Little Bear T7

I am 67 years old, and although I do not consider myself an audiophile, I have been around analog/vinyl music all my life. I never did get into the digitalized music craze. I have always felt the best way to enjoy music in its truest form is with uncompressed vinyl. That being said, you can’t go wrong with the Little Bear T7. It is well worth the money. This little box rivals some of the more expensive solid state phono stages I have owned over the years. It does not”muddy” the sound like some cheaper imitations might do. It gives a much needed depth and warmth to your music that is lacking in solid state stages, and reminds me of the quality of sound I used to get from my old tube system I had back in the 60’s before I went solid state. Is it a match for more expensive tube phono stages? I have no idea. Is it good enough for this old man’s ears? Oh heck, yes!!! If you are looking for a really good tube phono stage without spending out a lot of cash, the Little Bear T7 is for you. And do yourself a favor and buy the bundle package of this phono stage and the Riverstone Audio replacement tubes. The sound difference between the stock tubes and the replacement tubes, once properly broken in, is well worth the cost. (By the way, I have the newer version that has the gain switch on the outside of the phono stage. It is a red button positioned between the tubes which makes it easier to change from high to low gain. On the previous version, you had to remove the 4 screws on the front, remove the face plate to get to the switch and then use a small object like a bent paper clip to change the setting. So much better). Now one reason I chose the Little Bear T7 is because a younger friend of mine (he’s 62, just a kid!!!) put together what he considers to be a “budget” system for someone just starting out in vinyl. (Don’t get me wrong. He is a dear friend that I have know all my life, but he does have some rather exacerbated tastes). He used high end hybrid (combination tube and solid state) integrated amp and phono stage, along with a top dollar turntable, speakers and subwoofer. His total cost was well over $3000.00. I told him that being the “kid” that he is, he had no comprehension for the value of a dollar. So I thought I would put together my idea of a budget system. I’ll be upfront and tell you that my system won’t even compare to his, but it will still be a very good sounding system. This is the system that I came up with: Nobsound Little Bear T7 phone stage(Amazon-this review)…………………………………………………….$ 59.00 Riverstone Audio GE JAN 5654W tubes(Amazon-this review)……………………………………………………23.95 Monoprice 50 wpc Hybrid integrated amp(Monoprice.com-excellent amp)…………………………………… 199.99 Audio Technica AT LP3 automatic turntable(Amazon-read my review)………………………………………. 249.99 Ortofon 2M Red cartridge(Amazon-read my review)……………………………………………………………. 99.00 Sound Appeal 6.5” bookshelf speakers(Amazon-read my review)…………………………………………….. 59.99 Monoprice 8” 60 watt subwoofer(Amazon-no review yet but great sub)…………………………………………69.99 Total cost……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..$761.91 This is by no means definitive. You could swap around components to suit your personal taste and budget, but this package, in my opinion, is an unbeatable budget system. It sounds and looks great. Don’t let the diminutive size of the speakers and sub fool you. The sound that they produce in combination with the really excellent Little Bear phono stage and the Monoprice amp is incredible. I would not hesitate to recommend these components to anyone who is just starting out in vinyl. It will certainly hold it’s own against my waaaaaaaaay more expensive solid state system I have in my main listening room in terms of clarity, depth, warmth, etc. In fact, I think my solid state system is going to be relegated to “back up” status. I absolutely love the sound that the Little Bear produces when combined with the above listed components. (Can’t wait for the “kid” to hear it so I can tell him “old geezers” like me really do know how to save money). Update: For those of you who may be interested in building a similar system to the one above, I thought I might give a little insight on the Monoprice hybrid amp that I mentioned. The factory rating from the manual lists it as producing 53 wpc at 4 ohms. The Polk Audio’s are 8 ohm speakers. Doing some rough calculations, it works out to be about 30 wpc and if you used 6 ohm speakers it would be about 40 wpc. The rule of thumb has always been that whatever the wattage per channel is for a tube amp, double it to get the same amount of power from a solid state amp. Believe me, this is true. My main system ( which as I stated above is probably going to be replaced with the Little Bear T7 system I put together) produces 65 wpc and the Little Bear/Monoprice system is every bit as loud (at 30 wpc) and much, much, much more dynamic in definition and clarity. (I only turn it up about a 1/3 of the way and my neighbors are pounding on my door to back it off.) You just can’t go wrong with this setup. I think my next purchase is going to be some good 4 ohm bookshelf speakers in order to utilize the full potential of the amp. That will really make my neighbors happy!!! (And maybe make the “kid” jealous at the same time.)

