of the tube myths...

My best guess is that you are off by about a decade.

Yes, the earliest version was introduced in the 1950's, but it has a different pin-out and is quite rare. And it won't work with the adapters available on eBay. These have serial numbers in the range, 501-10000.

Sometime after that, probably in the late 1950's or early 1960's, the final version was introduced. Outwardly, these are characterized by embossed flat-black cans. As best I can tell, Telefunken, Lorenz and Siemens manufactured these tubes. (However, I have never seen a Telefunken C3g with an embossed flat-black can.)

By the 1970's, Telefunken and Lorenz had shut down their production lines and only Siemens manufactured the C3g. 1970's production is characterized by silk-screened shiny-black cans. (And if you closely compare the 1960's and 1970's Siemens, pictured below, you can see other small differences in the shape of the can.) To my knowledge, every C3g with these shiny-black cans was manufactured by Siemens, regardless of the silk-screened brand printed on the tube.

To my ears, the later 1970's Siemens have a touch more mid-range bloom than the 1960's Siemens, but this difference is very subtle.