I have purchased a used Brimar 12AU7 for my Horizon. Man, this thing is definitely better than stock 6N23P. Music just feels more alive, bass is more impactful and highs are more articulated. Actually, I can compare it to a DAC upgrade, when I moved from FiiO E17 to ODAC   Been listening...

After some reading and checking with our local tube sellers I found a used 12AU7A Baldwin black plate. It can be had for $20, which is, supposedly a fair price. Now the problem is I am kinda new to tube rolling and do not know how I can check if a used tube is okay. Furthermore, what is expected...

Thanks guys for your responses and help. What a lovely community we, Sunrise/Horizon owners, are :)   Another reason why I want to buy locally is because postal service in my country is... well, leaves a lot to desire, to say the least.   Btw, while Ken Rad might be hard to find here...

Thanks for your recommendations, guys!  I'm not in the states and was hoping to get some tubes from our local vendors. Just needed to know what should I be looking for.   stupidmop, which type of tube do you refer as "ken rad"? There are a bunch @ ebay.

Can I connect 50 Ohm headphones directly to ODAC, without an amplifier. I know about possible distortions and that this is not the way it is meant to be, but the question is - is it safe for the DAC and headphones in the long run?

Thanks, stupidmop.   I have tried bypassing caps and honestly can't see any significant difference. I am a little biased towards not using EQ when possible, and while I have tried playing with it, it did not provide the needed result. What I am looking for is not a laid back, but with...

Quote: Well, obviously this is what I tried first. With my headphones it affects mids primarily though.

Can anyone please suggest a tube for Horizon with rolled-off highs, the more rolled-off the better. I know this sounds a bit odd  I have already tried reportedly "dark and warm-ish" headphones (Sennheiser HD600 and now own Mad Dogs) and still feel like I want something even more smooth and...

Just received my Mad Dogs. Excellent craftsmanship and build quality.   A few questions:   1) do these puppies need any burn-in? 2) is the other cable (not Fostex stock) with 3,5mm jack of decent quality? Better/worse than the stock one? Should I want to upgrade it to, say, silver...

Has anyone tried Horizon with Mad dogs? They are planar magnetic and low impendance - but other low impendance headphones I've tried so far with it sound great.

Thanks, chinook9. You are right indeed. I emailed Frans from garage1217 and this it what he replied (btw, he and Jeremy reply within a few minutes; such a nice support):    

I have a somehow general question related to using tubes. Say I listen to music about 4 hours a day - usually in the office. When I come to work I just turn my amp on and leave it running until I go home. That is, it can be on with no music playing for quite prolonged periods, say several hours...

Over this weekend I have purchased a couple of 6N1P-EVs and tried them with my Horizon. IMO even without the burning in (they are NOS) it is quite an improvement over the stock tubes, at least with my current setup: FiiO E17 Line out -> Horizon -> Sennheiser HD600.

From what I gather, E17 shows only 48/16 when both 44/16 and 48/16 are actually fed to it from the computer. When you go 96/24 or 192/24, these values are displayed corretly. Maybe E17 just cannot display "44/16" on its screen, or it upsamples anything below 48/16 (which would be a shame).

When I use e17 as a dac-only with L7 line-out dock and lo-bypass is set to on, everything works as expected and I have no volume control, equalizer etc. But say I actually want to have some EQ and still to be able to connect e17 to an external amp - disabling lo-bypas does just that. So there is...

Clicking is caused by relay unit, you are right, Micaiah

Quote: Well, then I might give it a try and wait till it burns in. BTW, is it burning in only when I feed sound signal to it or having the amp turned on (with no music playing) is sufficient? How long should I wait for the signature of this tube to fully "arrive" (and how do I know when...

Can anyone suggest a 12v tube for Horizon Amp which has very warm, full-bodied, dark-ish signature? Looking for an upgrade over the stock tube (which was in use for 18h only, so maybe its signature will change as well?)

Does E17's line out (with L7 dock) differ in SQ from line out of E10? Them seem to be using the same dac chips...

Well, the Horizon sounds great. Very transparent and it takes away overly "metallic" taste from my music. This is my first tube amp, but reading all kind of stuff about them I was expecting to hear less detailed sound and, well, more of a warmer signature, I guess. So far this amp seems very...

Quote: You sig says you own FiiO E10. Currently I have FiiO E17 (which I plan to use as a DAC only) and since the two are roughly similar in SQ when used as DACs, can you please briefly compare e10 with Ross Martin's 1794? Is it a substantial upgrade over fiio?

Thanks a lot for your response and for the info on RMA dac. Will post my initial impressions with the setup once I have Horizon assembled are ready to rock 

Quote:     TBH, I just gave the kit to a much more experienced guy to assemble it for me  I plan to use Sennheiser HD600. Right now I power them with by FiiO E17 and sometimes with my portable rig, which is, while quite outstanding in quality, delivers only about 10-15 mW @ 300 ohm...

Has someone compared it to Bifrost yet? I saw such requests a few pages back... I'm really interested in getting one of these.

Quite interesting stuff. Do you have PCM1794A model? I already have the same chip installed in my iRiver H140 as an ultimate upgrade for a portable rig, and I like it quite a lot.   Btw, my Horizon kit arrived today  Very decent packaging and PCB.