[DigitalFreak]

As some of you may or may not know Leckerton has been sitting quietly with no product being shipped for the last few weeks. Speculation has ranged from the business owner temporarily stopping production due to a big move to another city to new products being released. Tonight upon checking the site some questions were finally answered. The UHA-4 will again begin shipping as of March 30th. The UHA-6 though is now officially discontinued. The big news, the UHA-6S will also be discontinued and replaced by the UHA-6S MKII. More information on this new amp can be found HERE. For those to lazy to hit the link a pic below of the new amps internals.
 

 
I open the thread for further discussion. So what do you guys and girls think? Good move or bad move?
 
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UPDATE
User Impressions
 
      July 5 2012
Quote:DougofTheAbaci

I've had a chance to listen more with my UHA-6S MK2 on a few setups and now have a bit better idea of how the sound works and changes from straight out from my computers (I do use it exclusively with my laptop and desktop).
 
Battery:
So the battery says about 8 hours or so. I'd say that's a pretty accurate. I've found I get about a day and a half's varied use out of it. I'm pretty good about turning my electronics off and on as necessary. I haven't gone and tried to run it down from full to empty but I do think you could get a solid day's use out of it. It also appears to charge pretty quickly and, for those curious, if you plug in both a TOSLINK cable and the USB cable it will use the TOSLINK for audio and the USB for power (which I was quite pleased to discover).
 
Sound Signature:
I went with the default 209 because I was looking for something that wouldn't alter the sound I get form my headphones, just sort of improve it. My main listening headphones are my Heir Audio 4.A's but I also used it with my Denon AH-D2000's as well as my Acoustic Energy Aego M speakers (just for the hell of it).
 
Over-all I found that I lost some of the depth from my 4.A's but that for that I had more detail and better presentation. I also gained more on the high-end, which helped open-up the sound quite a bit. However, the highs didn't become too bright but instead just felt like they had room to breath. In fact the entire sound seemed to smooth out and open up, which I quite like. It did take away a bit of the "excitement" from the sound of my Denons but for that I gained better sound quality.
 
Also, I found the low gain setting was good enough to power my 4.A's very well and my Denon's quite well. I imagine there's enough power coming out of this AMP on high gain to power a good variety of headphones.
 
One other note about the sound-stage, I found the 4.A to have a very good soundstage to begin with but this really opens it up. I've mentioned this before that my test for sound-stage isn't music but, instead, is gaming simply because games are designed to have accurate, clear directionality in a way that mimics how you actually hear things. I found that this UHA-6S MKII really helped open up the sound stage and really improved directionality for me. I could often hear exactly where opponents and teammates where, which is really handy (for obvious reasons). In this sense I'd say it passed with flying colors.
 
Issues:
I don't know if this is due to the cable I'm using or the device itself but if I shift the cable much I get feedback on the line. It appears to be at the point where the cable meets the AMP but I'm not sure if the issue is I have a cheaper cable or if it's an issue with the device. I'd be willing to try another cable if anyone has any suggestions. My only requirement is that one end be an optical headphone plug such as might be used on an iMac.
 
I also get a bit of noise, even on low gain. It's not much and certainly not enough that I hear it when I'm playing music, but it is audible when nothing is playing.

 

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    UPDATE
    Inner Fidelity Review
    July 20 2012
Full review article written by Head-Fi member project86 can be found HERE
 
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[shotgunshane]

It looks like he's fitting it in the same case as the UHA-4.

 

[DigitalFreak]

I wonder what the pricing will be and what sort of op amp options will be offered?

 

[Cassadian]

I hope he picks a different volume potentiometer, or the knob (whatever it's called).  It juts out and kind of seems to defeat the purpose and portability that the small case offers....

 

[DigitalFreak]

We'll have to wait and see I guess.

 

[11rufus11]

I think it is a good move. I like the design. Thin, wide case like the UHA-4 and not fat like the UHA-6S. If they can keep the price range between $275 - $300 and make some improvements in sound like they promised, I think they have a winner. We will see when the specs come out and the reviews happen.

 

[PANGES]

Aww. I was hoping Leckerton Audio would do the UHA-6S, but with a digital volume control. Realistically though, the volume control is quite good, but there isn't enough resistance on the knob itself. It's a bit too easy to move, especially if you keep the amp in your pocket. The knob has been moved on accident before while in my pocket, which, lucky for me, it just turned the volume off instead of up. lol. 

 

[SoftwireEngineer]

Quote:

Aww. I was hoping Leckerton Audio would do the UHA-6S, but with a digital volume control. Realistically though, the volume control is quite good, but there isn't enough resistance on the knob itself. It's a bit too easy to move, especially if you keep the amp in your pocket. The knob has been moved on accident before while in my pocket, which, lucky for me, it just turned the volume off instead of up. lol. 

Good suggestion. I also emailed and got a reply from Nick. I am really looking forward to this.

 

[DigitalFreak]

If the form factor is going to be smaller on the new 6S I would think the knob would also be shrunk down

 

[Cassadian]

Is there any chance of a digital volume control, if you're going to slim it down, why not further?

 

[DigitalFreak]

Quote:

Is there any chance of a digital volume control, if you're going to slim it down, why not further?

Nobody knows, Leckerton's been mum about the exact details. All we seem to know is they've changed the case thrown in a spdif and from the looks of it it won't be much larger then the UHA-4.

 

[RAFA]

Quote:

Nobody knows, Leckerton's been mum about the exact details. All we seem to know is they've changed the case thrown in a spdif and from the looks of it it won't be much larger then the UHA-4.

Ahm, if this is a actual photo, then there will not be a digital volume control. As you can see, there is a potentiometer...
 
However, I am very much interested in this

 

[DigitalFreak]

Quote:

Ahm, if this is a actual photo, then there will not be a digital volume control. As you can see, there is a potentiometer...
 
However, I am very much interested in this

The photo was taken from the Leckerton site so yep it's an actual photo.

 

[GliderDude]

Been emailing Nick and just bought one of his UHA-6 that he still had in stock. The replacement for the UHA-6s is scheduled to be released in late May. The UHA-6 (no optical connection) will be later in year, I will say Nick is absolute best in terms of fast response and superb customer service.

 

[DigitalFreak]

Any exact date on when the UHA-6 MKII will be launched? I'm very much interested in the MKII but if the no optical version isn't that far off I'll save some coins and get that instead. The optical option would be wasted on me my laptop has no optical out. As far as I know anyway.