What usually works for me to check polarity is put on a mono source and listen if it sounds disembodied rather than in your head (or slightly ahead of you).  Listening to mono should not add any left/right spatial information.  (Disregard this entirely if you are listening to tubes.. )

If this pans out to be true, I'll invert one of the channels in my headphone to try out this new sound.  It may be the new rage!

IMO, search the thread by brand and type to see if anyone has a listening report (keeping in mind that the tube will flavor their system in addition to whatever components they have in their chain - a warm tube with slightly diminished highs may sound great with a higher-end Grado, but sound...

Maybe there's a reason to burn-in NOS tubes?  Just sayin'...

Quote:   Post Mortem - they replaced both of the socket savers (the failed and the good one), and these seem to be slightly updated, so they gave me a new matching set.  Hats off to Tubemonger - they took the initiative and have me back up and running, and I have a spare that I'm loaning...

Quote:   Followup - they responded after a few hours (after hours Pacific time!) and said they'll just ship a new one out.  Also said they've seen a handful of these, but the rate is under 1%.  Thinking about adding a bit of extra glue on the other one now ;)

FWIW, just had one of my Tubemonger socket savers fail.  Nothing electrical - the 9 pin socket on top fell within the (I guess ceramic?) body, and unable to force it back to the top to reseat/reglue it in place.  Send them a note asking about warranty, but not finding anything mentioning...

Lyr+RS2i here.  Drives great, but is prone to pick up on any tube that's the slightest bit noisy or hissy.  With the Bifrost as my DAC, I find the mid 60s Mullards to warm up the sound despite Grado's signature treble bump.  Currently using Amperex USN-CEP 7308's which while not quite as warm...

I've used an inline attenuator for trying my Shure 530's with the Lyr (yes, looking for trouble), but I have to wonder if adding a 120Ohm load would change the frequency response or other aspects of the headphone.  I would hope the amp would be stable enough (and definitely powerful enough) to...

Interested here, but wondering how bad that hissing would be with Grados (32 ohm) - anyone out there try the 3 micas with low impedance headphones?  Does the impedance affect the hiss?

Quote:   Rut roh...

Quote:   Nathaniel Hornblower, imo :)

The   Quote:   Picture   Quote:

I wonder if my Shure SE530's would go up like San Diego's show last night...  18 seconds of pure excitement followed by stunned silence as the smoke slowly drifts away.. (with apologies to my SD friends ;))

Double posts?  How come I'm seeing three?  Oh wait... Yeah... Nope... back to three..   never mind...  I'll go with the one in the middle.  My head hurts today!