The Little Bear preamp is a great looking preamp that does a good job at a great price. Pros: affordable, functional unit. Love that twin tube glow! Clear sound when playing music. Cons: tube fit was tight requiring some force to get them properly seated. Some line noise was present, but not noticeable when playing music. I have used the Art DJ Pre II preamp as well and I have some experience with low to mid grade stereo equipment. The Little Bear gives you the ability to use your record player with a receiver that doesn't have a phono input (ie. Most reveivers built between 2008-now) and it looks great doing it. Set up is easy though the tubes required a little more force to seat them fully in the sockets than I was comfortable with. The ground wire clamp is really clever and much easier than the typical screw down design on most receivers. You press the ground clamp in until the holes line up. Insert the ground wire and release the clamp. The spring holds the wire in place. RCA wires in and out are clear enough. I powered mine up for a minutes to "warm up the tubes" like others suggested, but I doubt it takes much more than a few seconds to get up to temperature. There is low level line noise when there is no signal but it didn't interfere with the clarity of the music while playing. My unit has a gain button on top between the two tubes so I did not have to take it apart to change gain, but the boosted gain setting created a lot of distortion. I left it at the 35 dB level and everything sounded great. I used the following equipment and had a very pleasant experience with the Little Bear. Technics QL33 turntable with Pickering cartridge The Little Bear! Pyle 120 wpc 2 channel mini amp ($50 bottom end unit!) Bose 601s (refurbished) I do like the Art DJ's highly adjustable gain knob and the clipping detection to help protect your speakers, but with a properly powered amp or receiver the lower gain setting on the Little Bear is all you need. Bottom line is this is a nice little unit that will let you listen to vinyl while saving you $500 by not needing to upgrade your receiver.

After reading some of the previous reviews for this, I was hesitant to purchase but for the fact of it being a valve preamp with an aux input for the price it was too good to pass up. As others have stated, the output from it is lower than you might expect from a preamp so if your application doesn't have some sort of adjustable input gain it might not work best for you. I will say that it was easy to balance my iPhone to the aux input where the volume remains the same whether I'm using the phono or aux inputs. This was useful as well to help me isolate some of the issues I had with my phono setup as the aux can be used as a reference input and A/B between two sources of the same music. As for the sound (I am still using the included tubes), it definitely adds warmth although with some loss of clarity on highs. Overall, there is a hint of a compressed sound, but it is well balanced throughout the frequency range save for the lowered high frequencies. Midrange is where it should be for vocals and guitars, and bass is slightly compressed but defined and not boomy with the iPhone EQ set flat and no equalization whatsoever throughout the system. For everyday listening, an equalizer would definitely help reign in some of the sound and make it a little more airy, so I might add one down the line. Honestly, it's close enough for my taste (I'm looking for flat response anyway) that it's really not an issue at this point. I do plan on replacing the tubes with the NOS ones available as it should make quite the difference and take away some of the compressed sound. I've done this in other gear and noticed a leaps and bounds level of improvement over the Chinese units. This unit sits between a Dual CS601 turntable with an AudioTechnica 3600L cartridge with the conical stylus and a Tascam portable studio. I listen primarily through AKG-K240 headphones. Again, the goal is flat response. This setup is similar to what comes on the AT LP-120 turntable so hopefully some of this information will be of use if you have this cartridge/stylus combo and you're wanting to bypass the internal preamp. I'm sure the RIAA filter on this unit isn't the best quality, but it is sufficient. I would purchase this unit again as most of the sub $100 phono preamps seemed to be all carbon copies of one another short of the ART DJ-pre which might be another option if you have a non-adjustable phono input and headroom is a concern. That's the reason for the 4 starts alone. Everything else in terms of build quality and connectors seems to be adequate as well. So far, I have had no issues with it with about 50 hours of usage so far.

Cheap! I know you get what you pay for though. first one quit after a few days. 2nd one quit working on one channel after a week! Tried different tubes, cables ect. This is a decent little preamp that sounds good with the right tubes when it works. My Cambridge preamp on the other hand has had no problems at all. If you are willing to gamble and get a good one that lasts it is well worth the money especially with the right tubes but for me I am done with it! This could be an excellent little preamp if it was built better!

