[UntilThen]

Love the sound from these ITT 5b/254m tubes and the amazing adapters from @Deyan. First time I'm hearing these 5b/254m in Odyssey. I have been listening to them in Ultimate all this while but they sound great in Odyssey too if not better.

Tomas told me to use 5U4G rectifier for 807, for lower voltage drop. So that's a 5U4G in there and Telefunken EL11 as drivers.

 

[Slade01]

I have a question for Oblivion owners out there. As I am trying to figure out the quirks with the amp, and trying to ascertain what is normal and what isn't - this could be rather strange question about the LED light (power indicator). So when you flip the switch on, the light is bright as the sun. But over time, i've seen it go dim a good amount to almost seemingly very faint though the tubes remain lit and constant. Is this something normal?

I've never noticed it before until now. I know I have a loose connection somewhere in the front panel wiring also which is affecting the channels, and possibly affecting the LED light as well. I'm about to send this to my repair guy to look into it and shore up any loose connections, but wanted to know whether or not this is some slick feature, or something going faulty. Thanks!

 

[Isaacc7]

I have a question for Oblivion owners out there. As I am trying to figure out the quirks with the amp, and trying to ascertain what is normal and what isn't - this could be rather strange question about the LED light (power indicator). So when you flip the switch on, the light is bright as the sun. But over time, i've seen it go dim a good amount to almost seemingly very faint though the tubes remain lit and constant. Is this something normal?

I've never noticed it before until now. I know I have a loose connection somewhere in the front panel wiring also which is affecting the channels, and possibly affecting the LED light as well. I'm about to send this to my repair guy to look into it and shore up any loose connections, but wanted to know whether or not this is some slick feature, or something going faulty. Thanks!

The light in my Odyssey never varied in intensity and it was intense, especially in the dark! I first rectified this by putting gaffer tape over the light. Later on I asked a tech to replace it with a red LED. He said it would be too much of a pain to change it so he added a resistor which dimmed it and then painted it red. It’s much better now. I never could understand why Tomas liked that damn white LED, it cut through my skull in the dark and made it impossible to enjoy the glow of tubes.

I will be dropping my amp off at the tech again today. I think it’s just a fuse that has blown. My amp has 4 output fuses, one mains fuse, and two more on the inside that I think are there to protect the regulator. I occasionally pop an output fuse for unknown reasons. When in triode this is pretty obvious because the bias meter in that side stops working. I suspect blowing an output fuse while in ultra linear also triggers the mains fuse or one of the others because the power supply is being routed through the output transformer. I also suspect that I’m blowing output fuses because of high inrush current on cold tubes. There is already a slight delay between when the heaters come on and the voltage meter responds but maybe it needs to be longer? Hopefully it won’t take too long or cost too much to figure out what’s going on.

 

[UntilThen]

Mine never varied in intensity. It didn't bothered me because all the gear there are putting on a light show.

 

[UntilThen]

Odyssey and Oblivion were the most photographed amps when I was in Canberra. You can see Chameleon, @rollinbr KT170 amp on the right top shelf. I was testing it before shipping it off to him. Still had He1000se and LCD4 then. Even Elekit TU 8200R. There's the Axis Voicebox S on the desk and a pair of floorstanders. Good times. It makes the solitude in the Capital city seem like heaven.

 

[Slade01]

Mine never varied in intensity. It didn't bothered me because all the gear there are putting on a light show.

Lol. I've been testing this out, and mine definitely dims after a period of time, so this is either one helluva mod that was done on this light, or its dying inside a bit. I asked because I remembered that a few owners here questioned at how white and bright the light was, and efforts to mitigate it. Thanks everyone for the feedback, really appreciate it. Just one more thing for my repair guy to check out when he gives it a once over.

 

[UntilThen]

In the early days after the Oblivion became mine after the review, Tomas ask if the light is too bright or perhaps change the colour. I wasn't going to ship my amp back to him just to change the light. So I left it as it is.

Mine is the original Oblivion with the big fan underneath. It is still so quiet, I can't hear the fan at all. Tomas told me I can disable the fan but I never bothered. Your amp first owner mod the amp to put in better parts but that defeats the purpose of Oblivion. It was supposed to sound good with no fancy parts. It's a parafeed new school amp. My plain vanilla version sound great to this day since late 2019.

 

[Slade01]

In the early days after the Oblivion became mine after the review, Tomas ask if the light is too bright or perhaps change the colour. I wasn't going to ship my amp back to him just to change the light. So I left it as it is.

