I'm sure that you are correct. :-)

Vibration (as opposed to hum) most often occurs when there's an unstable transformer in the circuit, which would itself be a reason for the company to service it under warranty, at least within the limits of my experience. Cheers. :-)

It’s not unusual for some circuits to hum when there is no interconnect cable attached because the cable itself MAY be the only way that the amp is truly grounded, though, yep, there can be many other sources of hum.

It should / could, but you might need to use more than a few layers of it and possibly solder a ground wire to it and connect that to a “drain” ground post of some kind (or not). Please remember that aluminum as all metals conducts electricity. Plus, if the Mu metal is already cut to size with...

Only Mu metal needs to be annealed (heated then cooled without being shaped again) in this context because it has a dense molecular structure that gets “disturbed” by any and all metal work. No other metals that I know of need to be annealed after shaping to block electromagnetism.

Sorry. What I meant but did not express well is that natural magnetism can only be blocked by a Mu metal alloy that has been annelead after shaping. Electromagnetism can be blocked by any metal and, in all cases, the thickness of the plate/board does add to the damping effect on the magnetic...

Mu metal only blocks natural magnetism. The kind of RFI you would get in an amp like the WA33 would be *electro*magnetism, which can be blocked by any metal but copper is often considered the best. I only mention this because real Mu metal is very, very expensive; but copper is not. Cheers.

Sorry, but what kind of “board” can one get that would reduce the hum? I would think that swapping the tubes could make a difference. My thought would be that—with an amp like this—you would want to use the very best headphones that you can and not headphones so efficient/sensitive that they hum...

I’ve tried planers and electrostatics, am very fond of Stax; however, my two current favorite headphones are the Fostex TH-900 and the Mr. Speakers Ethers. They both just sound so musical and natural. The Fostex are dynamic / moving coil and the Ethers are very fine planars. :)

I tried the Abyss and the Utopias with both a Cavali Liquid Gold and the Woo WA5-LE with tube upgrades, and in both cases the Utopias sounded much more like music to me and had vastly better build quality, but YMMV.

My experience, too, most notably with the Woo WA22.

The Utopias are definitely warmer sounding than the HD800’s in some ways. On the other hand, they cost at least 3X more. So, no offense intended at all, what would you expect?

I agree with your comment about the TT, but the balanced comment is not spot-on. Many components use a balanced topology that then requires balanced versus single-ended cables and vice versa; plus some SE components are transformer-coupled and sound best with balanced cables; it all depends.

I could be mistaken, but I think that, when you have a fully balanced setup like that, it’s entirely possible that the XLR will sound better since all things cannot be equal. In a system that’s part RCA and part XLR, I do think the RCA ours sound a bit better than the XLR’s, but there no...

I have read that back a ways in this thread but have not tried it myself. I tried the TT going into an integrated amp with a pair of passive speakers and a Woo WA5-LE, etc.

That’s been my experience as well. Having said that, Rob [the chief designer at Chord] certainly has listened a lot to the TT I would guess but in posts here has always said the equvalent of “Your mileage May vary”.

I used a Hugo TT for a while with a Woo Audio WA5-SE and a Cavalli Liquid Gold and the original Abyss headphones. For me, I preferred the Ayre QB-9 DSD and the Codex to the TT, but neither the Codex NOR the TT could have driven the Abyss headphones really at all.

I've been wondering about the DX and the new CX for a while. Are you using Roon or some other way to send the signal from the DX to the TT (possibly via USB?)? Thanks very much.

I love the sound of 2A3's, but almost no one makes them anymore and good matched quads of NOS 2A3's are next to impossible to find; when I had got my WA5-LE, Woo did not offer the parts upgrade, so I got the Sophia Princess Mesh Plate rectifier tubes, some NOS Phillips driver tubes, and a pair...

I've never heard the WA33. I'm sure that it's a remarkable amp. I did use a WA5-LE with the Abyss Phi 's and that worked very well. Really, though, I decided I just did not like the Phi's. Disregarding their weight and appearance, they just don't sound "right" to me. I'm still very fond of the...

Although it would be single-ended, you'd be much better off, at least for testing, with a Manley Skipjack, which just came back into production, much better sound quality than a generic switcher, either XLR or RCA.

It's really a shame that so many brick and mortar stores have closed. I've only heard a Woo WES / SR-009 combination once under very uncontrolled conditions and it sounded terribly bright, but the WES / 009 combination has a reputation for being rich and warm. The BHSE is supposed to sound...

I didn't say anything at all other than an in-context brief comment, then expanded it to show how it **was in context**. Is that not in the spirit of what you said, and why are these comments not going on a meta-post or a PM to me, because they don't have anything directly to do with the SQ of a...

Regardless of who starts a thread, it will eventually go off topic for at least a little, often bringing some really interesting information into the process. I didn't want to say anything because I like the folks who make the microRendu and the UpTone LPS 1.2; but since you insist, I should say...

I think you missed earlier comments of mine germane to this in the context of the microRendu.