One of the acrylic guard pieces on my Aune T1 MK2 snapped!

Q: One of the acrylic guard pieces on my Aune T1 MK2 snapped when I was trying to remove them. What do I do?

A: Snapped how? They are supposed to come off easy.

Snapped where? If the little tab at the bottom of the acrylic U snapped, you may have a small piece of acrylic rattling around in your enclosure. It's probably not going to short anything out but you may want to pull it out one day.

If the U shaped arm snapped, well, you should find solace in the fact that the T1 looks even better without the acrylic guards.

You may also want to consider modding a metal cage like I have seen some others do. 

Scratchy Aune

Q:  Whenever I turn on my Aune T1, I get serious distortion/static for the first 20-30 minutes until it fully warms up. I've tried several different headphones, I've tried leaving cans plugged in when I turn it on and I've tried waiting until after the T1 turns on to plug in. 

Nothing seems to make a difference, everything is static-y and awful sounding for the first 30 minutes or so, then it'll slowly go away and sound fine.

Am I doing something stupid, or do I have a faulty amp?

A: Try cleaning the tube contacts and rods. Isopropyl alcohol or (even better) Deoxit will work.

If your Aune T1 still sounds scratchy, try swapping the tube.

If still an issue, the finger of suspicion next points towards your PSU brick.

Troubleshooting volume imbalance in an OTL tube amp

Q: After months of waiting, I finally got my Little Dot Mk IV SE tube amp. However, my left side is like 40% higher then my right side in volume. It's been burned in maybe 20-30 hours now and have yet to solve itself out. What can I do? I'd hate to send it back to China.

A: First make sure your tubes are well seated.

Actually even before that play the same source on different headphones so that you know it's not your headphones, check your DAC to make sure it isn't the cause of imbalance, change the RCA cables, make sure your volume is balanced on your computer, and that your source file isn't the problem.

Next wiggle the headphone jack and make sure it's not a loose jack.

If all that checks out OK, now onward:

Next swap the driver tubes and listen. If the right side is now louder than the left, then its a defective driver tube. If no change, then...

...Swap the power tubes (careful, they are hot! although you haven't been properly baptized to tube amps until a power tube burns off a piece of your skin). If the volume imbalance swaps sides, then it's crap power tubes.

If swapping both pairs of tubes does not change the imbalance, it may be a bad potentiometer. Typically (though not always) the imbalance from a cheap pot is best appreciated at low volumes, as you increase the gain the imbalance may get less.

Double amping

Q: What happens if you double amp?

A: Double amping occurs when you run the audio signal through two amplifier circuits in tandem, for whatever reason. When that happens, you increase distortion. In theory you may damage the downstream amp but that's unlikely.

Aune Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Q: So I recently bought an Aune T1 and upon trying it out for the first time I realized that the sound cuts out every few seconds for about 1/4 to 1/2 a second. After further listening I discovered that the amp completely disappeared from my computer's list of playback devices after about 5 minutes. I've tried plugging it into different USB ports on my motherboard, and even tried a different USB cable but I keep getting the same issue.

A: The Aune T1 is a budget option that has had its share of reliability issues.

If the sounds cuts out intermittently for short periods, the first thing to consider is distortion known as clipping (which occurs when an amplifier is driven to excess, and tries to output more than it can), but that should not cause you to lose the USB connection.

It does not look like the issue is a bad USB port on your motherboard.

I would first go into computer>properties and prevent your USB from sleeping. If the issue still exists, try connecting the Aune to a different computer. The T1 has a Tenor USB chip that should be plug and play. If it intermittently loses connection with all computers, I think you might have gotten one with a bad chip.

If it works well with a different computer, I would reload Win drivers (or try running the T1 with ASIO drivers)

Veni's Three Laws Of Cheap (But Good) Personal Audio

Q: Whats the easiest way to improve my listening experience on a low budget?

A: There are three components that folks typically consider when they talk about personal audio -- [1] headphones, [2] amplifiers, and [3] DACs (digital to analog converters).

Veni's Three Laws Of Cheap (But Good) Personal Audio are:

Law 1: in general better headphones improves your sound the most, more than upgrading your amp, which in turn offers more enhancement than improving your dac.

Law 2: not all headphones need a dedicated amp or DAC.

And finally Law 3: if your amp or DAC costs more than your headphones, you are probably doing something wrong.