[jfoxvol]

Overpriced?
You must be confused.
He has only TOP TOP notched and controlled, matched etc on all sides.
At HiFi stuff he is cheap.

Agreed. Kevin doesn't play around when it comes to tubes.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Speakers, turntable and amps are sometimes up to 25% under the list price.

 

[renault4]

Hey folks, I've been watching the Schiit Aegir sub-thread with interest; I am very attracted to the sound quality traits described over those of the Vidar.

Though my current stack is designed to drive headphones, I am reaching the point where I want to extend out to speakers. However I have in mind the KEF LS50s, largely because of the footprint and room aesthetics, otherwise i'd go with Martin-Logans or Magnepans. Reading the reviews suggests that the sensitivity of the KEFs (85dB) is such that it may ideally require two Aegir amps in monoblock formation to properly drive the KEFs; question is, if I go with one now and add the second later, will I get useful output with just the one? I don't need to fill a big room or play very loud. I'd probably pair these to a Freya.

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Hey folks, I've been watching the Schiit Aegir sub-thread with interest; I am very attracted to the sound quality traits described over those of the Vidar.

Though my current stack is designed to drive headphones, I am reaching the point where I want to extend out to speakers. However I have in mind the KEF LS50s, largely because of the footprint and room aesthetics, otherwise i'd go with Martin-Logans or Magnepans. Reading the reviews suggests that the sensitivity of the KEFs (85dB) is such that it may ideally require two Aegir amps in monoblock formation to properly drive the KEFs; question is, if I go with one now and add the second later, will I get useful output with just the one? I don't need to fill a big room or play very loud. I'd probably pair these to a Freya.

You will get useful output but it won't play very loud and won't fill a big room. For the LS50s I'd look at the Vidar myself. Two Vidars even.

JC

 

[sam6550a]

Overpriced?
You must be confused.
He has only TOP TOP notched and controlled, matched etc on all sides.
At HiFi stuff he is cheap.

As a guy that sold hi-fi stuff on radio row (NYC) in 1961-1965, I can tell you that dealer cost was AT LEAST 40% under MSRP, unless the item was "Fair Traded" like Sherwood, where dealer cost was 33.3%. Of course, retailers got 1% for this, 3% for that, etc. That is why quoting at 25 to 30% below MSRP was common in this era. Have things changed today?? I would suspect that the answer is "NOT MUCH".

 

[ashirin]

Thank you to everyone for your replies to my question about tubes for Saga. I've enjoyed looking through all the links and supplementing it with some research, though I'm still in early phases. There's a follow-up question I'd like to ask:

Generally, what are your opinions on NOS tubes vs higher-end current-production tubes such as the Electro Harmonix Gold 6SN7EH and the Northern Electric 6SN7? Does anyone have experience with these tubes (or other new production tubes)?

Part of the reason I ask is that new production tubes seem less risky. I don't think there's anything wrong with NOS tubes (in fact, I think it's pretty cool). But shopping as a novice, there are so many different models from so many different sources and I don't really know what I'm looking at. I understand there are reliable sellers (like the ones mentioned in your comments), but I'm not ready to spend the amount of money required to shop at those places without a clearer idea of what I'm purchasing, which seems like it will require quite a bit of reading and research. Not that I'm opposed to that, but part of me does want to just make an easy purchase right now (up to about $100) and get something that I can start listening to and won't completely regret (and to be clear my expectations are not high in terms of sound quality improvements). I mean, I may just end up getting one of the tubes recommended over the last few comments and see how it goes. But any additional thoughts are still welcome.

Again, thanks for all the input!

 

[Brubacca]

Hey folks, I've been watching the Schiit Aegir sub-thread with interest; I am very attracted to the sound quality traits described over those of the Vidar.

Though my current stack is designed to drive headphones, I am reaching the point where I want to extend out to speakers. However I have in mind the KEF LS50s, largely because of the footprint and room aesthetics, otherwise i'd go with Martin-Logans or Magnepans. Reading the reviews suggests that the sensitivity of the KEFs (85dB) is such that it may ideally require two Aegir amps in monoblock formation to properly drive the KEFs; question is, if I go with one now and add the second later, will I get useful output with just the one? I don't need to fill a big room or play very loud. I'd probably pair these to a Freya.

Having owned 85dB efficient speakers (Sonus Faber Venere 1.5) and trying them with a low power amp (Naim Unitiqute 30W) to an unsatisfying result.... I'd say wait until you can get two Aegirs.

Obviously different rooms, speakers and amps, 85dB is very inefficient. Those speakers sounded great in my room with a 240W amp.

My advice if you don't have the speakers, find more efficient speakers.

 

[PioBeer]

Do the horizontal bi-amp technique. Put the vidars on woofer duty and put the Aegirs on the tweeters, so you get the grunt of the Vidars and the class-A finesse of the Aegirs.

 

[Timster]

Update on my humming Vidar... It had a clearly audible hum through the speakers with no connections other than the speaker leads.
I got the amp back to the distributor here in Australia, and they elected to replace it. Before I brought it home I connected to some speakers and heard only a faint hiss when put my ear into the tweeters. So far so good.

Got it home, and during setup noticed that the amp itself was vibrating and humming, and a couple of the transformer mount screw heads at the bottom were clearly quite loose. It's a 5 hour round trip to take it back, so off comes the lid and I tighten up the transformer mounts, to the point where the rubber mounts/grommets are slightly compressed. Lid back on, and hook it up.

