Thanks for the review and bummer,man. Sounds like you had a pretty bad experience. I really hope this chalks up to a faulty unit because the Asgard 2 is supposed to be a step up from the original while maintaining the same excellent build quality. Why not give the Valhalla a shot? Unless you've decided to give up on Schiit which is totally your choice.

I had the Valhalla for over a year and really enjoyed it.

Yeah it may have just been a faulty unit. I've decided to go with the Violectric V90, I like solid state. The Valhalla is interesting, but I have planars so they wouldn't really go.

Valhalla is great with Senn but tubes is an other game from SS.

I did the same thing and went with an Auditor. I love tubes, but for me solid state seems best. I will get a nice tube amp again mind you.

Maybe the only bad thing I have EVER heard about a Schiit product...Build quality at $250 was bad? Really? My Valhalla is very impressive for a $350 tube amp, much more than i expected...

The very first released Asgard 2 amps could have the transformer hum problem but this was straightened out and the supplier now only delivers no hum transformers to Schiit.

So how was that "build quality"? That was a faulty part, not the same thing now is it?

The Asgard 2 sells for about $390 now in Australia (when I bought it I got it for $350 and the US and AUD were at parity), so no, not $250 to me. Also, yes the build was poor for the price. I mentioned the odd power plug on the back and I considered the transformer hum as part of the 'build'. Just because it has since been straightened out supposedly, does not mean it did not exist, and I reviewed the product I had.
It doesn't matter if your Valhalla was impressively built, this is a different product.
All I can say is it pales in comparison to my current Violectric HPA V90, that was only $60 more.

I realize that your not completely addressing me, and I have no doubt that you had transformer hum. But I am "supposedly" being truthful too about the transformer situation.

p.s. I worded my first comment the way I did because some of the earlier A 2 amps didn't have hum.
I was generally sorry that you recieved a bum amp.

Oh I don't doubt you or anything. I just haven't heard an Asgard 2 without hum, so I'm just going off of what people have said about the newer ones. Didn't mean it to come across as anything negative towards you.