Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
The fact that it has both large and small input and headphone jacks is very convenient.
I agree with dalethorn above (he reviews the amp in detail elsewhere) that the aluminum chassis gets hot, but its not the tube. This is a Hybrid amp using class A power transistors inside the case that get very hot. The tube in this model is used as the pre-amp, and it gets only warm. This will not negatively effect tube longevity. Tubes can get VERY hot without problems.
My only complaints are that:
1. The volume knob has far too much gain, so that you can only use about the first 1/3 of its rotation. On sensitive efficient earphones, you will want to lower the input source volume so that you can listen at a reasonable level. It sounds great with all the headphones I have tried. Even better if you put in a higher quality tube.
2. The red front LED is very bright. There is an easy mod that fixes it (open the case and carefully bend the LED inward...add electrical tap to cover the hole....this voids your warranty probably but is easy to reverse). See my photo of modded unit with led provided cheery red tube glow.
Otherwise I am very pleased.
Another con I would add is the fact that even when I had the volume set to minimum, turning on the amp would cause a loud pop in my earphones. With my AKG K553 PRO, it was irritating, with my Shure SE535's, it was unbearable. Besides the ear pain, I was worried that it was going to do damage to the headphones in the long term. Plugging them in after the amp was turned on essentially had the same result, like an electric guitar being plugged into an amp. Ended up buying a Schiit stack which has none of these issues.
Also, there is a discernible hum if you turn up the volume too high, especially with IEM's. However, at those volumes, it was too loud to listen to comfortably.
By the way, like everyone else, I upgraded the tube; to a Tung-Sol 12AU7. Standard tube was pretty poor.