lesanderson
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2010
- Posts
- 36
- Likes
- 37
Happy Father's day to all the Dad's out there. This is the one day we can drink beer while doing what we please without being interrupted. I have US Women's soccer, PGA golf and BBQ on my schedule for later today. However here is what is on my mind now;
I am very happily using a bifrost paired with a valhalla 2, but I would like to play with some additional headphones that wont pair well with the Valhalla. Given the level of satisfaction I have for both the sonics and aesthetics of the Schiit stuff, I would like to pick up a Jotunheim and add it to my stack. The question becomes how best to set this up given the bifrost has a single pair of RCA outs.
I see a few options, none of which are ideal.
1. Split the single stereo RCA out of the Bifrost and feed both of the amps in parallel. Should work fine, but not sure how impedance might be effected in theory and how this would change with either amp in an on/off state. Is it worth even worrying about? Thoughts on this would be appreciated.
2. Run the amps in series and use Valhalla as a preamp for Jot. Bifrost-> Valhalla-> Jot @ full gain. This should work fine and would even add some tube magic to the Jot but I dont like adding the manual step of having to set gain on the jot prior to listening.
3. Dump the Bifrost, and add a dac module to the Jot and use that to feed the Valhalla. I think the way this would work best would be to have the jot's preamp outs set to unity gain as well and feed the valhalla which would be used to control volume. Having a manual step of finding unity gain manually on every session would sort of suck.
4. Dump the Bifrost, add a Mojo or similar and use it to drive low impedance headphone's directly, while also acting as a DAC for the Valhalla. This is as good of a solution as any, but I feel it gets clunky with wires, and is not as elegant as having a static stack. The setup is so neat and tidy now I am hesitant to get into adding bunch of wires and a piece of portable gear. There are of course benefits to having a unit that can be moved around however.
Anyway, thoughts appreciated.
-Rob
I am very happily using a bifrost paired with a valhalla 2, but I would like to play with some additional headphones that wont pair well with the Valhalla. Given the level of satisfaction I have for both the sonics and aesthetics of the Schiit stuff, I would like to pick up a Jotunheim and add it to my stack. The question becomes how best to set this up given the bifrost has a single pair of RCA outs.
I see a few options, none of which are ideal.
1. Split the single stereo RCA out of the Bifrost and feed both of the amps in parallel. Should work fine, but not sure how impedance might be effected in theory and how this would change with either amp in an on/off state. Is it worth even worrying about? Thoughts on this would be appreciated.
2. Run the amps in series and use Valhalla as a preamp for Jot. Bifrost-> Valhalla-> Jot @ full gain. This should work fine and would even add some tube magic to the Jot but I dont like adding the manual step of having to set gain on the jot prior to listening.
3. Dump the Bifrost, and add a dac module to the Jot and use that to feed the Valhalla. I think the way this would work best would be to have the jot's preamp outs set to unity gain as well and feed the valhalla which would be used to control volume. Having a manual step of finding unity gain manually on every session would sort of suck.
4. Dump the Bifrost, add a Mojo or similar and use it to drive low impedance headphone's directly, while also acting as a DAC for the Valhalla. This is as good of a solution as any, but I feel it gets clunky with wires, and is not as elegant as having a static stack. The setup is so neat and tidy now I am hesitant to get into adding bunch of wires and a piece of portable gear. There are of course benefits to having a unit that can be moved around however.
Anyway, thoughts appreciated.
-Rob
