[a44100Hz]

Your enthusiasm is infectious and I agree. I had a really fun evening of just listening to music. I can finally appreciate the improvement in immersion that FLAC brings, so I've been trying to collect lossless files wherever I can. The difference from 192 (YouTube HD) or even 320 to FLAC is noticable now for albums I'm familiar with. Not sure if it's my ears adapting or if the audio chain is finally up to snuff or a bit of both. Lossless adds that extra touch of realism to voices, for example, that makes some records sound better than I ever expected their recordings were. I just listened to Thriller. Felt like I was sinking into the music. I felt giddy the entire time. Today was a good audio day.

 

[Terrynj]

Your enthusiasm is infectious

and I agree. I had a really fun evening of just listening to music. I can finally appreciate the improvement in immersion that FLAC brings, so I've been trying to collect lossless files wherever I can. The difference from 192 (YouTube HD) or even 320 to FLAC is noticable now for albums I'm familiar with. Not sure if it's my ears adapting or if the audio chain is finally up to snuff or a bit of both. Lossless adds that extra touch of realism to voices, for example, that makes some records sound better than I ever expected their recordings were. I just listened to Thriller. Felt like I was sinking into the music. I felt giddy the entire time. Today was a good audio day.

No, you are correct about the FLAC being better. I see MP3 people saying there is no difference between MP3 and FLAC which is ridiculous. MP3's are compressed..game over. I do photography and I shoot RAW...uncompressed..I can do anything with the file uncompressed..jpegs you cant do anything...color temps aren't correct? Your screwed.
 
Here is what people miss..any transfer medium is only as good as the source. I can make a Blu-ray copy of a Polaroid picture and the quality will never be any better than the polaroid..So A FLAC copy of a not so good original will not be good. A MP3 copy of a high resolution original, will be very good...but FLACs will be master copies of the original...which is the best you can get. (or as close as you can easily get)
 
Yes to the music.. I listened to Maniac Mechanic and La grange from ZZ top and my mouth was agape...I'm from Texas and I have listened to this my whole life...it was like I never heard it before!
I listened to thriller too....awesome
 
Heres a couple that I have picked as best of show..Amos Lee ..."Sweet Pea" and Keb'mo..."Move" off the Bluesamerica album...Alice In Chains, Unplugged is an awesome recording..any song..
 
EDIT: I will add a caveat about MP3 files...I have heard some that are very close to FLAC doing A/B'ing... i was speaking of when space is not a concern..or bandwidth. I am speaking to what I play for serious listening. Disc space is cheap and external 1 Tb hard drives can be had for $60...but dont stream FLAC on your Data plan unless its unlimited, the files are big. But to pick up some of the nuances we are talking about with this gear and tubes, you need the best sources you can get...I know I am preaching to the choir here...especially on this forum/this site. This statement is just for those that think there's no difference...

 

[braaam]

I think what people say is they don't hear a difference between well encoded mp3's and lossless files. And they are right - most people can't reliably tell the difference in blind tests.
 
When conversions are done throughout the audio chain it could matter if the original was uncompressed or already compressed, especially for up/downscaling. Apple TV upscales 16/44 sources to 16/48. The effect is very substantial with compressed music (bad). 
 
Personally, in my audio chain, I haven't yet noticed differences between compressed 256kb AAC and uncompressed/high resolution audio. I've tried Tidal and I didn't hear a difference compared to the same songs in Apple Music. That, off course, could also be attributed to the chain itself which consists of an iPhone that streams music through airPlay directly to a Pioneer Elite receiver that i use as a DAC, then into a 5 meter interconnect that connects to the APPJ, which outputs to the stock 400i cable/headphones. 
 
About the 6V6G vs 6V6GT, they have the same characteristics electronically. The only difference is the glass tubular (GT) vs glass (G) vs glass tubular yellow (GTY) etc. In other words, all tubes that start with "6V6" should be fine. (source: http://www.fenderforum.com/forum.html?db=&topic_number=489146)
 
The only possible issue off course is the shape of the "G". It won't fit everywhere. 

