So this was also the case with mine out of the box. The gain button barely moved, wouldn't click, and was hyper sensitive. In fact, pressing on the face of the unit AROUND the gain button caused it to trigger, and at one point it got so bad it was stuck "in", and the amp wouldn't do anything.
After some poking and prodding, I managed to fix this by wedging my fingernails between the face plate and base, and trying nudge it up again. This caused the outer button to snap into alignment with the inner button and now it clicks.
Seems Schiit's QC with the Lyr+ isn't up to their usual standards, taking into account mine and others' experiences here. Not sure what's up with that.
Wow, thanks so much for this!
I just got mine today, and out of the box the buttons were clicky/responsive, and everything worked fine (tested solid state mode first), but I must have misaligned the face plate when angling the unit to unplug it to put in a tube to test the tube mode because the buttons became very nonresponsive (they still depressed and clicked, but it didn't feel right) and I couldn't get it to go into tube mode (I thought maybe my new tube was dead on arrival).
Eventually the whole thing just froze up and wouldn't produce sound even after I turned it off and on (tried to "reset" it) and tried just the solid state mode again. It wouldn't respond to the remote either. I tried it with or without the tube seated and thought somehow it just stopped working. I was about to go nuts and send Schiit a frustrated email. I thought I must be overlooking something really simple; well, not really: if the buttons get out of alignment then the whole unit either doesn't work right (won't switch modes or switch gains) or stops working altogether. That's not something everyone would discover and most would think something else more serious is wrong with the unit. I came to this thread specifically to see what I might be overlooking. Glad I did!
Anyway, haven't listened much yet, but I do like what I hear. I think it's better than my other "mid fi" amps (Burson Funk, Cayin iHA-6, Gilmore Lite Mk2, and WA6) both in timbre and technicalities (including sound stage). It reminds me most of the iHA-6: bright, clear, clean, crisp, energetic, impactful with more powerful than average bass and good technicalities...but more tame and natural in the highs (the sharp, fatiguing, even metallicy highs are the downfall of the iHA-6 imo).
Now, I did just get a Ferrum Oor and that has literally blown me away in the sense that I didn't think headphone amps could sound that good (speaker amps, which I have much more experience with, yes) and so I'm spoiled by it and so far it seems that the Lyr+ can't compete (as should be the case!), but comparing the Lyr+ with the amps above that are in its class, I think it is the winner. So I got some amps to sell!
PS: I really like the remote: very hefty and solid! I expected it to be some thin metal, lightweight, cheapish feeling kind of afterthought: nope, it's like a little metal brick!
Edit: I'm mostly using my HE1000V2's to test the Lyr+ but I briefly listened to it with my Empire Ear Odins and I heard no hiss at reasonable volume levels (low gain) with those. So it seems this might be IEM friendly as it will have a quiet background with at least some of them. That's good, as I plan to use this in a bedroom set up with the Odin's because any transducers that leak sound are a no-no in that room with the significant other lol.
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