Little Dot GYFU Review

Little Dot FYGU

In this article we review the Little Dot GYFU headphone, selling for $549 USD.

 

Disclaimer: Little Dot sent us the GYFU free of charge in exchange for this review. The unit will remain in our possession as a long term loaner.

Little Dot

Little Dot is a brand that is notorious for building amplifiers and DACs. The brand was founded in April 2006 by Mr. Yu Quan Yang. Since then, Little Dot has developed many popular products and the brand has many fans around the world. Their solid-state and (hybrid) tube amps are extremely popular, try looking for Little Dot on Head-Fi and you’ll be surprised on how many threads there are.

Especially the MKX-series amplifiers are extremely popular, simply because they offer great value for money. My personal favorite has always been the MKVIII SE, but I unfortunately haven’t had the possibility to review it yet.

Up to now, you mostly had to buy the LD products overseas, but Little Dot in the meantime has opened a US based shop. It certainly has made communicating with them a whole lot easier.

Recently Little Dot successfully launched their first IEM product line-up and we have reviewed their CU CEN IEM and CU KIS IEM already. Little Dot has also launched a new hybrid headphone amplifier – the LD H1 – and we reviewed this one here.

Today we’re looking at the Little Dot GYFU headphone. It’s a 3-driver open back headphone and it’s Little Dot’s first multi driver headphone.

Little Dot FYGU

Little Dot GYFU

GYFU comes from the phrase “gift for you”, meaning a special gift that Little Dot has prepared for its supporters. The headphone presentation tries to be luxurious. It’s a very unique presentation as you can see in the pictures.

What’s more important is the fact that the GYFU sports three dynamic drivers, all set up in one axis (coaxial). You get a 32 mm bass woofer, a 50 mm midrange driver with nanocomposite diaphragm and a 8 mm PEK tweeter. According to Little Dot, “each driver performs its own functions well while being harmonious. The feature is accomplished by independent three frequency drivers with unique multi-driver structure along with a bass reverberation chamber.” For Little Dot, the GYFU headphone is “a breakthrough for traditional headphones”.

Rather special is the fact that Little Dot is using the earpads to deliver a dual tuning. “The drivers of this product and the earmuff is purposely designed with a 8 degree dip angle. You just need to rotate the earmuff 180 degree, then you will switch easily between two different modes: balanced detailed mode and vocal mode”. We will find out more about that later.

Little Dot FYGU

Design, Comfort & Build Quality

For Little Dot, the GYFU is not just a headphone but a personal instrument, and as such they have selected a full set of HiFi class components.

The GYFU comes in a lovely giftbox made from Sapele wood. From the outside it looks great but I’m a bit disappointed with the presentation on the inside. The cut-out foam doesn’t fully fit the box and it wasn’t very clean upon opening it. We’re seeing great packaging in all price ranges nowadays and as such this packaging has left me wanting.

The headphone cups are made from Burmese zebrawood and the headphones is built with a cellulose acetate plastic support frame. The GYFU does look really nice. The open cups sport a grill with a modern design. It’s a nice looking headphone in my opinion. Good points for the design.

Build quality wise the GYFU headphone is good and perfectly on par with what to expect at this price level, but like with the box there also is some room for improvement here (glue residue at connectors)

Little Dot FYGU

Comfort-wise the GYFU scores just ok for me. You have to take into account that it is a smaller kind of headphone. Even though it is a circumaural headphone, the pads will be touching your ears everywhere. The headband pressure on top of your head is quite intense though, and I don’t feel the weight is evenly spread across my head. The side pressure from the cups for me is just right and the headphone sits tight and it doesn’t want to fall off. So a bit of a mixed result for comfort.

Isolation-wise the GYFU logically isn’t the best as it’s an open back type of headphone. Sounds leaks in, music leaks out. All normal.

Specs, Price & Accessories

The Little Dot GYFU triple driver headphone sells for $549 USD. In return you get the headphone with one set of ear pads, a manual explaining everything about the GYFU and a double set of cables. A complete package for the -549 USD price, especially with the double cables.

You both get a single ended and balanced cable. The single ended one has a nice sleeve, the balanced one comes without sleeve and with its light orange color it’s very flashy. There’s no extra info about the cable composition but I am very pleased about the balanced one and I have even been using it with the Hifiman HE6SE.

Little Dot FYGU

Full Specs:

Driver Configurations: 50mm Large Nanocomposite Diaphragm, 8mm High Frequency Driver, 32mm Low Frequency Driver

Connector: 3.5mm

Distortion: <0.1%@1kHz

Impedance: 33+/-5%ohm

Frequency Range: 15-20kHz

Sensitivity: 102+/-3dB

The review continues on Page 2, click HERE or just use the jumps below.

Page 1: Little Dot, GYFU, Design, Comfort & Build Quality, Specs, Price & Accessories

Page 2: Sound Intro, General, Dual tuning, Single Ended, Amplification, Conclusion

4.2/5 - (78 votes)
Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedin

Lieven is living in Europe and he's the leader of the gang. He's running Headfonia as a side project next to his full time day job in Digital Marketing & Consultancy. He's a big fan of tube amps and custom inear monitors and has published hundreds of product reviews over the years.

Be first to comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.