Right Channel Issue, Continued...

[oguinn]

Awesome. I’m looking forward to a harsh critique of my soldering technique.

[oguinn]

Hey Doc,

Just received my repaired SEX. It works great! Thanks to the team.

I didn't see any notes on what was repaired, however. Could whoever fixed let me know what they did to get it running right so I can be on the lookout in future builds?

Thanks!

[Doc B.]

I think maybe Terry did that one. He is primarily our Nagra tech and thus not usually doing the Bottlehead repairs, so he may have forgotten to include a note. I want to say he replaced the headphone jack, but I could be thinking of another repair. I will ask him when he is in tomorrow.

[oguinn]

Holy crap, if it was just the headphone jack I’m going to cry. I never even considered testing through speakers as well.

[Doc B.]

I could have the wrong info. Let me get the story tomorrow.

[oguinn]

Thanks, Doc.

[oguinn]

Wanted to follow up with the conclusion of the story here to provide a cautionary tale to anyone troubleshooting an amp.

I finished my Crack amp today and gave the first listen with my old, shitty headphones just in case I had messed something up so I didn't blow my HD-650s. Fired everything up and got no sound out of the right ear. Turned the amp off, checked all the connections. Then I remembered that I'd used this set of headphones to test my non-functional SEX before sending it in.

I switched to an old pair of Sennheiser 598s I had laying around and everything's fine. Turns out that my Crack's right channel issue, and probably my SEX's right channel issue, were due to a blown set of headphones.

Two takeaways:

• Always troubleshoot with a shitty set of headphones. I blew the right channel in the bad headphones when troubleshooting. Better those than my 650s.
• Get two sets of shitty headphones.