Help with Shanling SCD-T200 please

Well if you have sound then the tubes cant be bad. Both left and right, are ok? Are you using the stock tubes? If so just exchange them around if your using the upgraded WE396 tubes (smaller) you can switch them but I recommend them in pairs. The left 2 tubes are used for the RCA output and the right pair are the Headphone output. Otherwise service.

James for what it's worth I never heard any difference between the tube and solid state outputs of my T200 at all, ever. Even with all the pretty lights working. Your experience confirms my suspicions but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

This is amazing. I own this player (and owned the T-100 before that). There is a SIGNIFICANT difference between the tube output and the solid state one. The reviewers also agree on this one. ''My own conclusions'' Khyr, is that unfortunately your other components may not be revealing enough - or regretfully, you just cannot hear into it like most people can. Hey, there is a sound for everyone out there. You seem to imply that the Shanling is all show - it's not. It IS a very refined player, the fact that it is also a good-looking machine should not be held against it.

Open the bottom plate, remove the cable plug that lead from the DAC board to the tube board, you will experience a major upgrade of the sound. From the solid state output only, of course. This tweak is reversable, so you will not loose anything by trying this.

The other thing you can do is remove the bottom cover that is in the middle section of the digital drive, and also do not put the main bottom cover back. This will relieve all the RFI that had been bottle up inside the chassis and will give you another boost of performance.

Finally if you have your own pre-amp and do not need the volume control of the Shanling, unplug the direct out cable from the DAC board, and plug it into the the empty socket on the left side (looking from outside the upside down CD player) that marked 'Front Out'. This will not only bypass the volume control, but also some very bad electrolytic capacitor. Another reversable tweak with the highest level of sound improvement.

Jefftech, I heard a difference between the tube and SS outputs of my T-100 but not the T-200. As dchan88 points out above the T-200's volume control basically sucks and is likely the source of the homogenized sound.

What I really want to know is how do you explain a T-200's tube output playing with none of the tubes lit?

Must be his other components or his hearing, right?