[goldendarko]

Hate to break up the Ragnarok love train, but unfortunately I have some very bad news concerning mine. It has completely died. I was listening to music with it via the speaker output, at about 2 o'clock on the volume knob on high gain, so nothing too loud, and had only been listening for about 45 minutes when it shut off and I began smelling smoke, and while I may not be an electrical engineer, even I know that's a big uh-oh.
 
I let it cool off for 30 minutes thinking it may have just gotten too hot, but after that time it was still not able to power back on, this thing is completely dead. I'm very disappointed that thing has died less than 2 months after I received it as a Beta tester. I'm not sure if any changes have been made since the Beta phase, but quite clearly 2 months life span is unacceptable for an amp of this price and one that I was hoping to keep for a long time (10+ years was my plan), so I felt obligated to tell everyone as I had nothing but positives to say about the Ragnarok until this point.
 
Being that this is my first Schiit product, I am not sure how their customer service is, but I have e-mailed Jason and will update this thread when I know more.

 

[BydoEmpire]

 
Being that this is my first Schiit product, I am not sure how their customer service is, but I have e-mailed Jason and will update this thread when I know more.

Weren't you the one who had a humming noise coming from the rag even when off? Anyways, hopefully this is a rare occurrence, and on the plus side I'd guess whatever happened to your amp is covered by schiits warranty.

 

[twinkle]

  Is the DAC going to be multibit, just curious?

Oh yes.

 

[koolblue3]

Hate to break up the Ragnarok love train, but unfortunately I have some very bad news concerning mine. It has completely died. I was listening to music with it via the speaker output, at about 2 o'clock on the volume knob on high gain, so nothing too loud, and had only been listening for about 45 minutes when it shut off and I began smelling smoke, and while I may not be an electrical engineer, even I know that's a big uh-oh.

I let it cool off for 30 minutes thinking it may have just gotten too hot, but after that time it was still not able to power back on, this thing is completely dead. I'm very disappointed that thing has died less than 2 months after I received it as a Beta tester. I'm not sure if any changes have been made since the Beta phase, but quite clearly 2 months life span is unacceptable for an amp of this price and one that I was hoping to keep for a long time (10+ years was my plan), so I felt obligated to tell everyone as I had nothing but positives to say about the Ragnarok until this point.

Being that this is my first Schiit product, I am not sure how their customer service is, but I have e-mailed Jason and will update this thread when I know more.

In the past 40 plus years that I have used int amps and separates I can't think of a time where having the volume at 2 o'clock for extending listening periods was goin to be good for the amp unless the signal level was really low as in using a very very low output MC cartridge on one of my turntables .
What kind of load do your speakers present to the amp? Good chance that the varying impedance load at some point is above the threshold the Rag will work comfortably with, in other words the impedance "dipped" at some frequency point to a level that the amp was unable to supply and sustain current output causing a cascading failure due to the high volume

 

[preproman]

I was going to say.  2 o'clock on high gain could be stressing the amp out.  Was they 8 or 4 ohm speakers?  

 

[Viper2005]

In the past 40 plus years that I have used int amps and separates I can't think of a time where having the volume at 2 o'clock for extending listening periods was goin to be good for the amp unless the signal level was really low as in using a very very low output MC cartridge on one of my turntables .
What kind of load do your speakers present to the amp? Good chance that the varying impedance load at some point is above the threshold the Rag will work comfortably with, in other words the impedance "dipped" at some frequency point to a level that the amp was unable to supply and sustain current output causing a cascading failure due to the high volume

Isn't the microprocessor supposed to kick in and go into shutdown before something like this happens?

 

[koolblue3]

Isn't the microprocessor supposed to kick in and go into shutdown before something like this happens?

The specs do suggest that should happen

 

[goldendarko]

Was using kef ls50s. 85db rating

 

[Tuco1965]

Geeze those are pretty inefficient.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Isn't the microprocessor supposed to kick in and go into shutdown before something like this happens?

It should, yes. We'll have a look and see what happened.

 

[commtrd]

Something just failed.It happens. I work on process control analyzers that cost near 100000 depending on application and there are electronic component failures. Just send it back and they will fix it quick guarantee because they are gonna want to know what it was that failed. Everyone should NOT go freaking out. It will be made right and quickly. Anyone who thinks these things should never break is just sadly mistaken. I guess I am just so used to troubleshooting and fixing stuff I just expect it to happen. It'll be alright. Schiit has a lot invested in these amps they will see it through trust me.

 

[Barry S]

Sorry to hear about your Rag problem. Schiit stands behind their gear 100%, so nothing to worry about. This is a very complex brand new product in the field, so I'm not surprised to hear about one failing. The fault is completely with the Rag, you didn't do anything wrong.

 

[atomicbob]

The position of the volume knob doesn't tell anyone anything about how much power was being delivered. If the upstream component was delivering a much lower voltage than usual compensation would be necessary by turning up the amplifier's volume knob.
 
Kef ls50s will produce approximately 90 dB SPL at 1 meter with 3 watts, a moderately loud average level. Peaks to 97 dB SPL which would need approximately 16 W. Not too demanding.
 
My bet is a capacitor or other component failed from infant mortality. It happens. To any manufacturer. Even shortly after the 100 hr mfg burn-in which is employed precisely to avoid such customer experiences. Google electronic component burn-in bath tub curve failure. And for those that would like to dig deeper, search for bad caps and industrial espionage. I lost a really nice EL84 tube amp to such a bad cap. Failed precisely as described on badcaps.net. Have replacement caps and resistors to repair.

 

[kphfrail]

Do you think they changed something in the Ragnarok after the beta? I am guessing not. Glad they have that 5 year warranty.

 

[StefanJK]

My Rag is still working and smoke free.  My concern here would be that I don't want to babysit the amp...I do leave it on when I'm not around.  Bad idea?  
 
Also, my Rag does have a slight hum, probably transformer related (what else could it be?).  Not noticeable unless you put your ear up to it, in that case it is very obvious.  Not a problem for me unless this in an early indication of something else.