Little Dot MK IV mk 4 SE Headphone Tube Amplifier Pre-Amplifier

The Mark IV arrived with the left channel completely dead. It looks nice in the picture, but it has low build quality with a cheap tube on circuit board design. It addition returning this unit has been nothing short of a nightmare; and if it were not for the protection of Amazon, I would have been really screwed. Compared to the Woo WA6, at a little over a hundred dollars more, there is no comparison, and the Woo has super point to point build quality and is made in the USA . This piece of junk is worth no were near $500.00 USD.

I ordered this maybe three years ago directly from Little Dot. I didn't know this model was sold on Amazon until today, so I'll write a delayed review of my experiences with it. I did not order the SE edition, but seemed to get a partial one anyway, it came with the Neutrik headphone jack. I didn't want the Neutrik jack, which supposedly clamps down on the headphone jack. I felt that if I was moving about the room with headphones on, and forgot myself, I could whip the whole amp off of whereever it was resting at the moment. I did receive the stock, non-upgraded tubes, which I believe is the only other advantage to the SE version.The first unit I got was packed very well. It was also completely dead on arrival. Look a the photos of the rear of the unit - there are only two screws holding the entire back plate on. These screws were unacceptably loose, creating a 1/3 inch gap, which made a rattling sound whenever the unit was picked up. Peering inside the gap, I could see the power supply wiring was off. This was supposedly a brand new unit. I do not feel confident in my repair abilities, so i opted to try for a replacement. Emails to Little Dot were all answered within 24 hours. English was fair, I could get the general meaning of the author. The Little Dot emails were very polite, and seemed genuinely concerned. The author did state each amp is bench tested before sending out, so he could not understand how such a defect could occur. Therefore, if this is true, I suspect a VERY thorough inspection occurred while in customs.I had to pay shipping back to China, they paid shipping back to me. I don't recall exactly how long this process took, I just remember the time was agreeable to me. Maybe three weeks total, from the UPS store, back to my door.The second unit I got was again, also a partial SE version, with the Neutrik jack and no upgraded tubes. It powered up just fine. The power cord supplied looked moderately robust, one step up than what you usually get. Turning it on, it lit up and and seemed good, until... I plugged in headphones and no sound. Seriously? I thought. All these people on other sites raving about it, and I get two duds in a row. I was perturbed. I wobbled the jack a bit, and.... there it was... loose connection at the Neutrik jack. So, It works fine, just now whenever I plug in a headphone jack, I have to insert all the way, then pull out maybe 2 mm's, and the connection is made, and I get sound. If my position changes while I'm listening, the sound will cut out. I wobble the jack, and it's back on. So if i sit still, which I usually am, there's no problem. Each time I listen, however, I can't help but wonder what else inside this thing is barely connected. Maybe someday I'll open it up and have a peek. My soldering skills are terrible, and in the past, such endeavors usually end up making matters worse. I don't want to send it back a second time.The sound? I have Grado SR80i, Denon D2000, Beyer-Dynamic DT990's (the 600 ohm version)and Sennheiser HD518. I have a PS Audio Digital Link III DAC. My iMac, with AIFF files or Apple Lossless feeds the DAC, which runs into the Little Dot. I have a lot of 24 bit, high resolution files. I use fancy, but not too fancy, wires. OH, I almost forgot the tubes! I have those Russian Electro Harmonix ones in the back, not the crazy expensive ones, but the moderately priced ones below that. And in front, I had Mallards for a long time, but discovered these JAN Sylvanias that were way cheaper, and I like them more. There's not really much to choose from for the rears. The front have tons of options, I've tried a few, like GE and RCA's, and for my varied musical tastes from rock to classical, I like the JAN Sylvanias better than the Mallards. I leave the rings off so I can go back and forth, you can't get ahold of the tubes with those rings in place. Which is a shame, because those rings are cool, reminds me of the that robot chick in Metropolis. Yes, the tubes do glow. They are a good conversation piece, until people figure out it's just a headphone amp. They say "Wait... all this is just for headphones?" Then they shake their heads in disbelief and look at me like I'm weird. Anyway, I like this setup, two American military tubes (JAN is Joint Army Navy) and the two Russian tubes that I read somewhere are used in their submarines. This combo sounds best. Cool.OK, so the sound is good. Very good. There is that warmth, there is a soundstage, there is plenty of headroom. Except for the Beyer Dynamic 600 ohm version, those guys only get loud enough with the volume all the way up to max. Oddly, they sound OK, not great, but completely usable, plugged directly into my iPod or iPhone. The Little Dot does need some warm up time, it sounds 200% better after its been on an hour at least.I like the Denon's best, it's my favorite all around player. The Grado the least, they are a bit forward, and honkier than I usually like. The Sennheisers are polite and reserved. The Beyers I bought used, and suspect they are still breaking in. In all phones, there is an overall sloppiness I find, things aren't quite at tight as I'd like, although there is instrument separation and the like. Hard to describe. I say this because, compared to...About 6 months ago, I bought a Nuforce Icon iDo for about a hundred bucks here on Amazon. Its a DAC and headphone amp combo, LOVE that thing. But only hooks up to an Apple product, so no 24 bit files for now. I can, and do, hook up the DAC in that iDo directly to the Little Dot with fancy RCA cables, bypassing the amp in the iDo, and I do find I prefer that sound to what the PS Audio is pushing out. The Nuforce output is sweeter and more musical? The PS Audio is more clinical and sterile? Something like that. OH, and the Nuforce is quieter. The Little Dot has some noise at rest, which according to other reviews I've read, isn't supposed to happen, as in: THE MUSIC ARISES FROM A DEAD INKY BLACKNESS and stuff like that. Mine doesn't. The Nuforce has more ink in that regard.In summary, I like the tube amp, I like looking at it, like having it, like seeing the YOU ARE WEIRD looks from guests. I had significant quality control issues with it, although, I concede one may have occurred in customs. Overall, I prefer the sound quality of the Nuforce Icon iDo. Maybe I'm not a tube guy. I'm sure not a vinyl guy, I've spun my share from way back when; I AM SO DONE with that Japanese Tea Ceremony. However, I still listen to the Little Dot, maybe I'll buy some more tubes and experiment more. However, I cannot recommend Little Dot products to others because of my experiences with quality control -- twice.

