[Locutus73]

Hi, on Monday I received my brand new Schiit Bifrost Multibit + Valhalla 2 stack and yesterday I started a burn in cycle playing pink noise on my Sennheiser HD600. Today, after 30 hours of burn in, I listened to some music and I found it “distant”. I checked and I found that I didn’t insert completely HD600’s 3.5mm jack in its 6.5mm adapter, so, probably, I did the burn in with just one Valhalla 2’s channel connected to a load (both HD600 cans played music). I was stupid, my bad. Is there a possibility I damaged my brand new Valhalla 2 (and/or my HD600)?

Many thanks in advance.
Best regards.

Locutus73

 

[Ron Sherwood]

It's probably fine.
Let me know how this combo sounds as I am close to pulling the trigger on the Val2 and Modi2 Multibuilt (possibly Bifrost).

 

[buke9]

Hi, on Monday I received my brand new Schiit Bifrost Multibit + Valhalla 2 stack and yesterday I started a burn in cycle playing pink noise on my Sennheiser HD600. Today, after 30 hours of burn in, I listened to some music and I found it “distant”. I checked and I found that I didn’t insert completely HD600’s 3.5mm jack in its 6.5mm adapter, so, probably, I did the burn in with just one Valhalla 2’s channel connected to a load (both HD600 cans played music). I was stupid, my bad. Is there a possibility I damaged my brand new Valhalla 2 (and/or my HD600)?

Many thanks in advance.
Best regards.

Locutus73

Most likely nothing is hurt at all. If you plugged it in correctly and everything sounds right then your go to go. No possibility of hurting the headphones and I doubt you could hurt the amp in that way unless it was for a few weeks and then not sure.

 

[Locutus73]

It's probably fine.
Let me know how this combo sounds as I am close to pulling the trigger on the Val2 and Modi2 Multibuilt (possibly Bifrost).

Well, after plugging correctly the headphone it sounds very good. I mean: I’m new to this hobby and first I found my HD600+Dragonfly Red to be the best sounding gear I ever heard; with my HD569+Meridian Explorer 2 (work gear) being the second best… and now this HD600+Bimby+Valhalla2 combo sounds far better, gorgeous, almost magic, and now it’s the new best sounding gear I’ve ever heard, but who knows, there’s always margin to improvement.

Best regards.
Locutus73

 

[Locutus73]

Most likely nothing is hurt at all. If you plugged it in correctly and everything sounds right then your go to go. No possibility of hurting the headphones and I doubt you could hurt the amp in that way unless it was for a few weeks and then not sure.

First thank you all for the reassurances.

But being an objectivist materialist and knowing that, objectively, the most part of our listening is processed/performed in our brain rather than in our ears… and knowing that fear is the path to the dark side, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering… well, nope, I mean audio nervosa leads to stress, stress leads to bad mood, bad mood leads to not enjoying music, I’d like to wipe out any audio nervosa with science and technical reasoning.
Therefore, I’d like to elaborate technically the consequences of driving my Valhalla 2 without load and or short circuited.

I gathered some infos here and around the web and it seems (I’m not an electronic expert) that:

1. Driving an amp (solid state or tube) without load is very dangerous for the output transformer
2. Being OTL amps without output transformer by definition you can’t damage an inexistent component
3. Driving an OTL Tube amp with no load you can damage the output tube (cathode evaporation?)
4. Some OTL Tube amp designs nullify any hazard by using draining resistors

So, am I right with above statements?
Are there other components than tubes and output transformer that can be damaged (i.e. capacitors)?

Returning to Valhalla 2, does it have draining resistors and/or technical expedients in order to bypass user stupidity that leads to using it with no load and/or short-circuited output?
Being more specific:

1. Regarding the core Valhalla 2 amp (I mean any circuitry apart the disposable tubes):
   1. ìIs there a possibility I damaged the amp?
   2. Is there a possibility I reduced its audio performance/quality (maybe I killed some plankton micro details)?
   3. Is there a possibility I reduced its lifespan without altering its audio quality?
      
   4. The amp is perfectly fine no matter how much time I used It with no load and/or short-circuited
2. Regarding the Tubes
   1. Is there a possibility I damaged the tubes?
   2. Is there a possibility I reduced their audio performance/quality?
   3. Is there a possibility I reduced their lifespan without altering their audio quality?
   4. The tubes are perfectly fine no matter how much time I used It with no load and/or short-circuited

I know OCD is a bad thing…



Thank you very very very much in advance
Locutus73

 

[buke9]

I’m not a electronics expert either but unless you ran it for a extended period of time at max volume I don’t think you harmed it . If it sounds OK then it probably is.You will never be one with the Force if you keep doubting.

 

[Niggi183]

All is fine, enjoy your new amp . The holographic soundstage the valhalla 2 delivers sure is something special.

 

[KoshNaranek]

Damage to a tube amp occurs when there is an arc between the grid and plate. This is what blows the output transformer. Valhalla does have bleeding resistors (Jason mentioned it at some point, around the same time he mentioned that Jessie(one of the Schiit techs) did not wait for the capacitors to drain before working on Valhallas) I am sure your amp is fine