Schiit Lyr Shipping! Impressions?

Surely some people must have it by now. Come onnnnn LCD-2 impressions!

What leesure said!  Ditto.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HK_sends 

I got mine. Here are impressions I posted in another thread:

"It certainly makes the LCD-2s sound incredible! There is no sense of recessed highs to me (but, then again, that could be my old ears). The Lyr makes the LCD-2 sound more "detailed"...it is much easier to identify individual music instruments and threads in a complex passage. I swear the soundstage is bigger. All I know is, as I listen to the Lyr and Audez'e, I am swept away by the music."

My source is a Cowon J3 playing flac files and the volume at "36". I can turn up the volume on the Lyr to about the 10 O'clock position and listen comfortably. It doesn't sound like anything is lacking.

Just started listening so I will have more detailed impressions in time. But so far, it rocks with the LCD-2s!

Cheers!
-HK sends

Great to hear! Awaiting further impressions. If the consensus is they do great with the LCD-2, I may just have to grab one to do a direct comparison with the LCD-2 and the Burson, with the loser going to the FS forums.

I'll get mine in 2 days. Unfortunately I am in China and the amp is being sent to Michigan. What a shame...

Really early impressions relative to the Valhalla with some HD600's after about 5 songs:

A bit brighter

A bit more air in between instruments/ bigger soundstage

Not as warm

Two other things: two bright orange LEDs behind the tubes that I know are gonna give me fits, and the enclosure has a slight gold/bronze tint compared to the silver-aluminum one of the Valhalla.

Looking forward to hearing some LCD-2 impressions!

West coaster reporting in. Received the Lyr today. I'm at work and can't really do serious listening, but I brought my Hifiman HE-6 cans and it sounds great with those. Surprisingly I still have to turn the volume on the Lyr to 11-11:30 (on the clock scale), however, it is ideal to get the volume pot near the halfway point anyway, I hate it when I can't turn past 9:00 and have no ability for refined volume adjustment, so that's a win.

The cans sound full, punchy, and no no distortion, smooth, not overly bright. I haven't pushed it past 12:00 (straight up), at that volume it is louder than you'd want (unless listening to soft music like classical or jazz/etc, or some older rock that was recorded without a lot of compression). Techno or modern rock are way too loud at 12:00!

I was previously using either a Benchmark (with jumpers removed to put it at 0dB gain) or the Headroom Micro Stack (that amp is a workhorse, I couldn't get it much past 9:00 on high gain, or 10:30 on medium gain), but those amps are at home so I can't compare. I hate comparing things anyway, I just like to plug in and spend a few days listening and see how much I enjoy it, but I will probably succumb and try and compare them at some point.

It does seem like I'm getting more punch and satisfaction without needing to crank them up as much as I did with the other amps, a sign I'm getting more dynamics (expected with all that power), but I might just be imagining that.

Anyway, no problem driving the HifiMan HE-6 with these at any volume you'd want.

Build quality looks excellent, amp is beautiful too, very nice. 

-- Gordie

Quote:

Originally Posted by HK_sends 

My source is a Cowon J3 playing flac files and the volume at "36". I can turn up the volume on the Lyr to about the 10 O'clock position and listen comfortably. It doesn't sound like anything is lacking.

 

You're using a low-voltage source and you still have to attenuate the Lyr all the way down to 10 o'clock. Imagine what would happen if you were using a normal 2vrms source such as a DAC... The potentiometer wouldn't give you much fine control at that level of attenuation, and you would likely start suffering from channel imbalance.

Also, if you're at 10 o'clock on the Lyr with that source, then the Lyr is generating a small fraction of a volt as well as a small fraction of a watt for you. You're not really making use of the power of the amp.

Too much gain requires too much attenuation which bites you with analog non-IC attenuators. The amp may be great, but the high gain is problematic in most cases, and the power isn't really used in practice.

The only case where I can see it remotely making sense is if you have a low-power source coupled with very inefficient headphones (like the HE-6). In that case you may use the gain more, but even then you would be using only a small fraction of the power of this amp (but at least excess power doesn't hurt you unlike excess gain which needs to be attenuated).