jjacq said:

  I was wondering if any of you guys can give me some input. Would you buy a Schiit Mjolnir or this...? I will be using an LCD-X which works good with a Mjolnir and probably with this too.

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I did have a very pleasant audition with the Mjolnir and the LCD-2.2, a very robust combination.  So it wouldn't be a bad choice.  But most here have already preordered the Liquid Carbon, so if you want some bias you came to the right spot...
 
With that said, I would want to hold off on the Mjolnir and see if it gets any trickle down upgrades.  Ususlly when Schiit releases a new flagship (ie the Ragnarok) the others get some performance bumps.
 
I currently feel the LC right now is the better value at $599, but I think you wouldn't be too far off with either...

buttuglyjeff said:

   
I did have a very pleasant audition with the Mjolnir and the LCD-2.2, a very robust combination.  So it wouldn't be a bad choice.  But most here have already preordered the Liquid Carbon, so if you want some bias you came to the right spot...
 
With that said, I would want to hold off on the Mjolnir and see if it gets any trickle down upgrades.  Ususlly when Schiit releases a new flagship (ie the Ragnarok) the others get some performance bumps.
 
I currently feel the LC right now is the better value at $599, but I think you wouldn't be too far off with either...

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Thanks, I will definitely wait and see on what Schiit might offer for the Mjolnir and screw it I'm gonna preorder it early next week. I was holding off because I wanted to get an R2R dac like a Reference 10.32(which has an amp already) from Audio-gd but I got a vintage one instead to try out. Thanks. Sorry for the nonsensical question! 

jjacq said:

   
Thanks, I will definitely wait and see on what Schiit might offer for the Mjolnir and screw it I'm gonna preorder it early next week. I was holding off because I wanted to get an R2R dac like a Reference 10.32(which has an amp already) from Audio-gd but I got a vintage one instead to try out. Thanks. Sorry for the nonsensical question! 

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Which vintage DAC did you get?

stillhart said:

   
Which vintage DAC did you get?

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Adcom GDA-700. There's some mixed reviews out there, some people swear by them some people are not convinced. I got it for like $300 which was my budget for a DAC so I just went ahead with it. We'll see.

jjacq said:

 
Adcom GDA-700. There's some mixed reviews out there, some people swear by them some people are not convinced. I got it for like $300 which was my budget for a DAC so I just went ahead with it. We'll see.

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I have a GDA-600 that I plan on upgrading soon.  It sounds wonderful, but it's a little congested and the upgrades are supposed to resolve that.  Supposedly you can use similar upgrades on the 700, but not having heard one, I don't know whether it's necessary.  The 700 is balanced so I expect that helps open up the soundstage by quite a bit.  Also it uses a different DAC chip (PCM1702 IIRC) so that may also affect the sound.
 
Anyways, looking forward to your impressions.  There's a thread discussing DAC choices for the Liquid Carbon and your feedback in that thread might be appreciated.

stillhart said:

   
I have a GDA-600 that I plan on upgrading soon.  It sounds wonderful, but it's a little congested and the upgrades are supposed to resolve that.  Supposedly you can use similar upgrades on the 700, but not having heard one, I don't know whether it's necessary.  The 700 is balanced so I expect that helps open up the soundstage by quite a bit.  Also it uses a different DAC chip (PCM1702 IIRC) so that may also affect the sound.
 
Anyways, looking forward to your impressions.  There's a thread discussing DAC choices for the Liquid Carbon and your feedback in that thread might be appreciated.

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Thanks, what are you upgrading to?

jjacq said:

   
Thanks, what are you upgrading to?

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Oh I meant I'm upgrading the 600 itself.  I'll be upgrading some of the caps and the opamps.  Feel free to shoot me a PM for more info if you like; I don't want to derail this thread further.

I think i'm going through Liquid Carbon withdrawal?!?!?! The months can't go by fast enough for me.

Hey at least you've had enough of it to have withdrawals, most of us haven't even heard the thing yet!

digitalfreak said:

I think i'm going through Liquid Carbon withdrawal?!?!?! The months can't go by fast enough for me.

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At least you have will have the 2qute soon to play with, along with all your other amps while waiting

Yeah, it should be interesting to see how my amps react to the better DAC. I'm starting to shed my extra gear off though. I plan to get rid of my other two garage1217 amps once my other gear is sold off. I'm surprised my ALO RX MKIII-B amp hasn't sold yet.

Is there any possibility that the final version would include line out like RCA or XLR with variable volume control ><... Kinda sad that I can't use it with my monitor speakers at its current state.

jjacq said:

I was wondering if any of you guys can give me some input. Would you buy a Schiit Mjolnir or this...? I will be using an LCD-X which works good with a Mjolnir and probably with this too.

Click to expand...

I haven't heard the LC myself, but a good friend I trust said the following: the Schiit Mjolnir is slightly softer with more power whereas the LC is very transparent with upstream gear, slightly more energetic and has better tonal balance. YMMV.

I own the Schiit Mjolnir and really like it with my LCD-2.2 However I have decided to take the plunge into Cavalli territory to see what the fuzz is about

jjacq said:

Is there any possibility that the final version would include line out like RCA or XLR with variable volume control ><... Kinda sad that I can't use it with my monitor speakers at its current state.

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No. It is a HPA only.

Hey gents, time for me to answer some of the questions.
 
First, all of my larger amps have offset detectors and delay circuits. These circuits are my own design and do a great job of protecting headphones from DC. Since most of the amps are DC coupled, any DC at the input goes right to the output only amplifier. But there is no room for these circuits in the Carbon so it doesn't have one.
 
One good side, however, is that the startup and shutdown transients are fairly low. I measured them on the pre-production board (which is not the proto board that has been in the amps at shows).
 
Start up transient less less than +500mV on the upswing and basically zero on the negative swing. This is both on and off.
 
Also, you can hot switch the gain (like in the larger amps). The blip when you go from 1x to 3x is no more than 400mV and from 3x to 1x it's about 200mV. For most conditions, you won't hear this much. Although sensitive IEMs are indeed a different game.
 
I wanted to talk about power output too. I've been holding back on you guys on the power output of the amp. Only a little though.
 
I've spec'd the amp a 1.5W continuous into 50R. In fact, it will do about 2.8W continuous into 50R.
 
Now, keep in mind that 1.5W and especially 2,8W is a lot of power. I don't know any headphones where this won't ring your bell and in most headphones it would be damaging.
 
However, what you really need the power for is, as you all know, the transients. Most of the time you're listening at fairly low power levels, but when the music creates a strong transient you need the amp to be able to respond.
 
The Carbon can respond with much more power than 1.5W. Also, we measured about .04% THD with 1kHz in driving 47.5R at 2.8W.
 
Now, you may be wondering can you use all of that 2.8W. And the answer is, if we were talking about sine waves, no. This is because the Carbon is so small that is has limited power dissipation capacity. This is really why I originally said 1.5W. Because this safe.
 
However, if the 2.8W only comes into play when you need it, the PD capacity is good enough.
 
So, you're getting a bigger amp than you thought.