Apart from mine having a serious problem I can't say much good about the way this amp is put together. Under the hood it's pretty sloppily put together. One RCA jack on the back was not tightened & upon opening it to fix that, I could see that the pcb is bent up on each end. It appears that the standoffs they used for the board are not as long as the tube sockets are tall, so the board bends down in the middle. This may have been done to help support the tube sockets when pressing down on the tubes. That's just bad mechanical design. They should have support under the tube sockets. Mine seems to work as a unity gain preamp, but the headphone output is full volume & the volume pot does nothing. Vol pot works for preamp output though. Oh & they didn't even clean the solder flux off the board! That can create serious problems down the road. Can't speak to the sound quality, but from what I see inside, it looks like all the money was spent to make it pretty on the outside.

This amp is the reason I won't buy Chinese items ever again. I purchased this directly from Little Dot's website thinking that I would expect Mallory and Rubycon capacitors inside as depicted in the pictures they posted. I recently decided I wanted to upgrade the 2 film output coupling caps to Mundorf so I opened it up. Inside I found just regular or Nichon caps and I felt ripped off. I just took it as a loss and lesson learned, not even worth upgrading the output caps. I purchased the special edition one thinking I would get some good components that wouldn't need upgrading but I was very disappointed. Audio is a long term investment. Do yourself a favor, purchase a real amp from a higher quality vendor. It may cost you 5 - 10x more but it will pay off in the long run.