Neeley
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2009
- Posts
- 202
- Likes
- 10
I know people love Little Dot but I'm afraid I don't. Quite frankly the build quality and reliability is shoddy at best.
So I bought a MKIV SE a little over a year ago, new from LD. The first thing I noticed was a couple of the gold plated bolts that secure the tube rings down had been tightened so much, that the chassis threads were striped and the hex bolts had been rounded off. This ****ed me off but I couldn't go through the saga of sending it back so I let it go.
Driving my HD580's I wasn't all that impressed with the SQ too, even after a 100 or so hours of burn in. It sounded uninspiring and lightweight. Couldn't see what all the fuss was all about.
A couple of months in one of the channels started to get quieter, soon after that crackling. Great! Faulty power tube. Done all the usual tests, swapping channels etc, it was a faulty tube. Contacted LD, they promptly sent me another 6HP30-PI tube for the cost of the shipping. (Good service).
The new tube didn't seem to match the gain of the other one, it was still quieter in one channel. Ok so I left it a couple of weeks hoping it would break in and balance out, It didn't. At this point I decided to swap tubes around to make sure the new one was faulty, the problem stayed in the same channel. Totally pissed off at this I thought **** it, I'll buy some expensive 6H30-DR's and replacement NOS Mullard tubes, hoping that somehow that would cure the problem. Well it didn't, should have known really.
A friend who is extremely talented and knowledgeable in repairing and restoring vintage equipment took a look for me. Part of the circuit board had been burning which in turn had caused some components to fail. He said part of the problem was because of bad design with some of the components being too lower value. Because of this, the power tubes are being pushed to their limits and the casing isn't adequately dissipating heat. The circuit board isn't serviceable because the copper doesn't lay on top, instead it's encased within the board itself. Some of the components he had to change were really difficult to solder. He warned me that I would always have problems with it.
Well that was all done roughly 6 months ago, the amp is still working however, the last couple of weeks it's been distorting badly when listening at moderate volumes. Gradually it's getting worse so it's now sitting doing nothing, looking almost pretty apart from the tops of the chewed up gold plated bolts.
Up until now, I've never used it before but the crummy sound chip on my motherboard sounds pretty good, tonally it's nicer than the LD ever was and there's more weight. Sure it's not refined in any way but it's one hell of a lot more pleasing to listen to.
Where to go from here, I've no idea. The LD is going in the bin.
Thanks for reading.
So I bought a MKIV SE a little over a year ago, new from LD. The first thing I noticed was a couple of the gold plated bolts that secure the tube rings down had been tightened so much, that the chassis threads were striped and the hex bolts had been rounded off. This ****ed me off but I couldn't go through the saga of sending it back so I let it go.
Driving my HD580's I wasn't all that impressed with the SQ too, even after a 100 or so hours of burn in. It sounded uninspiring and lightweight. Couldn't see what all the fuss was all about.
A couple of months in one of the channels started to get quieter, soon after that crackling. Great! Faulty power tube. Done all the usual tests, swapping channels etc, it was a faulty tube. Contacted LD, they promptly sent me another 6HP30-PI tube for the cost of the shipping. (Good service).
The new tube didn't seem to match the gain of the other one, it was still quieter in one channel. Ok so I left it a couple of weeks hoping it would break in and balance out, It didn't. At this point I decided to swap tubes around to make sure the new one was faulty, the problem stayed in the same channel. Totally pissed off at this I thought **** it, I'll buy some expensive 6H30-DR's and replacement NOS Mullard tubes, hoping that somehow that would cure the problem. Well it didn't, should have known really.
A friend who is extremely talented and knowledgeable in repairing and restoring vintage equipment took a look for me. Part of the circuit board had been burning which in turn had caused some components to fail. He said part of the problem was because of bad design with some of the components being too lower value. Because of this, the power tubes are being pushed to their limits and the casing isn't adequately dissipating heat. The circuit board isn't serviceable because the copper doesn't lay on top, instead it's encased within the board itself. Some of the components he had to change were really difficult to solder. He warned me that I would always have problems with it.
Well that was all done roughly 6 months ago, the amp is still working however, the last couple of weeks it's been distorting badly when listening at moderate volumes. Gradually it's getting worse so it's now sitting doing nothing, looking almost pretty apart from the tops of the chewed up gold plated bolts.
Up until now, I've never used it before but the crummy sound chip on my motherboard sounds pretty good, tonally it's nicer than the LD ever was and there's more weight. Sure it's not refined in any way but it's one hell of a lot more pleasing to listen to.
Where to go from here, I've no idea. The LD is going in the bin.
Thanks for reading.
