[Rensek]

It's the case on mine. Rag 1's behavior would be greatly preferred in my case. Speakers + sub via preout, or headphones.

Sounds like you have had some rain on your picnic mate, sorry to hear that.

I read the manual after your posts. I can imagine that in the weeks/months to come you won't be the only person to hit the gain button when you want to hit headphones/speakers vice versa. Hopefully you are the only one who has the issues you mentioned. Too bad that gain button couldn't be placed on the other side, next to the indicator.

I also just realized that there's mute buttons on the remote for Ragnarok, saga, Freya, but none on the front panels. Don't lose your remote! I only use my saga from a distance.

After reading the ragnarok manual I realized how great those back toggle switches are for folks with young children.

Turn that switch off when not in use and you will limit the chance that little Suzie or little Johnny blow their ears, or your speakers & headphones up while playing with the remote or front panel....

This is a fun toy for semi trained adults, not kids.

Also, last thought, while I think the front panel looks awesome, asthetically, does anyone else wonder what it would look like with toggle switches on the front?

Are toggle switches and remotes incompatible?

 

[Alcophone]

Are you sure about this? The Rag 1 preamp outs are only enabled when the speaker taps are enabled.

I just went back to double check this. Since the buzz is barely audible at low gain, I figured the Rag 2 probably didn't get damaged by me, but had the issue all along, and since I had already listened for at least 30 minutes prior, the risk seemed low.

But yeah, essentially the mode button acts like a speakers only / subwoofer only / speakers & subwoofer button. That has its charm when testing something since it works from the comfort of my couch. Too bad the manual doesn't document this at all. Ragnarok 1's manual had this note:

The preamp outs don’t work!

If you’re in headphone-only mode, yes, the preamp outputs are disabled, so you can more conveniently use powered desktop monitors. Switch to headphone-and-speakers mode, or speakers-only mode.

No longer applies.

The subwoofer was quite a bit too loud just now - right for Saga + Vidar, but I need to lower its volume for use with Rag 2. That makes it very obvious whether it's getting a signal or not, though.

I used the same test song again (Fading Sun by Terje Isungset). Speakers only, sounded mostly okay except for some weird distortion* and the lack of sub bass. Then sub only and the apartment rattled. Oops

* I had noticed that distortion just before I accidentally changed the gain setting, but from far away on my couch thought maybe Rag 2 is resolving something I had not heard before. Up close, it sounds clearly wrong, though. So it had the issue all along.

For giggles, here's the moment I realized my mistake. With headphones, the buzz is obvious as well.



And a fun shot of Rag 2 and its uncle.



Edit: Bonus content - relay clicking

 

[Rensek]

Question, have you swapped cables ? Left to right and right to left to make sure it's isolated to rag?

 

[Alcophone]

Question, have you swapped cables ? Left to right and right to left to make sure it's isolated to rag?

Good question. You had me worried that Yggy is the issue, since I don't normally use its balanced out at the moment.
So I tried Yggy into Jotunheim with the same cables that the issue happened with, no problem.
Then I tried Rag 2 without speakers connected, just headphones, and no source, in a different power strip than before. On every input, the buzz occurs. So it's absolutely confined to Rag 2.

 

[rkw]

I knew this way before the Rag 2 was available. I saw that and thought that's a bad design choice.

I agree completely. The gain button and gain indicator need to be next to each other. Ergonomically, it is the only arrangement that makes sense.

asthetically, does anyone else wonder what it would look like with toggle switches on the front?

Are toggle switches and remotes incompatible?

Toggle switches would look awesome. Momentary contact, spring loaded return-to-center toggle switches would be compatible. Traditional mechanical contact toggle switches wouldn't work.

 

[Alcophone]

I agree completely. The gain button and gain indicator need to be next to each other. Ergonomically, it is the only arrangement that makes sense.

I'm definitely curious about the thinking behind this. I thought maybe the reasoning was that putting the gain indicator close to the outputs would allow you to see that the gain is high and be careful, while putting the button further away makes it less likely to get pressed accidentally while inserting a pair of headphones.

An arrangement like
O-ooooo-----O-oo-----O-(.....)-ooo
instead of
O-ooooo-O-oo-O-(.....)-ooo
may also have helped.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology

 

[yonson]

And a fun shot of Rag 2 and its uncle.

I'm holding off for 2020/2021 when the doublesized Aegir/Vidar monoblocks come out...

 

[ScubaMan2017]

Ordered my Rag 2 last night. Looking forward to it!

 

[IndieGradoFan]

It's the case on mine. Rag 1's behavior would be greatly preferred in my case. Speakers + sub via preout, or headphones.

