It has been moved
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thanks a lot!
I just got the FX Audio Tube-03.
First impressions, after the first hour.
Volume: If you turn the volume higher than 12 o’ clock, expect a ton of distortion.
Bass:
-If you don’t put the bass knob at 11:30 
or more, expect a total loss of sub-bass.
-It’s like the bass knob “starts from 0hz”. Turn it left all the way and it will erase everything from 0-200hz.
-If you turn it right a little bit, expect a pleasant bass boost. As if my T50RPs needed more bass… but here it is.
-More than half (12 o’ clock), and re-live the disgusting Honda Civic era of people with loud and shitty, distorting subwoofers in their trunk.
-But if you want, you can bass boost the crap out of everything and get a “old Beats by Dre simulator” by lowering the volume knob to 1/4 (nine o’clock? 
) and then turning the bass knob to the right. No distortion.
Treble:
-Maybe three clicks left again, 11:30-ish
-Well, that’s a surprise. Even with the knob all the way down, I feel like the Tube-03 adds a ton of “air” (10khz+) to everything (no “esses” sssibilance – higher than that!). Where the bass knob was just, basically “erasing” all the low frequencies, the treble knob just “pushes em down”… but this 10khz+ “air” stays. So whatever you play, it never sounds muffled.
Other infos:
-Not microphonic. I.e., if I pause the music and knock on the casing, or even touch the tubes, I don’t hear anything.
-I’m actually stress-testing it with powerful, sometimes “wall of sound” electronic music. So if I don’t hear distortion now, you, jazz amateur, certainly won’t hear atrocious distortion.
-My first impression was, actually “hey, this sounds clean”. And this 30$ thing also adds soundstage.
I was expecting “tubiness” to be smoothness, a higher amount of bass, and muffled sound. I got a bass boost knob, “air” and soundstage, and apparently clean sound. Definitely worth the 30$ for me. 
I’d just recommend this to everyone who has closed-backs or open-back inexpensive headphones with drivers “dying” at 10khz. Maybe this can help.
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I got Nobsound’s variant - under the name Doak Audio - back in August. I was similarly pleasantly surprised. I put GE JAN5654 tubes in it too. The sound is amazing. I completely agree it widens the soundstage. But I also notice that it fills in the soundstage, seemingly bringing the soundstage between L and C and R and C up so that there’s a more uniform presentation all the way across. It does add some warmth, too. What I can’t say for sure is if it’s adding any “tubey-ness”. I got in on the last Darkvoice drop and am excited to compare the two. I don’t know how long that will take to get here, and coronavirus is likely going to delay it further (that’s ok, we definitely should prioritize people NOT dying). When it does finally arrive, I’ll do a thorough comparison to see if these little buffers are actually doing “tubey-ness” or if they’re essentially cool looking tone controls.
Do your tubes stay in it well? The biggest complaint I have is that it’s easy to unseat the tubes.
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Lol, definitely!
Huh, mine won’t move, they were a bit difficult to put in there.
I swear… I don’t know what this thing does or how it does it. But I guarantee that’s the best 30$ you’ll ever spend on audio. With headphones, this little thing, even just after powering it up, with cold tubes, can easily, easily give you this “holographic” experience, and make you go from “yeah, well, I’m listening to music” to “oh well, I’m there”.
A/B-ing (with headphones)… It multiplies all the little details. Multiplies the soundstage. Makes everything sound “airy”. Maybe not in a perfect way. But for 30$? Holy shit, I can’t wait to hear the enormous difference it makes to speakers. That’s my first tube (pre) amp. Some of you here are probably laughing. But for all the newcomers, this 30$ gem will definitely take your lo-fi gear and give you a taste of hi-fi.
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Intriguing, I might give one a try.
Did the linear power supply you ordered make any improvements to the system?
Do you use this with the jds labs atom?
Has anyone tried the Little Dot Q+? It claims to be a class A dac/amp.
https://www.china-hifi-audio.com/en/little-dot-audio-headphone-amp-dac-c-59/little-dot-ld-q-hd-usb-dac-headphone-amplifier-vacuum-tube-transistor-hybrid-p-1846?zenid=c433501cd08b1826d357013e09977e61
The funny thing is, my Atom is still in repair. I heard all this from an AVR headphone out. So, quite impressive.
Let me know how it sounds paired with the atom amp when you get it back.
Probably even better. Like “I don’t believe I need detail monster headphones anymore, I know what it is now” better.
Obviously it messes with the frequency response. Obviously you won’t do mixing or mastering with that (…so I still need detail monsters, lol). And I guess people with 500$ tubes would say the Tube 03 “squashes the depth and replaces it with width”. But oh well. Still worth the 30$ IMO.
My hypothesis is these little Chinese tube buffers are underrated. I don’t know for sure, and that’s one (of several) reason I ordered the Darkvoice on the last drop. Someday I’ll find out…
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I don’t have the same model @LeDechaine is using, as I state in a post above. However, they may actually be the same thing in a different box and with a different name. I’ve plugged into both an Atom and an SP200 and it made a huge difference on both. The Atom is nice because it has 2 inputs. So you can get a splitter and bypass the buffer to one input and route through the buffer on the other and switch back and forth at will (and underappreciated feature of the Atom, IMO).
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Yes, I was thinking about A/B-ing with a splitter too. 
(Adds a splitter to his Amazon cart, lol)
Could you link me a splitter? Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, just want to know what one looks like.
I’m really confused on how you would wire everything with the splitter to achieve this.
Do you have an Atom?
Here’s I connected mine to the Atom…
You’ll need 2 standard stereo RCA cables, and 1 RCA-to-3.5mm “y-cable” - links at the end. Plug the single end of those blue splitter cables into the L & R RCA outputs of your DAC. Those splitters will duplicate the signals; meaning, they will take the L channel and turn it into 2 identical L channels and do likewise for the R channel. I’ve ordered 2 pairs of those splitters. They come with a red band and a white band around the faemale ends of each splitter. Swap one band on each (they slide off pretty easily) so that one splitter has both white bands - use that as your left splitter - and one has both red bands - use that as your right splitter.
Now, take one of your standard RCA cables, connect one of it’s reds to one of the reds from the R splitter, and the corresponding RCA white to one of the splitter whites. Route the other end of that cable directly into the Atom’s RCA inputs. Use the other RCA cable and do likewise to connect the splitter to the input of the tube buffer. Then, use “y-cable” to connect the RCA output of the tube buffer to the 3.5 mm input of the Atom. The Atom’s “input” button will toggle between the 2 inputs.
Your chain will look like this…
PC-DAC - [splitters] - Atom RCA in
|
tube buffer
|
Atom 3.5mm in
Links:
Does that make sense?