[connieflyer]

I have tried dropping dollar bills along the floors leading outside to the car so she can shop, but she always gets her foot in the door just before I shut it!.  I wait until she goes down stairs to use the tread mill, as I know she has headphones on then,  Then I put the Ember on as a preamp and it does sound a little different than just running it through the receiver .  Prefer using it with headphones though.  Watched a couple of Dvd's last night, one was Roy Orbison's Black and White disk and the other was Alison Krauss's Live from the tracking room, and the soundfield was absolutely amazing.  Have listened to these two disks for years and have never heard them sound like this.  The wife had to have a listen and she agreed, and you know wive's are always right.  Thought I would throw that in in case she is watching!

 

[Amish]

Wives are always right. Even when they are wrong they are really right. My wife always has a 'but' to turn everything around on me.
 
Personally I usually have to wait til her and the kids go to bed at night before I play.

 

[richard51]

i use the Ember pre amp out with my  powered speakers and that made a great difference for me ....

 

[Johan-71]

Happy wife, happy life...

 

[connieflyer]

After 44 years of marriage, I know what battles to fight, only those I can win or at least fight to a draw, that is why it is so peaceful here, we don't fight.  What's the point, she will win in the end.  Just have to hide some of the purchases, like new tubes, I go out and get the mail, run around to the back of the house, sneak in the back yard, crawl across the deck, slither through the pet door, and quietly open the door off the porch, into my space where she will greet me with a pair of scissors to open the box, she just KNOWS when I am going to get something!

 

[DavidA]

  After 44 years of marriage, I know what battles to fight, only those I can win or at least fight to a draw, that is why it is so peaceful here, we don't fight.  What's the point, she will win in the end.  Just have to hide some of the purchases, like new tubes, I go out and get the mail, run around to the back of the house, sneak in the back yard, crawl across the deck, slither through the pet door, and quietly open the door off the porch, into my space where she will greet me with a pair of scissors to open the box, she just KNOWS when I am going to get something!

too funny, but it was my mom who just knew
 
girlfriend is on the same page as me so all is good

 

[ericr]

After 44 years of marriage, I know what battles to fight, only those I can win or at least fight to a draw, that is why it is so peaceful here, we don't fight.  What's the point, she will win in the end.  Just have to hide some of the purchases, like new tubes, I go out and get the mail, run around to the back of the house, sneak in the back yard, crawl across the deck, slither through the pet door, and quietly open the door off the porch, into my space where she will greet me with a pair of scissors to open the box, she just KNOWS when I am going to get something!

LOL! My wife though that was funny.

Though you give your wife away. We know she's sweet 'cause she's greeting you with scissors and not a knife!

 

[ericr]

I recently got a Solstice amp. Just got some tubes and I want to roll them. Is it as easy as pulling the tube straight out of it's housing and putting the new one in? I assume it's very similar to the Ember. They both have the auto-bias.

Auto-bias yes, but IIRC the Solstice has manual voltage selection. You don't want to be plugging in a 6 volt tube if she's set at 12 volts!

 

[heliosphann]

  Yes. Just pull it out and pop in your new tube. That is the beauty of auto-bias.

 
 

Auto-bias yes, but IIRC the Solstice has manual voltage selection. You don't want to be plugging in a 6 volt tube if she's set at 12 volts!

 
Thanks guys. I'll be mostly using 12au7 tubes since I have a few other amps that use that spec tube. 
 
Any recommendations and or places to buy tubes from besides Ebay? 

 

[connieflyer]

Try the tubes list from Jeremy on this site I purchased a couple of tubes from him and very well satisfied, I know of at least one other member that has purchased from him also....http://garage1217.com/garage1217_diy_tube_headphone_amplifiers_008.htm

 

[RedBull]

Hey guys, do you pair your ember with hd800? Do you think it sounds great or not? I totally agree i heard hd650 sounds best with Ember, i never heard 650 sounds better, but i don't think so it sounds optimal for hd800.
Or is it my tube doesn't complement hd800 enough. Or ember signature does not match 800.
I don't think it's the power but more to sound sig?
I find the upper mid range is a bit too strong and forward for 800 hence it narrows the soundstage a bit.
I use 6dj8, 12au7, cv4024, 6n30p.
I find 800 need a really warm amp to fill up the bottom?

 

[DavidA]

Hey guys, do you pair your ember with hd800? Do you think it sounds great or not? I totally agree i heard hd650 sounds best with Ember, i never heard 650 sounds better, but i don't think so it sounds optimal for hd800.
Or is it my tube doesn't complement hd800 enough. Or ember signature does not match 800.
I don't think it's the power but more to sound sig?
I find the upper mid range is a bit too strong and forward for 800 hence it narrows the soundstage a bit.
I use 6dj8, 12au7, cv4024, 6n30p.
I find 800 need a really warm amp to fill up the bottom?

My HD-800 is arriving on Monday, I'll post back after a few days with my thoughts.  Also ordered a Bottlehead Crack for them.
As for tubes that I've been using, I like Bugle Boys for the HD-700 and RS2e, gives both the HD-700 and RS2e solid bass and keeps the highs from becoming to bright.  Telefunken's tend to be brighter sounding to me and word great with the HD-650 and SRH-1840.

 

[RedBull]

Thanks David.
I find some tubes are more noisier than the other.

12au7 and 6n30p are the quietest, no hum at all at normal listening volume.

6dj8 reasonably quite, some faint hum detected.

Cv4024 (12at7) is the noisiest, is makes audible sound, and when i touch the the aluminum case, the hum gets slightly louder. Strangely, the sound dissapear after like 15-20 mins. I hope this noise gets better over the time after the tube gets more burn in.

 

[DavidA]

Thanks David.
I find some tubes are more noisier than the other.

12au7 and 6n30p are the quietest, no hum at all at normal listening volume.

6dj8 reasonably quite, some faint hum detected.

Cv4024 (12at7) is the noisiest, is makes audible sound, and when i touch the the aluminum case, the hum gets slightly louder. Strangely, the sound dissapear after like 15-20 mins. I hope this noise gets better over the time after the tube gets more burn in.

After reading your post, I was thinking that my Lyr2 used to ring ever so slightly when plugging in headphones and have some noise with some tubes but that it disappeared after I started using socket savers in them but I never noticed this ringing with the ember.  The socket savers have some damping employed in them which isolated the tubes better.  With the ember this was never an issue so didn't use socket savers in them.  I'm wondering if the aluminum case is a possible cause for some of the noise.  Might be interesting to remove the top cover and see if the noise gets less.  LMK, I was thinking of ordering the aluminum case for my ember but it possibly cause noise I'll pass on it.
I agree with you that 12at7 is the noisiest, I have two telefunken's, one is 12at7 (a little noise), the other is 12au7 (dead silent)

 

[RedBull]

Ah, great, that makes me releaved a bit, so i am sure that may amp is okay, only the AT tube is a little fuzzy.

Yes, if i remove the top cover the noise is gone, but that's never an issue with other silent tubes. And the aluminum case is so cool looking!!

Today i use the 12at7 again, the noise is even lesser, on and off, sometimes it's there sometimes it is not, even with aluminum chasis on. Now i leave the tube on although the sources are off just to burn in more.

I thought the aluminum casis is for limited time only?

I tried with different album, the upper mid slight over emphasize is not there. Maybe that album recording is not good (Frozen OST).