Got the accessories before the toy!
I have an MT-602 slowly making its way to me. I also ordered some Voshkods (received today) and a matched set of JAN5654W’s, which are also on their way.
It has been a while since I had my Little Dot MKIII and I had forgotten how small these are.
I have 3 sets for my 604…and my fav set for planar IEM’s are still Siemens 5654w’s…it’ll be interesting to see what works for you HP wise
Mine are GE, so I guess I will have to wait and see. When I had these tubes for my Little Dot MKIII, I preferred the Voshkods.
I’ve had my 602 for about 2 months now, and I’ve done a good bit of messing around with combinations, stock tubes aren’t terrible in my unit, I’ve since had the GE5654’s, they didn’t do a whole lot for me, some non Voskhod 6J1P-ev’s, not great, I found it can be generational with some companies. Since then I’ve found my 2 favorite sets, 1953 Sylvania 6AK5’s and Svetlana 6J1p’s, the Sylvania’s kind of set the stage to the rear, but the Svetlana’s are everything I’ve looked for, decent bass, nice space, the highs are a little heavy, but then again I’m listening to them with my 250 ohm DT770’s. I’ve been opamp rolling an XD05 plus, and got a Muses02 in it this week, the mix between the three is quite nice
I got my amp today. Ordered Jan. 25 and received Feb. 16. That is my first, last and only order with APOS.
The amp is cool and VERY small. Gave it a bit to warm up and now it is hooked up.
BF2 to Loki to switcher to MT-602. Nice sound. Not as full and detailed as the Pro iCAN, but c’mon, it is literally ten times the price.
I pulled my HE6se V2’s out of the iCAN and put them right into the MT-602. Not bad at all. Especially with the Loki adding EQ and some gain. I am at 1:00 and it is sounding pretty good.
I had some channel imbalance that could be corrected by touching the tubes. I turned it off, pulled the tubes and then reset them. They ship already installed and I guess loosened in transit.
I am impressed with this little amp! I have two other sets of tubes to run through in the coming weeks. I fully expect my efficient 'phones to be a problem with this amp, but it is taking my bad boys in stride. Auditory memory sucks but I think this sounds better than when I tried to run these headphones through my Violectric V220, which I deemed a failure.
I had a $25.00 Amazon gift card so I am out of pocket a total $200.00 in Canuck bucks for this amp and two other sets of matched tubes to my door. Quite happy with this little deal so far.
Glad it finally came. I wonder if all the goings on up there caused the delay. I have had very good luck with Apos and have never experienced that kind of delay. Either way, your off and running, and that is a good thing.
I continue to enjoy my TA-20 very much. I did a 4 hour session last night and stayed on the TA-20 the entire time. I too have 2 sets of tubes to test, but somehow I can’t bring myself to pull the Gold Lions that are in there now! I love those tubes. But I’ll get there…
Glad you’re having good luck with that! I didn’t like mine, but it sounded weird to me. I wonder if I had a dud? The guy I sold it to seemed to like it. I always follow up with my “customers” to see if they like the stuff. Sometimes they say, “No, but I knew what I was getting into”. As I recall that guy really seemed to like it.
Maybe just boils down to we all hear differently.
I am currently playing Deciphering the Message by Malaya McCraven and have had to turn the volume down twice. It is now down to 12:00. This is really impressive, to me.
Still pretty happy with this little fella as I moved on to the T60 Argon’s.
One thing I noted is that the case and even the tubes don’t get hot. Just luke warm. That surprised me as I thought it would be much hotter. My Pro iCAN hybrid gets MUCH hotter than the little fella.
Just an FYI.
I believe the MT-601 gets very very hot, agreed this guy is very easy going.
My Bravo Ocean, much much hotter than MT-602.
This amp has made quite an impression on me, good and bad.
First, the bad: I don’t find it at all “tubey”, much like every other hybrid tube amp I have ever bought. You’d think that eventually, I would learn.
On the upside, this is one impressive little amp! I ran the HE6se V2’s at 1:00. I ran the T60 Argon’s at 10:00 and am now running the Elex’s at 8:30-9:00. I am also running the Schiit Loki with it.
The sound is really good! It does not match my big amps, but they cost ten times more. It feels a little less detailed and a little thinner, but it punches WAY out of its range! I am now on the second set of tubes (Voshkods) and will get to the JAN 5654W’s next week.
Because it did not give me the “tubey” component that I was looking for, I will likely end up selling the whole package on. But if you are short on money or just starting out, this is one hell of an amp. Of course it can get complicated with really efficient headphones and probably useless with IEM’s (Very high built-in gain).
Quite the little power house. Today it is giving my Violectric V220 a good run for it’s money. Not quite as full or detailed but, with the Loki, they seem pretty close.
Another MT-602 update. I knew these were going to be an issue with very efficient headphones and I had a few different idea’s on that. Well today is show time and I am using my Grado’s with this amp, with help.
Today’s chain is Laptop to BF2 to Schiit Loki to Violectric V220 (had to open the case to change a few jumpers), line out to MT-602 and then on to my Grado’s.
Running the V220 at -12Db’s gain via the internal jumpers. Now the MT-602 is on 12:00 and I am running Voshkods. Cool.
Noob question time!
I reached to turn off my mt602 and accidently went for the 3.5 to 3.5 front audio input(wired to my dac) and got a rude electric shock via the cable. It was only a small one but was caught by surprise. Anyways, is this normal or am I doing something wrong?
99,99% it was just a static charge of your body that got discharged. The amp doesn’t run a 110V/230V input. The same thing would have happened if you would have touched something else grounded, like a radiator.
Cheers mate! Should have guessed that much. Just thought I was wiring something wrong
Hey yall,
I’m new to this hobby - my setup is a MOTU M2 + Schiit Magni Heresy powering Sennheiser HD650 Headphones
I’m interested in the MT-602. From what I watched/read it seems that it’s 50/50 on it coloring the sound vs. acting like a solid state amp. I guess that could be anticipated because the MT-602 is a hybrid.
Do you think this device would be a good introduction into a tube sound ? (The price is very appealing to me)
Would there be a discernible difference between the Heresy? (I got the Heresy for $40 bucks I don’t think I could pass that up lol)
Thanks in advance for your time and replies
8^)
Because of the headphones you have and the fact that you already have a solid state option, I might look towards the world of non-hybrid/OTL amps to get a lot more tube vibes
Good point. I have the TA-20 and love it, but it too is a hybrid. I just saw the Dark Voice on drop for $260. A definite contender in my book.
It’s a price thing. If you can afford a decent tube amp (like the Dark Voice or TA-26) you should go for it, especially on Dynamic Driver headphones it adds a lot of ‘tubiness’ compared to a hybrid.
However we can’t forget the MT-602 is less than half the price of the full tube options and, for my listening, offers quite a bit more than half the tubiness…
So in my opinion, the MT-602 has a better ‘tubiness’ per dollar factor BUT the ‘real’ tubes have a higher ‘raw tubiness’ factor… If that made sense
What about something like Aiyima T6Pro? It has headphone out and can serve as preamp for passive speakers. This company has great praising reviews from e.g. cheapaudioman. And it is 99$