My setup is for my office, so the Vidar sits under my desk on a Redgum plinth with rubber isolation pads under its feet. I could clearly hear it humming... and this was for sure a transformer related hum. After a few hours investigating and trying differing tightness on the mounts etc, it turns out that the top case of the Vidar is actually acting as a sounding board, amplifying the vibration. Put a bit of weight on top, vibration noise reduces significantly. My wife could hear it from the door to my office (about 6 feet away) without any weight, and clearly noticed the noise drop with my hand putting some weight on the top case.

So, what to do?

Here's what I ended up with:



Draft stopper foam strips around the edges under the top cover (not stuck down, so easily removed), and a rubber isolation strip on top of the transformer to create a connection to the top case with a small amount of pressure to reduce the vibration in the cover. Noise level varies depending on the tightness of the screws for the cover as well. So far, considerable reduction in the level of the noise. Today I will turn off all other noise (eg. PC) in the room to see if I can hear it sitting at my desk.

 

[ashirin]

Reading the reviews suggests that the sensitivity of the KEFs (85dB) is such that it may ideally require two Aegir amps in monoblock formation to properly drive the KEFs; question is, if I go with one now and add the second later, will I get useful output with just the one? I don't need to fill a big room or play very loud. I'd probably pair these to a Freya.

You will get useful output but it won't play very loud and won't fill a big room. For the LS50s I'd look at the Vidar myself. Two Vidars even.

@renault4 Definitely take a look at Steve Guttenberg's recent Aegir review. He has an entire section titled, "Is 20 watts per channel enough?" He also specifically uses LS50s in that review, so it should be helpful.

Personally, I second @JohnnyCanuck opinion. I have LS50s paired with a Vidar and I love it, but I wouldn't want to give them much less power. I have them in what I'd describe as a medium size room, but I do like to listen at fairly loud volumes sometimes.

I totally understand the appeal of Aegir... it's almost the same price as Vidar and has better sound quality. But you can't ignore the trade-off, which of course is the lower power output.

Quick math: Vidar has 5x the power output of Aegir (100W vs 20W). That means acoustic power is increased by 7 dB. This translates to roughly a doubling of the sound pressure produced by the speaker (2.24x to be exact). As far as I understand, perceived loudness is at least a little subjective and there isn't one agreed upon formula for calculating it, but using a "calculator" I found online, the difference here would be 1.62x the perceived loudness. Comparing two Aegirs to Vidar, you have 1.25x the power output (100W vs 80W), 1 dB increase in acoustic power, 1.12x the sound pressure, and 1.07x perceived loudness.

For reference, I used this site, and the "calculator" at the bottom of the page. Here's another online SPL calculator that takes into account more factors (such as gain from the location of the speakers) but does not give a result for perceived loudness.

So, there is a noticeable difference in how much output your speakers will give with a Vidar vs an Aegir, though very little when compared to 2 Aegirs.

Speaking subjectively again, though I have not taken any SPL measurements in my listening room, I do regularly drive my LS50s with Vidar towards the upper end of it's output capability (aka my Saga has it's volume pot turned up pretty high). For reference, I listen using Modi 3 as a source, which has a 2.0 VRMS output.

I say that if you have efficient speakers to pair Aegir with, then hell ya, enjoy the benefits. But with less efficient speakers (like the LS50s), I'd stick with Vidar. Two Aegirs makes it a tougher call, especially if you want to compare that to two Vidars, and there's no way to answer the question honestly. It really depends on the characteristics of your room, and your personal preferences, including what "loud" means to you.

Edit: I originally used 40W in my calculations for mono Aegirs, but as @senorx12562 pointed out, it's actually 80W. I've since gone back and updated the numbers to reflect that.

As an additional note, both amps in mono shows the same difference in numbers as their stereo counterparts. Which is to say, mono Vidars vs mono Aegirs gives 5x the power (400W vs 80W), 7 dB increase in acoustic power, 2.24x the sound pressure, and 1.62x perceived loudness. However, in this case, I think 80W is more likely to be "enough" power for a lot of people, so Vidars greater output capabilities might not be nearly as important. Still, water gun to my head, if I had to pick a pair to power my LS50s, I'd probably go with mono Vidars.

 

[wabe]

Am I reading too much into it that Bifrost only has black finishes available for both DS and MB?

 

[RickB]

Am I reading too much into it that Bifrost only has black finishes available for both DS and MB?

You're correct, otherwise it would also have "Silver" under "Please Select".

 

[Derrick Swart]

Hey folks, I've been watching the Schiit Aegir sub-thread with interest; I am very attracted to the sound quality traits described over those of the Vidar.

Though my current stack is designed to drive headphones, I am reaching the point where I want to extend out to speakers. However I have in mind the KEF LS50s, largely because of the footprint and room aesthetics, otherwise i'd go with Martin-Logans or Magnepans. Reading the reviews suggests that the sensitivity of the KEFs (85dB) is such that it may ideally require two Aegir amps in monoblock formation to properly drive the KEFs; question is, if I go with one now and add the second later, will I get useful output with just the one? I don't need to fill a big room or play very loud. I'd probably pair these to a Freya.

If you’re from europe consider these: PAS 2002PCA

 

[senorx12562]

Do the horizontal bi-amp technique. Put the vidars on woofer duty and put the Aegirs on the tweeters, so you get the grunt of the Vidars and the class-A finesse of the Aegirs.

If the gain structure on these two amps is different, this can result in different spls for the high and low frequencies relative to one another at different overall spls.

 

[senorx12562]

I believe the aegirs are rated at 80w in mono, 20wpc in stereo.