 

[Terrynj]

  I think what people say is they don't hear a difference between well encoded mp3's and lossless files. And they are right - almost no one is able to dell the difference in most of the cases. I think what you mean is that when there are conversions done throughout the audio chain it could matter if the original was uncompressed or already compressed. Apple TV resamples 16/44 sources because it upscales to 16/48. The effect is very substantial (bad) there. 
 
Personally, in my audio chain, I haven't yet noticed differences between compressed 256kb AAC and uncompressed/high resolution audio. I've tried tidal and I didn't hear a difference compared to the same songs in Apple Music. That, off course, could also be attributed to the chain itself which consists of an iPhone that streams music through airPlay directly to a Pioneer Elite receiver that i use as a DAC, then into a 5 meter interconnect that connects to the APPJ, which outputs to the stock 400i cable/headphones. 
 
About the 6V6G vs 6V6GT, they have the same characteristics electronically. The only difference is the glass tube (GT) vs glass (G) vs glass tube yellow (GTY) etc. In other words, all tubes that start with "6V6" should be fine. (source: http://www.fenderforum.com/forum.html?db=&topic_number=489146)
 
The only possible issue off course is the shape of the "G". It won't fit everywhere. 

I traded in my iphone for a samsung, so I 've not heard itune music in quite some time , so i'll stand corrected on that. I have always used Spotify to stream, and with the gear I used then, it was great. But since I got my planars, the difference between the two are plain to me. I will still go back and forth between Tidal and Spotify, listening to the same song, and I dont mind paying the extra money for Tidal.
 
When I was using itunes i had the iphone 4s, which had line level out through the charging connector....that I could go into a DAC which was great...the newers ones (iphone 5) went to the small charging connector, which I could no longer get LL audio ( they want you to use the Blue Tooth), had to use the HP jack which doesn't work for what I was doing since the phones DAC was being used....On my Samsung, I can use the USB OTG feature of my E5 DAC/AMP which sounds very close to what I get our of my laptop. Going through my HP jack on my phone, into my E5, to my 400s or 400i, removes the gain I get from Tidal... both Spotify and Tidal sound the same to me then.
 
the newer Samsung s7 coming out, supposedly has a completely overhauled DAC/AMP setup in for people like us that are using better than $30 ear buds... I think that will be a trend from here on out with manufactures.
 
thanks for the info on the tubes, I am just being cautious...so I appreciate your reassurance...I think the 6V6G's will fit though...

 
Sorry too for being so passionate, I am just very excited and it is spilling out! lol

 

[braaam]

  the newer Samsung s7 coming out, supposedly has a completely overhauled DAC/AMP setup in for people like us that are using better than $30 ear buds... I think that will be a trend from here on out with manufactures.
 
thanks for the info on the tubes, I am just being cautious...so I appreciate your reassurance...I think the 6V6G's will fit though...

 
Sorry too for being so passionate, I am just very excited and it is spilling out! lol

 
The iPhone does support most audio interfaces through the OTG interface, but it's not well documented. I've had success using a cheap chinese lightning to USB cable, a powered USB hub and the Schiit Fulla. Pretty clumsy setup though - I vastly prefer airPlay for the convenience. The DAC/Amp in the iPhone 6s is very good IMO. It's a bit analytical and lacks some energy in the lows, but other than that it drives my 400i very well. As you mentioned, it does not sound good when using the line out - a lot of resolution is lost when I plug it directly into the APPJ.

 

[canthearyou]

UPDATE: After about 24 hours of continuous playback it sounds as if the EH tubes may have calmed the highs a bit. It sounds much better than when first installed. I must say the clarity of this amp is surprising. I was expecting a super warm, vintage* sound. The only other tube amp I've owned was the Anne T1 mk2 and never really liked the sound. It sounded bland and lifeless.