So, the three rate features Amazon gives is Material Quality, Sound Quality, and Value for Money. I'll talk about those three categories. I gave this 4/5 for material quality. Why? Well, overall, it has a very nice build quality. I ordered the black and it has a nice weight to it, very well done all over. The reason for 4/5 is because inserting the tubes is pretty hard. The sockets were VERY stiff. Its good to have a firm connection, but I felt as though I were breaking the internals trying to get the tubes in. But other than that, it's great! Sound quality. It's great! I'm not a HiFi Guru or anything like that, but my vinyl sounds a hell of a lot better than it did before. And this is my second Nobsound preamp, this one is such an upgrade its silly. So if you're on the edge because of a crappy review or two on this, don't be. I'm running it through a Sony Home Theatre Surround system with multi-channel stereo and the room is just filled with so much more colour with this. Now, the catch to all this, I bought the Amazon recommended GE audio tubes, and I think this made a big difference as well. But if you want to save a few bucks, the provided tubes it comes with are decent as well. But for my ears, the GE is a definite upgrade. Value for money. Truthfully, this SHOULd get 4/5 stars, at least for me on my budget. To my door, the total was $82.64, now that's with the amp and NOS GE tubes. So that isn't very much, but it's not nothing. The reason it has 5/5 is that I like the product so much, it 100% worth every penny. So, in short, if you're looking to upgrade your set up, drop a few bucks on this little deal. It's worth it. I've spent hours and hours trying to find a good quality phono preamp for my system and this was a fantastic buy. Value is good, vinyl sounds amazing and the quality should last you a long time. Buy this, take my word for it.

Though this phono pre-amp is cool looking and looks well built, the sound is lacking in treble as if the tweeters in my speakers are not working. Bass is also weak. The sound is dull and dead sounding. I did a thorough comparison using two Technics SL-1650 turntables each mounted with Audio Technica AT13EAX cartridges. I used two records from the same numbered pressing of Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Siimon. One turntable was plugged into my Yamaha RX-Z7 receiver's phono input and the other turntable plugged into the tube pre-amp and then into the Yamaha Receiver's Aux input. I have a pair of large high quality JBL Speakers. I cue up both records to the same part and start them playing. It was easy to hear the lack of treble on the tube pre-amp and how much better the Yamaha receiver sounded by comparison. I did the same test on my basement system using a pair of Technics SL-5350 turntables, my Pioneer SX-1980 the same cartridges and records. A pair of high quality JBL-L100 speakers are connected to the receiver. As before, the built in phono section in receiver sounded much better than the tube pre-amp. It's just lacking in treble and the sound is noticeably mediocre. There was no issue with gain. The output was similar in level to the output from built in phono pre-amp on both receivers. Unless your system is low fi using clock radio type speakers I would not order one of these. These test were done with the original 6J1 tubes that it came with. I did order some 5654 tubes to see if they will improve the sound. They should arrive Monday and I'll report back to indicate if there is any difference with these tubes. Otherwise I will likely be returning this unit. Its performance was sub-par. Follow up: The 5654 tubes arrived. After I installed the tubes the sound was no better. I returned this for a refund and recommended that this item no longer be sold by Amazon. Sound quality is just too poor.

I have used both the stock tubes and NOS GE 5654 tubes with this. The stock tubes were actually not bad. and the grounding was no problem. I took the board out of the chassis, and saw no evidence of a SS amp stage, so this appears to be a tube signal oath all the way. That combined with the 18V design might be the cause of my major complaint. Namely, the extremely low gain. I found myself having to completely max out my amplifier stage to get even average volume. Same for my Aune T1 headphone amp (though I could increase the gain through a dip switch on the Aune. I tried to put a preamp between the T7 and the amp and while that improved the gain to adequate levels, the noise floor was very noticeable. I think a high-quality preamp between the T7 and your power amp would work well, but at that point, you have spent enough to have spent enough to just a Vincent PHO800. I chose to give this three stars because it has great build quality (stuff a piece of foam under the PCB to keep vibrations from causing microphonic noise). It has the Aux input which is cool, but again the gain is so low, that I ended up using another amp stage, so this is not a great solution unless you have a preamp to go after or maybe if you have a nice A/V receiver with adjustable input sensitivity.

