Comments on Profile Post by Lyander

I've been part of a Discord mics community for a bit where I've been learning more about the other side of the audio nerd process and it's been really fun, lots of things translate but also there's a lot of stuff that's counterintuitive.

Have met my share of "TUBES DISTORTED" and THD+N absolutists, but I like to think I make for a compelling argumentator some days.

One dude went from "the HD6xx is fine out of an interface" to "oh this sounds more detailed" (double amping a Focusrite 18i20 into the Vali 3) to "WTF THIS IS NIGHT AND DAY" when moving to feeding line outs of the 18i20 into the Schiit.

They have the GE tube to compare against stock cuz I linked the threads here and they were convinced.

They didn't figure to switch the amp off while comparing. Smoke reportedly came out of the socket but it seems both he and the amp are alive. The smoke is concerning, I'm guessing there are dumb-move protection in place but is there possibility of damage even if things sound at least better than an interface on an HD6xx?

The pull it out method never works.

Smoke is usually indicative of some cooked parts. If he bought it new, it would probably still be covered under warranty.

How do you pull a tube with an amp on ? Isn't it very hot ? If they have to be told that they probably shouldn't be using tube amps haha

@Azimuth that was my guess as well. Might sound nice still but SOMEthing's probably off. Do warranties even cover that level of "Bro you did WHAT"?

@HotRatSalad I genuinely have no idea. I can touch the tube on my MCTH, rest a finger on it even if it's been on for maybe half a day, but gripping it securely enough to pull the tube out? Ouch.

Maybe the smoke was the skin on his fingers.

@jnak00 The hilarious bit is that would be the best case scenario here I think.

Came here for @YMO's comment. Found it exactly where I expected it to be. Carry on.

Poor guy lol sucks to start out that way. Be sure to let him know, not only shut the amp off but wait until the tube is fully cooled to swap it out. I always wait till the tubes are cooled before I pull em anyway.

It’s still working? Best scenario is probably an electrical arc was burning some impurites around the area.

@HotRatSalad honestly the guy runs tubes in guitar gear all the time and has not insignificant gear in the recording space. I thought he'd have known better which is why I never explicitly warned him????

@joch seems so! Hopefully that's the case, would suck for em elsewise. I'm going full Palpatine and talking about DACs now.

Hot pulling tubes in unregulated power supplies like a guitar tube amp is not quite the same as hot unplugging on a regulated supply and likely fixed bias.

Ya, burned parts. Enough to mess anything up immediately - not always in something like a Vali 3. But I'd still get it fixed sooner than later. And me personally I would have 0 expectation that Schiit would cover this under warranty or even could cover it - i.e. maybe it's as much to fix as a new amp.

@Azimuth thanks for the insight, neglected to consider that. Yeah no I think it was a case of "familiar enough to be dangerous" here like if I'd suddenly try messing with DAC internals. Recipe for disaster

@penguins I'd be shocked if they did TBH. Best case scenario is that sure maybe it was some impurities around the socket like joch said but hopefully it doesn't blow the guy's headphones or ears up randomly now.