As someone who painted a ton of houses in high school and college if it was manufactured prior to 1970ish the paint had lead in it. Biggest risk for lead exposure is old double hung windows that get opened and closed every day. As long as you don’t lick them before you roll them you are fine...

Audial S5 is what I have been suing for the last year or so. NOS dac using the 1541A chip. Does not have the latest in bells and whistles in terms of ultra high bit rate, MQA etc. Got mine used at just under 2k. Dead quiet on my Aegis and OTL amp. My unit came with the optional transformer...

Before I made my tester my tried and true method was BHC, stack of adapters, 6xx and fingers crossed :) Luckily it was only after I acquired the tester that I stumbled upon a few bad eggs. Maybe knowing I had a tester made me take more risks?

Owning a tube tester has saved me from destructively testing tubes with my headphones 4 times to date. That being said it has helped me get a replacement/refund all four times. Legit sites/sellers tend to reply pretty quickly when you send them the failing test results and the option to link a...

I’ll throw the Audial S5 in the NOS ring. Bit of an obscure Dac and pretty hard to audition. Pairs very well with my Otl/Otc/Sansui and the Atrium open.

The other two headphones that impressed me at the meet up on the Aegis were the HE1000 (stealth I think?) and the Tungsten single sided. For whatever reason the Caldera just did not grab me during the couple of songs I tried on the Aegis. All very brief listening sessions and I am pretty sure...

I got to try out the 800s on the diy Aegis at a local meet. Was not what I was expecting, in a good way. Have been keeping my eye out for a good deal on a used pair ever since. Another stand out on the Aegis was a modded pair of HD600. I think I slightly preferred them over my 6xx.

I will start with the pins and then see where it goes. I am guessing the 12v to the heaters might burn off any little bits on the heater windings? I have a capacitor leakage tester I built with variable voltage and current limiting that might do the trick.

Hoping you got to see a couple of peoples reactions to listening to the Aegis. It was so much fun watching people try the diy Aegis at the meet up I went to. My experience was a lot of smiles and shaking of the head followed by queuing up another track :)

My black base pair of the Fivre 6c5g. I keep telling myself I will roll a different pair of inputs tomorrow and then another month goes by.

If “plate size”matters the Visseaux have no envy problems. I have one quad with a nice pair and a noisy pair. Think I need to suck it up and finally resolder the pins on the noisy pair and see if that helps.

The only solution is far all of you to offload your hoards/collections to me at 1930s prices :)

I tried the Fivre 6v6 and my intial impressions were not favorable. Will have to try them again as they were competing against the El37 which arrived in the same package. Maybe a different input? If I recall I was running rca 6sl7 at the time.

Atrium with the Aegis is an amazing pairing. I have been using the Atrium and trading time between the Aegis and an OTL amp for the last 6 months or so. Instructions for the diy Aegis are meticulously thorough. Truly a TOTL headphone amp and fantastic synergy with the Atrium.

20$ for a Sansui Classique 550. Basically a 6060 with a silver face. Volume pot was trashed, you could turn it around continuously and parts obviously grinding inside. 4$ pot to verify that was the only problem. Bias dialed in easily, excited to see how this compares to the 7070 after a...