Schiit Magni Headphone Amplifier - Page 63

Hi peepr, thanks for your reply - and yes, I also think that the magni has its problems with them ;)

Edited by waxdoctor - 1/20/13 at 4:51pm

Yeah, Magni seems pretty picky about how it's plugged in.

At the Charlotte meet today mine decided it didn't want to work right with everything else that was in the room. For some reason the right channel had almost no low frequencies, it was pretty bizarre. However, as soon as everyone else on the circuit had unplugged their stuff it went back to sounding excellent.

In normal conditions it isn't an issue for me, but it was certainly weird today.

I routinely run my speaker amps directly to the wall, bypassing my Furman line conditioner. The Magni I have (serial 171) sounds pretty much the same via the conditioner or not; but I have it plugged directly into the wall outlet(10awg 20A dedicated duplex for my hifi rig) and you know, it is bizarre that it sounds a *bit* better without the conditioner.

It makes sense that my 700W power consumption tube speaker amps would benefit from bypassing the Furman, but I was surprised that a 8W AC wall-wart would. High-fidelity has always been full of mysteries.
 

I'll be using my HE-400's with the magni. Everyone says they're a good match but they are pretty efficient for planar magnetics so I'm a tad worried about the volume pot. Not gonna stop me from ordering the magni, though.

Let us know how it sounds

Pardon for off-topic, but on contrast to Magni, how about $45.000 headphone amp on batteries and just two amp tubes? The head-fi world goes nuts...

Well, considering that says 45,000 ....

 

Just because we use a comma here in the US doesn't mean everyone does  And yes, that's just crazy.

Does this schiit come with cables? i.e. if I buy the stack do I have to spend on top of that to get cables?

Edited by jiggahwhat - 1/21/13 at 1:00pm

no cables included

They do come witht he Power Chords, you will only need to get interconnects and any digital cables you may want.

I'm not too smart with this stuff. So if I just get the Schiit Modi ONLY then I can use something like this to connect a headphone? And this to connect to my computer? 

 

And then let's say I get the Magni. Then I would need to buy this to connect the two? 

 

Now, I know people really fuss over cables. Would I be screwing myself by buying these cheap cables or is there some sort of quality cable that I need to get? Seems expensive to drop whatever those Schiit PYST cables cost. 

 

Yes, unfortunately you will need to spend an extra $5 from Monoprice for some nice cables

 

I'm using this one:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10218&cs_id=1021817&p_id=9768&seq=1&format=2

 

It's a bit thinner than those huge ones from MP I usually buy.

 

BTW I know this is a stupid question, but I wonder if anyone inside the USA builds a power supply for the Magni?

I bet if so it would add $30 to the price at least. Maybe Astrodyne builds one that would work?

 

NOTE: don't have anything against the chinese etc etc.

I believe the Modi comes with a USB cable. If you were to get the Magni, yes, you would need RCA interconnects. As many others here, I recommend Monoprice as an inexpensive, quality solution. 

 

Now, on to using just the Modi. Someone will probably have to correct me on this, but I would not recommend driving headphones straight out of the Modi. Because the Modi has a specific amount of voltage and current it's outputting, it will most likely either provide too little power for your headphones (making them sound quiet or crappy) OR provide too much power, making them blaring loud and potentially damaging the drivers. It's the DAC's job to convert the audio to analog, and the amp's job to drive the headphones.

Edited by wes008 - 1/21/13 at 3:45pm

Keep in mind you're in the Magni headphone amplifier thread. The Modi is no headphone amplifier, it's a digital (coming from your computer) to analogue (coming out of the RCA jacks) converter, short: DAC.

 

No, a DAC is not made to drive headphones. The RCA out on the Modi is supposed to be connected to the input of an amplifier.

 

This is just theoretical, but at full volume you'll get loud but very distorted and bass-shy sound with sensitive headphones. The reason is that DACs are not made to drive low-impedance loads like headphones. They usually cannot provide enough current.

Trying to drive headphones with it could do damage to the DAC as well...

Edited by xnor - 1/21/13 at 2:45pm