today I finally managed to find the time and desire to update my little dot mk1 with some better componets which I have laying around since a couple of weeks.

Well what did I do?

• exchanged the standard chip to an LT1364 - Dual 70MHz, 1000V/µs Op Amps
• exchanged the standard tubes to a pair of MULLARD CV131 6CQ6 CV4015 EF92 NOS

and how did it changed the setup?

First of all the amplification dropped a lot with the 'new' tubes. Instead of the 25% I now need to increase the output to 85% for the same amplification.

And the sound did get much worse, specially at higher amplification levels. Right now I'm going to burn the tubes in for the next 48 hours to see if it improves, but I don't really think so.

Fazit?

opamp was worth it,
tubes, were a waste of 40$ for this amplifier. Maybe one day when I get my hands on a little dot mkIV I have better chances? We will see. I actually lust more after a mk VII or even Woo Audio 6 Special Edition which has all the features I could think off, maybe in a year or so when I also got some grado SR-325is or RS-1. My reward for another visa?

Hey I can wish and dream, but first comes a vacation in utah and antelope canyon! Maybe finally hawaii...

Right now my wallet has to recover for the next 6 month. These last 2 month were way to expensive and fixie left me flat broke...

correction after listening to these new tubes 5 more minutes. They sound absolutely awful to my ears.

So I will try to burn them in the next 5 nights and see how they perform. Afterward I will try to use the other opamp I got for comparison.

5 hours later and the sound becomes worse and worse. They are getting more and more static noise and I think they are broken. Time to send the seller a complain...

15 hours later and it's obvious the tubes are just really bad and I guess I stick with what I have till my hearing is more improved. So I can actually take advantage of the finer details in the music.