 With its power loss protection, affordability, and performance, the SP920 from ADATA makes upgrading to an SSD remarkably safe and simple. Some years back, Chinese tube amplifier companies came crashing onto the headphone amp scene, offering impressive specs and features at prices that traditional audio companies were simply nowhere near. If you wanted something with similar performance and inexpensive worldwide shipping. But all of the usual questions must be asked when buying something from China before investing your hard earned dollars, because they're still not cheap. Will the manufacturing quality be consistent? Are they using high quality componentry? What about after sales support? Well, over the last few years, one of these Chinese brands has expanded their portfolio beyond a few products, established a solid track record for user support, and has turned into pretty much the go-to for inexpensive but high quality Chinese built tube amps. And that is Little Dot, and this is the MK4, a premium single ended headphone amplifier and one of the most famous with a 469 deep appreciation thread on head fi that's actually been running since 2010, but was even posted in today. But before we get into this product, you're probably asking yourself already, well, why would I even want a tube based headphone amplifier? I heard from, oh, I don't know, my plumber or some tall, dark tech savvy hippie or something that they're bad and solid state amps are much better. Great question. And it comes down to the subjectivity versus objectivity argument that has been and continues to be a raging internet war. Hopefully I can clarify things a little bit. Objectively tube amplifiers do typically sound different than accuracy above all else solid state amplifiers like the objective two. Their less bright, more natural sound signature is real and a result of a number of factors, including their relatively high output impedance. Also objectively, they straight up do introduce distortion and therefore will not achieve that purest for better or for worse. It sounds exactly like the original recording goal that you might be going for, but that is where subjectivity comes in. A lot of people don't give any cares about that. They just want an enjoyable listening experience and to their ears, the richer bass, warmer sound and subdued highs of a tube amp sound a-okay. And to those people, I'll say this, rock on. Just keep your thoughts about the obvious superiority of tubes to yourself. But before the solid state fan boys get all high and mighty, now Linus and Logan are on our side about this. Frankly, I don't want to hear about the obvious superiority of solid state either. Enjoying music is not that black and white and there are other variables at play here, like the fact that everyone hears a little differently that make it actually impossible to have a one size fits all solution. So take the rest of this video for what it is, my own subjective personal experience with the Little Dot Mark 4 tube headphone amplifier. The manual is functional if not amazing. The only things I really needed it for were the fairly specific instructions for powering the unit on and off and the procedure for flipping the dip switches on the underside to increase gain to five when I was testing my fairly inefficient LCD-2 headphones. The warning about how hot it gets was also pretty helpful as well. The unit itself was well packed in soft foam and looks absolutely stunning. The vacuum tubes and the gold accents give it a very steampunk look and frankly the wasted desk space aside, if I was going to go pick a headphone amplifier just based on how badass it's going to look, I would probably go this route. In the box, Little Dot includes a power cord, a headphone adapter and a set of RCA cables so you'll be able to easily plug into an existing external DAC. They're perfectly nice and only folks who believe in fancy cables are likely to replace them. On to the listening tests. With my Sennheiser HD8 DJs, frankly it was impossible for me to tell the difference between my shit stack and the Mark 4. I figured the strong bass and lack of sparkle in the HD8s in the first place was making it hard to make out those characteristics in the tube amp. So I moved on to my DT990 Pro 250 ohms from Beyerdynamics. These headphones have a lot of fans but I don't personally really like them because the clear and accurate highs are a little bit too bright for me and I find them fatiguing to listen to. Still couldn't tell. Moving on to the Audis LCD2s, whether it's my music tastes, unashamed top 40 listener here, or something else, I still just couldn't tell. As it happens, the LCD2s sound fantastic on the Mark 4 but I guess that leads to the only real conclusion that I could draw from this. Buy whatever makes you happy. Aside from the high price and the usual tube inconveniences, it does take a few seconds to power on, you may get the occasional audible anomaly and you should clean and replace your tubes from time to time, the Mark 4's build quality, looks and sound quality out of the box left nothing to be desired for me. Another selling point is the fact that it allows you to tube roll or swap out for different tubes which will be a lot of fun if you're a tinkerer who wants to experiment with different pairings the way wine enthusiasts will look for dishes that go well with their favorite vintages. Personally I'm not and for me, the much more obvious differences between one pair of headphones and another make them a more sound investment than searching for the perfect amp but your mileage may vary. So there it is guys, I mean feel free to call me out on this video, I don't mind and I'll even save you the trouble of debating the validity of my tests in the comments. Aside from being inconclusive, they are not scientific at all. A double blind experiment with normalized output volumes would have been a better, more scientific way of testing the two against each other and while I do plan to obtain an SPL meter and take another crack at this on my own time for the sake of training my ears and refining my audio gear review process, you the buyer won't have any of that stuff anyway, and if I can't tell the difference when I know which is which sitting right next to them and the time it takes to switch between them, then my recommendation of buy whatever will make your friends think that you're cooler won't change either way. So I just don't think it's that big of a deal. Thank you for watching guys, the link to pricing and availability of this product is in the video description below the like, dislike and share buttons which I would love for you to use accordingly. 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