 

[braaam]

UPDATE: After about 24 hours of continuous playback it sounds as if the EH tubes may have calmed the highs a bit. It sounds much better than when first installed. I must say the clarity of this amp is surprising. I was expecting a super warm, vintage* sound. The only other tube amp I've owned was the Anne T1 mk2 and never really liked the sound. It sounded bland and lifeless.

I think that's the reason that I found my RCA's a bit harsh sounding. The amp is already bright and the RCA's combined with relatively neutral preamp tubes magnified this.

The stock 6V6 tubes have been chosen well IMO.

 

[squirrelman]

I got one of these guys from Amazon the other day, and sent it back the same day.  The audio was only playing through the right channel on the headphones.  It was the strangest thing, I did the windows audio test where it gives you a chime in each ear.  The left channel played very faintly in the right ear and then the right channel chimed as normal.  Then the price went up by about $10 when I sent it back so I figured i'll hold off for now.  I was excited to give this one a try since my speaker amp also takes 6V6s, so I have a lovely pair of Pope 6V6GT which are heavenly on there.

 

[braaam]

I got one of these guys from Amazon the other day, and sent it back the same day.  The audio was only playing through the right channel on the headphones.  It was the strangest thing, I did the windows audio test where it gives you a chime in each ear.  The left channel played very faintly in the right ear and then the right channel chimed as normal.  Then the price went up by about $10 when I sent it back so I figured i'll hold off for now.  I was excited to give this one a try since my speaker amp also takes 6V6s, so I have a lovely pair of Pope 6V6GT which are heavenly on there.

The APPJ QC seems very lacking. Would love to know how those pope's would work their magic on the APPJ

 

[a44100Hz]

  I got one of these guys from Amazon the other day, and sent it back the same day.  The audio was only playing through the right channel on the headphones.  It was the strangest thing, I did the windows audio test where it gives you a chime in each ear.  The left channel played very faintly in the right ear and then the right channel chimed as normal.  Then the price went up by about $10 when I sent it back so I figured i'll hold off for now.  I was excited to give this one a try since my speaker amp also takes 6V6s, so I have a lovely pair of Pope 6V6GT which are heavenly on there.

 
Mine has also had some quirks. The left channel was always at full volume. The problem seems to have gone away but I have no idea what changed.

 

[squirrelman]

   
Mine has also had some quirks. The left channel was always at full volume. The problem seems to have gone away but I have no idea what changed.

I'm thinking that there might have been a problem with the headphone jack on the amp, when I jiggled the plug I could head it changing.  I wasn't about to test good NOS tubes in there to see if it was just a tube problem.  I figure good NOS tubes only go into an amp after its proven itself working for a fair amount of time, especially cheap Chinese made ones.

 

[canthearyou]

I got one of these guys from Amazon the other day, and sent it back the same day.  The audio was only playing through the right channel on the headphones.  It was the strangest thing, I did the windows audio test where it gives you a chime in each ear.  The left channel played very faintly in the right ear and then the right channel chimed as normal.  Then the price went up by about $10 when I sent it back so I figured i'll hold off for now.  I was excited to give this one a try since my speaker amp also takes 6V6s, so I have a lovely pair of Pope 6V6GT which are heavenly on there.

You should've tried for a replacement from Amazon. They probably would've sent you a new one even before you returned the bad unit.

 

[a44100Hz]

You should've tried for a replacement from Amazon. They probably would've sent you a new one even before you returned the bad unit.

I tried. It was only "return for refund and buy another one ", no swapsies.

 

[canthearyou]

I tried. It was only "return for refund and buy another one ", no swapsies.

Bummer

 

[canthearyou]

I've been giving this all the eartime. Barely listened to my full Burson Gustard H10.

The tubes have settled very, very nicely. Very detailed, yet not fatiguing at all.

With that said I just placed an order for a Genalex Gold Lion 12AX7.