Mine is the original Oblivion with the big fan underneath. It is still so quiet, I can't hear the fan at all. Tomas told me I can disable the fan but I never bothered. Your amp first owner mod the amp to put in better parts but that defeats the purpose of Oblivion. It was supposed to sound good with no fancy parts. It's a parafeed new school amp. My plain vanilla version sound great to this day since late 2019.

I am in the camp of not minding the bright light at all. I've always been a sucker for the LED lights, just as I've always been a sucker for the tube glow. So I never minded any of the bright lights (as per usual for Schiit gear).

I think the fan underneath is pretty cool (no pun intended) as well, I'm sure even if it's not needed, the extra bit of cooling benefits the amp in the grand scheme.

I also know the first owner had caps modded the Oblivion now. And I am pretty damn sure the stock versions of the amp already sound great. I guess for me, that daycare/kindergarten saying that teachers often tell kids, "you get what you get and you don't get upset" applies to me. I'm just extremely lucky and thankful to have the amp and will put in the cash and effort to shore it up and make as tip top as I can. I really do wonder how much the mods really improved and already great sound. I've had a few caps modded amps in my time, and they were all just incremental improvements at best.

 

[UntilThen]

I am in the camp of not minding the bright light at all. I've always been a sucker for the LED lights, just as I've always been a sucker for the tube glow. So I never minded any of the bright lights (as per usual for Schiit gear).

I think the fan underneath is pretty cool (no pun intended) as well, I'm sure even if it's not needed, the extra bit of cooling benefits the amp in the grand scheme.

I also know the first owner had caps modded the Oblivion now. And I am pretty damn sure the stock versions of the amp already sound great. I guess for me, that daycare/kindergarten saying that teachers often tell kids, "you get what you get and you don't get upset" applies to me. I'm just extremely lucky and thankful to have the amp and will put in the cash and effort to shore it up and make as tip top as I can. I really do wonder how much the mods really improved and already great sound. I've had a few caps modded amps in my time, and they were all just incremental improvements at best.

I know of a very good audio repair shop in Canberra. The engineer’s name is William who famously told me ‘I won’t tell you whether McIntosh or Audio Note sounds better, that’s for you to decide. I will however repair your amp to be better than new!’

That’s what he did to my GOTL replacing 7 sockets, resistors and caps.

When it’s done I ask him does it sound good. He said I wouldn’t know because I don’t listen to it. I asked then how do you know it works ???

He then brought me over to his workbench and connected GOTL to the oscilloscope and show the waves and he declared that’s how I know it works!

 

[UntilThen]

When I went home I power on GOTL and sure enough it works and sounded better than before.

 

[UntilThen]

These days if I needed my amps repaired I will see Eric of McChanson amps but he told me he won’t repair amps not done by him and I respect his wish.

Nevertheless I bend his arm and got him to replace the headphone output on Darkvoice.

 

[Isaacc7]

I am in the camp of not minding the bright light at all. I've always been a sucker for the LED lights, just as I've always been a sucker for the tube glow. So I never minded any of the bright lights (as per usual for Schiit gear).

I think the fan underneath is pretty cool (no pun intended) as well, I'm sure even if it's not needed, the extra bit of cooling benefits the amp in the grand scheme.

I also know the first owner had caps modded the Oblivion now. And I am pretty damn sure the stock versions of the amp already sound great. I guess for me, that daycare/kindergarten saying that teachers often tell kids, "you get what you get and you don't get upset" applies to me. I'm just extremely lucky and thankful to have the amp and will put in the cash and effort to shore it up and make as tip top as I can. I really do wonder how much the mods really improved and already great sound. I've had a few caps modded amps in my time, and they were all just incremental improvements at best.

It’s also good to remember that a change in sound isn’t necessarily better either. Since there’s no way to objectively measure sound quality I’m happy in saying that things like changing tubes and caps make the amp sound different. But then I find another combo that I like just as well.

 

[Isaacc7]

I know of a very good audio repair shop in Canberra. The engineer’s name is William who famously told me ‘I won’t tell you whether McIntosh or Audio Note sounds better, that’s for you to decide. I will however repair your amp to be better than new!’

That’s what he did to my GOTL replacing 7 sockets, resistors and caps.

When it’s done I ask him does it sound good. He said I wouldn’t know because I don’t listen to it. I asked then how do you know it works ???

He then brought me over to his workbench and connected GOTL to the oscilloscope and show the waves and he declared that’s how I know it works!

Peter Walker of Quad supposedly never listened to the Quad II amp. He did the same thing, did it visually on the scope and looking at numbers.

Funnily enough I’ve never been impressed with that amp lol.