I wonder if this is intentional or a mistake, maybe something super simple in assembly? Using SE preouts to a sub is a really common use case and I can't think of many use cases where you'd want preouts active with headphones -- in fact, some Schiit headphone amps used to mute preamp outs when headphones were plugged in IIRC. Looking forward to hearing if someone else's Rag 2 works differently.

 

[Snowpuppy77]

I just went back to double check this. Since the buzz is barely audible at low gain, I figured the Rag 2 probably didn't get damaged by me, but had the issue all along, and since I had already listened for at least 30 minutes prior, the risk seemed low.

But yeah, essentially the mode button acts like a speakers only / subwoofer only / speakers & subwoofer button. That has its charm when testing something since it works from the comfort of my couch. Too bad the manual doesn't document this at all. Ragnarok 1's manual had this note:


No longer applies.

I suppose because of Vidar having some gain and Rag 2 not (in low gain), the subwoofer was quite a bit too loud just now - right for Saga + Vidar, but I need to lower its volume for use with Rag 2. That makes it very obvious whether it's getting a signal or not, though.

I used the same test song again (Fading Sun by Terje Isungset). Speakers only, sounded mostly okay except for some weird distortion* and the lack of sub bass. Then sub only and the apartment rattled. Oops

* I had noticed that distortion just before I accidentally changed the gain setting, but from far away on my couch thought maybe Rag 2 is resolving something I had not heard before. Up close, it sounds clearly wrong, though. So it had the issue all along.

For giggles, here's the moment I realized my mistake. With headphones, the buzz is obvious as well.



And a fun shot of Rag 2 and its uncle.



Edit: Bonus content - relay clicking

Thank you for those pics and videos. I think the Ragnarok 2 looks really nice. I trust you will get your issue resolved. Listening to Telarc Digital orchestral music right now on my Ragnarok 1 and sounds great. An improved version must be very special indeed.

 

[rkw]

I'm holding off for 2020/2021 2022/2023 when the doublesized Aegir/Vidar monoblocks come out...

fixed it

 

[cishida]

Any Listening impressions from Saga+, Saga S, Freya S, or Freya +?

the saga s is really rather great. It is transparent and allows the greatness of the connected Bimby shine through. It is the best sounding preamp I’ve heard. I have owned a couple of parasound preamps (p5 and zpre) and a few integrated amps by Yamaha.
Yes, preamps matter, like everything else in your chain.

 

[johnjen]

I agree that a 'great' pre-amp can make a remarkable difference to the overall SQ of the system.

We threw together a single gain stage pre-amp in an afternoon and it blew us away.
We used parts bin xfmrs, 2) 26 single triode tubes, and 6 'D' cell batteries to power each filament.
We went to target and bought $8 rca cable sets for the input and output.
It just opened up everything it was connected to, including my Rok amp.

I've nicknamed it the CBB-26 to distinguish it from the HPre-amp which is a multi-purpose HP and pre-amp all in one.
I was going to use the HPre-amp as my main pre-amp to drive my 45 amp, but the CBB-26 just blew it away.

And it will be an interesting to compare these 2 pre-amps back to back, as they each use different sets of tubes, let alone different designs for the remaining circuits as well.

JJ

 

[Alcophone]

I agree that a 'great' pre-amp can make a remarkable difference to the overall SQ of the system.

We threw together a single gain stage pre-amp in an afternoon and it blew us away.
We used parts bin xfmrs, 2) 26 single triode tubes, and 6 'D' cell batteries to power each filament.
We went to target and bought $8 rca cable sets for the input and output.
It just opened up everything it was connected to, including my Rok amp.

I've nicknamed it the CBB-26 to distinguish it from the HPre-amp which is a multi-purpose HP and pre-amp all in one.
I was going to use the HPre-amp as my main pre-amp to drive my 45 amp, but the CBB-26 just blew it away.

And it will be an interesting to compare these 2 pre-amps back to back, as they each use different sets of tubes, let alone different designs for the remaining circuits as well.

JJ

You wouldn't happen to have pictures of this creation of yours?

 

[Xcalibur255]

Not nearly enough audio products use toggle switches anymore. There is something truly satisfying about flicking a quality metal toggle switch up or down. The tactile feel is so much better than push buttons, and they visually indicate their operating state more clearly than buttons do too.

Better still:
https://www.delcity.net/store/LED-T...MI_MCE9_Pv4gIVGMpkCh1WAgJpEAQYASABEgK1W_D_BwE

Toggles with an LED embedded in the tip. These are used mostly in aviation.