I am first going to start out this is a great little phono amp, but does not come out of the box that way. 1. Check the gain red button..start at low position (comes with it set on high) 2. Cables, Cables, Cables...yes..get yourself some good cables all around. 3. Plug it into the same surge strip as your receiver/speakers. This should make sure you don't get a ground buzz/hum. if you do...they now have a ground on the case of the Little Bear. 4. Tubes...yep the ones included are..umm fair. Do the GE set, you will thank yourself. 5. Let er warm up about 10 min at least. Now enjoy the full sound of this little beast. It definitely opens up the whole spectrum and adds warmth (so if you want super clean crisp digital this is not the amp for you). The sound is amazing in a small room. Some things that I have noticed that little red button...keep on low, high can add distortion on some records...BUT if you have a recording that is just quiet and flat...hit that RED button and take off. Over all it is a perfect little amp for a bookshelf speaker and record player set of...affordable and near HiFi with right speakers.

Easy to set up, sounds great, adjustable gain is a nice additional feature. Found spare tubes on Ebay for just over $1.00 each so bought a lifetime supply.

The T7 little bear is a well designed product...impresive in terms of looks and performance..it' is warm and tight with its sound just perfect ...makes everything stand out nice and clear ...very well priced affordable ...makes a big difference when hooked up And running straight out from the box waiting for the burn in time to get done with ... ...very happy with it... Has it's own unique texture ...highly recommend the T7

I'm extremely impressed by this unit. I bought it to upgrade from my integrated preamp in my RN602 Yamaha to something discrete. I borrowed and tested a friends' Schiit Mani beforehand, which sounded very good and gave be more volume with less hum. I was considering the Uturn Pluto, the Schiit Mani, or the Project Phono Box. I ended up taking a chance on this Little Bear as it seemed to have all the features I wanted (one of which is a power switch) and also had the benefit of allowing me to introduce tubes to me hifi setup for a warmer richer sound. I figured at this price, it's a risk worth taking. I am extremely blown away and impressed by this preamp. It is superior to the Schiit Mani that I tested beforehand. Fuller, richer sound, louder by about 10db over the Mani, and with less noise and almost zero hum at all. I tested the unit by playing many records through it all day when it arrived. Lots of different genres. It performs extremely well. Even with the included Chinese tubes. I do tend to agree that they are brighter or 'harsher' than what one may want, but we also know that brightness and harshness goes away as tubes are broken in. I'll continue using these tubes for now, as they sound fantastic. Much fuller, richer, warmer, bassier and more detailed than the Mani or my integrated preamp were. If i choose to I may replace them eventually with some russian tubes. but for now I don't feel it's needed. Very attractive unit. Looks great, sounds great, and I love the little fake glow lights (these tubes don't glow but this unit has some faint orange LEDs below the tube sockets) very tastefully done and nice. Photos attached. The unit came well packaged and smelled pretty intense and new! (I don't recommend breathing in that smell though :) ) For those interested, my setup consists of a Uturn Orbit record player, this Little Bear T7 preamp, Yamaha RN-602 receiver, Klipsch F10 floorstanding speakers and a Klipsch KSW-15 subwoofer.

I received this little RIIA Preamplifier this day and connected after connecting the system is not working is it suitable for indian volarge ? If not where can i buysuitable adopter for this preamplifier

The design and price of the Little Bear T7 first appealed to me. My hi-fi equipment was sounding great but I was looking for that little "extra" to add to the sound, so I gave this lil' T7 a go. Well, after hooking it up I was thoroughly disappointed! The ground hum was terrible. I did all I could to remove the hum but to no avail. So, after removing the Little Bear and contemplating returning it I thought I would give it one last chance. This time I employed it using the AUX circuit as a pre-amp for a DAC/headphone setup in my office at work - and it sounds fantastic. Warm, soft, airy, and detailed. The Chinese 6J1 tubes I can take or leave, they need to be broken in (50-100 hours at least) but they’re very bright and forward. I've since substituted (rolled) them in favour of some Russian 6ZH1P-EV Voshkod tubes and that really opened up the sound. To summarize: as a phono pre-amp it's terrible. BUT as an AUX pre-amp it's fantastic.