I think it means that the the LCX shorts its inputs when switched off. Because the RCA's on the gumby are wired in parallel, this means that the short circuit through the LCX when it's off sucks up all the current which the output buffers of the Gumby can supply, so you get distortion. The only...

Sometimes cleaning the pins can help. Get some 100% isopropyl alcohol (NOT 90% or 95%) and some q-tips. Soak a q-tip in the alcohol and gently scrub the pins to remove any oxidation. To get behind/between the pins you might need to pull some of the cotton wool off the q-tip head so that it fits...

I see, so you cut down the socket savers themselves! Smart. For information, I checked with Schiit and the cutouts in the Freya are 1.3" = 33.02mm.

I recently bought a set of the Tubemonger socket savers to use in the Freya. Unfortunately they didn't fit through the cut outs in the top of the Freya, so I returned them. Can anyone recommend another good set of socket savers that do fit the Freya?

Probably the tubes. Try swapping the left two tubes with the right two (ie back left with back right and front left with front right). If the noise moves to the other channel then it's definitely the tubes. Just reseating the tubes like this might already fix it. If not, try taking them out and...

The 6SN7 is a double triode tube, so really two active components stuffed into one glass envelope. 2475/2450 are the numbers for the two triodes in the first tube, and 2200/1900 the numbers for the two triodes in the second tube. In the Freya, each tube drives one channel. So imbalance between...

Indeed, thanks! There are at least a couple of other Italian websites I found selling the same looking tube so I think they are certainly legit. I will be interested to find out if they are rebrands or if Fivre somehow acquired toolings from Sylvania (they are identical to the Syl triangle...

I ordered these tubes the other day in a spirit of scientific enquiry; I don't have them yet. They are labelled Fivre but look an awful lot like Sylvania 6SN7GTB. Does anyone know what they actually are?

Cool, thanks for that! What Nick told me, precisely, was to stay below a heater current of 750mA. I therefore ruled out 6N6P-I going off the datasheet: http://www.mif.pg.gda.pl/homepages/frank/sheets/112/6/6N6PI.pdf http://tubedata.milbert.com/sheets/113/6/6N6PI.pdf   which says that 6N6P-I...

lci_electronics  / orpheus_2005 is a trustworthy ebay seller I have used. This pair look excellent:   www.ebay.com/itm/6N6P-6-6-MATCHED-BALANCED-PAIR-NOVOSIBIRSK-GOLD-GRID-Audio-TUBES-ECC99-E182CC-/302206540401

Yes, there is a source of confusion there.   The stock Russian tube, which is OK, is called 6Н6П which can  be transliterated to 6N6P but also sometimes spelt out as 6H6n or 6H6Pi (since the last letter is a pi symbol). On the other hand, there is also 6Н6П-И or 6Н6П-ИР which transliterates...

The 2000uF indicates how much filtering there is on the power supply (to get a stable DC voltage from the AC line). Some information at this link on the transformers:     The heater transformer provides 2.7A of current (2 x 6N1P at 600mA, 2 x 6N6P at 750mA) at 6.3V =~ 20W of power. To be...

Not just the tubes unfortunately. The windings on the transformer which power the tube heaters are rated for a certain current, so if you exceed that current the transformer may get hot, smell funny and eventually fail.

Hi all,   Just a heads up. I spoke to Nick at Schiit about possibilities for swapping the output tubes (6N6P) in the Valhalla 2. He said to be careful not to use tubes which exceed the heater current of the stock tubes (750mA).   In particular, this means you should NOT use 6N6P-I or 6N6P-IR...

I'm running the PM-3's portable from a Chord Mojo. I don't think I've heard a better pair of genuinely portable headphones. I agree that the top end is a little bit rolled off, but that suits my (slightly treble-sensitive) ears fine. Wearing glasses in this case turns out to be a blessing - with...

By the way, has anyone found anything that is significantly smaller than the DX90 with a coax out to feed the Mojo? The stack is a bit bulkier than I would like.

I recently moved from the DX90 alone to the Mojo for portable use (driving Oppo PM-3s). The improvement is not subtle. The most impressive aspect of the Mojo, I think, is its very accurate transient reproduction. The best part is that the weird artifical treble of the DX90 is completely gone...

Really enjoying my HD650's with the Gumby and the Mjolnir 2 (LISSTs at the moment). Have modded with dynamat and it really tightens up the sound - a lot more space between the notes and much less bleed of the bass into the midrange.