MiniWatt tube amp received!!! (56K warning)
Sep 7, 2009 at 6:45 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 8

ClieOS

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Just got this baby from the post office this morning, has been playing with it since. First impression: Small - in fact, very small. It is almost the same size as my FireStone Little Country headphone amp, consider that it is a 4 tubes setup vs. a 2 tube OTL headphone amp.

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RCA input, Banana jack output.

Anyway, being a dedicated headphone user and the only audiophile in the house, I don't really have any real decent speaker to pair this with. I pull out my old trusty Panasonic 2-ways bookshelf and give it a quick audition. Coming straight from my Sansa Fuze lineout, the volume is still fairly low maxxing out on the 5 o'clock, but it is listenable. So I hook it up with my Little Coutry's pre-out and give it another go - much better this time: MiniWatt is steady at 3 o'clock and I use my Little Country to control the volume and it hardly passes 9 o'clock. No distortion or noise to speak of.

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You can see how small it is next to a 3MOVE and a Nano 4.

For the sound, I can't really say much at this point. The speakers ain't really that good, my Little Country is currently tuned for headphone which makes it unsuitable as a pre-amp (synergy issue), plus I haven't burned in the MiniWatt yet. However, as my initial sonic impression, I find MiniWatt to be just a tap light on the bass with a forward vocal and a bit bright treble. All and all, I am still quite impressed about the the performance from such a small package. I guess I'll need to find myself a good bookshelf speaker to get the most of this baby.
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Sep 8, 2009 at 1:32 AM Post #7 of 8
Quote:

Originally Posted by DeusEx /img/forum/go_quote.gif
It only comes in pink?


Gold, silver, black, lime green, sky blue, pinkish red. I pick the pinkish red cause I want to match it to my Little Country. In real life, it isn't as pink as the picture shows.

Quote:

Originally Posted by driftingbunnies /img/forum/go_quote.gif
yeah it's pretty weak lol


For a speaker amp, it is pretty small output, but the good news is as long as the speakers are efficient (> 90dB) and you have a pre-amp, it can get much loader than you'll need for a small room.

I find the 6moon review fairly accurate at describing this little amp, so have a read here.
 

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