2025, Chapter 3
More F’n Changes
We’re moving really fast this year, so it’s time for a short omnibus chapter to catch everyone up.
How fast?
Gjallarhorn F(ast)
Well, we almost just launched a product without photos. Oh, and without silver finish, though silver existed before.
I’m talking about Gjallarhorn F. This is a Gjallarhorn. With a Forkbeard option.
It’s the same price as the old Gjallarhorn, has the same gain, the same measurements, the same power output, is about 99% the same parts. It’s the same amp, period, but now with Forkbeard. And a button on the front to put the amp in Standby.
Now, don’t get super excited about Standby. Gjallarhorn F uses very little power. Standby doesn’t do much for you there. But it’s a nice fast way to mute the system, even if you aren’t gonna use Forkbeard.
But now, you can combine Gjallarhorn F with Saga 2 for a very affordable, all-Forkbeard system. And yeah, I know, you still want an affordable DAC to stack with Gjallarhorn and Saga 2 for full Visual Volume capability. We hear you. Please bear with us for a little while longer.
The order for silver metal is already in. Sorry for the oversight. In the meantime, imagine Gjallarhorn with a button on the front and a Forkbeard port in the rear. And you can order one right now, if you’d like.
schiit.com/products/gjallarhorn-f
Straight Outta Asgard
Sharp-eyed readers have probably noticed another change on the site: Asgard is gone!
Oh my! What gives? Asgard was our first product, and all three generations (as well as the offshoot, Pietus) have been really excellent headphone amps. However, we have to be realistic. And with Midgard in the mix, Asgard needs to provide some exceptionally compelling reasons for existing.
Especially since Pietus will continue. Talk to Nitsch. They’ll be back in stock soon.
“But I want an Asgard!” someone says. “I like the way it sounds. I like the all-in-one option with a DAC card. I like the heavier chassis, the internal transformer, all that stuff.”
And we hear you.
Here’s the thing: Asgard evolved from a really weird outlier of an amp—Class A, single-ended, no-feedback—to something much more in the mainstream. Higher power, yes. More capable, yes. And, yes, it did debut our groundbreaking Continuity™ output stage.
Now, with the success of Mjolnir 3, we keep wondering if we shouldn’t look back to where Asgard was in the past, to make it something truly different than, say, Midgard or Jotunheim. We’re wondering if we shouldn’t apply some of the beautiful new design that we’ve been experimenting with on Valhalla 3 to create something as timeless and striking as the original Asgard, but updated for a new era. And it is our 15th anniversary year.
Interested? Have other ideas? Leave it dead? Let us know. We’ll listen.
Forkin’ Urd
“Hey, Urd’s gone too!” someone cries.
Yep.
This one was simple: we made the rest of the Urds we had, and they sold out much faster than expected. So it’s going to be gone for a while.
Why? Mainly Forkbeard. Urd is the poster child for Forkbeardification, given its complex feature set and extensive capabilities. But Forkbeardifying Urd is not an easy overnight job. In fact, in light of advancements like Unison 384, it’s something we should take a longer, harder look at, and perhaps make more significant changes.
So, like Asgard, we’re going to take a more in-depth look at this one. We’ve had a ton of internal discussion about this, and there are two camps emerging:
- Update Urd for Forkbeard and Unison 384, but basically keep it its same unique thing: a Unison USB hub and CD transport. Price might go up a bit for Unison 384. The logic for this is that we have something unique and cool, why change?
- Strip it down, make it simple, go minimalist. Make it just a CD transport. Go to a top loading mechanism to reduce cost (and size—a top loader could be Asgard sized, not Freya sized.) The logic for this is that more and more of our DACs will end up with two USB inputs, so maybe USB management isn’t needed as much as we thought (or it could be a stack or module—Forkbeard means we don’t have to have everything in the same chassis.)
So, like Asgard, what do you think? Complex or simple? Or just do another run of the non-Forkbeard version so you can get yours faster? Or something else entirely?
I’m interested to hear what you think.
The Tail of Stjarna and Forkbeard
So, some of you have been able to hear what Forkbeard Bluetooth transmission sounds like with your Stjarnas. This isn’t what we intended, but with the huge variability in tubes, the ultra-high gain, and the necessarily open-frame construction of a tube product, you can sometimes hear something like a low sputtering that’s right at the level of the noise floor. This is highly variable between tubes and tube types, and does not happen at all in some cases.
Interestingly, this noise isn’t measurable by the APx—it’s buried in the noise. But you can hear it in some cases, but only when the Forkbeard module is plugged in.
Also interestingly, the Skoll F, with higher gain, displays none of this interference. This is simply a case of decades-old tube tech that was never designed for GHz RF transmission nearby.
We’ve looked into ways to kill this, without changing the performance of Stjarna. The best, and least invasive, solution is simply to move the Forkbeard module away from the chassis a bit.
“Neat trick when it plugs into the chassis!” someone says.
Yeah. That’s why we created an extender for the Forkbeard module. We have ugly working prototypes right now, and we’ll have nice finished products in a couple of weeks. This will allow you to move your Forkbeard module away from the chassis and eliminate interference.
I also understand if this solution isn’t for you, and you want to return your Forkbeard module (or even your whole Stjarna.) Just contact
orders@schiit.com and we’ll get you taken care of.
Otherwise, expect to see an extender shipping to you soon. It’ll be properly keyed so that it can only insert one way on either end.
Valhalla the Third
We recently previewed Valhalla 3 at CanJam, and people were thrilled…with the way it sounded, and the way it looked. I was a bit surprised at the strong reaction, given that it was $100 more than the outgoing Valhalla 2 at its last retail price, and a full 2x the cost of Valhalla 2 on closeout.
(Valhalla 3 is $499, for those not enjoying the mental math.)
But maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. The original Valhalla debuted at $349, in a much simpler and cheaper era. In June 2010 we got our first order ever…and it was for Valhalla, a product we hadn’t finished yet.
Today, Valhalla 3 offers much higher capability, has modern protection features, is DC in and DC out (insane for a pure tube amp), and takes a lot of its sound and design from Folkvangr, our legendary limited-production 10-tube ticket to the funny farm we did a few years ago.
Unlike Folkvangr, Valhalla 3 isn’t intended to be limited production. So if you want one, you should have some time to make a decision (Valhalla 2 was around for 13 years!)
“So where is it?” people ask.
And I get to go back to Jason’s Law and say, “Soon.” If everything aligns, maybe the end of this month. But you know that every date I give is wrong. What I can say is that we have metal (both black and silver finishes), and we’re only waiting for boards.
When it hits, I hope you enjoy.
Aaaand…that’s it for the moment. More to come soon, including a chapter on our (perhaps controversial) new ads.
If the speakers die before the amp, I’ll price and suss out the ribbon replacement cost and effort (looks like around $2500 for ribbons, and it’s easy to do the Midrange/Tweeter ribbon, but word is, the bass ribbons a grade a beotch)…
extremely fast growing compared to some materials.
