[econaut]

I am using SnakeOil Taipan XLRs for all interconnects, an AudioQuest Cinnamon USB A to USB B cable between the Mac mini and the Yggy, a run-of-the-mill optical between the TV and Yggy, the Schiit-supplied power cables, an Emotiva CMX-2 and an Emotiva CMX-6 (in a futile attempt to get a handle on at least SOME of the noise I "enjoy" from sharing my hookup to the city's grid with 99 other units), and SKW BG OCC series 14 AWG speaker cables.

The 1st-gen LISST was available in two variants; a nonal variant for Mjolnir 2, and an octal 6SN7-compatible variant for Freya, Saga, and Lyr.

Interesting! I had Mjolnir 2 with LISST, because I did not want to join the tube game (but I gladly very quickly did).

I also own a Saga OG and had Freya 1, but I really can't recall that there were LISST available for them. To me it does not make a lot of sense, especially with Freya's JFET buffer as a build-in tube alternative.

And because I decided against LISST in MJ2 I probably never looked back, also for other (pre)amps.

Very intrigued by a LISST V2, but can't imagine that they beat real tubes - at least for me.

 

[hearditontheX]

I have decided to break with my own tradition.
For the first time since I’ve made this account, I will not post a detailed write-up about some new Schiit I bought.

For two reasons:
Because
a) Tyr has broken my brain, and
b) there’s just no way of doing Tyr justice without sounding like I’m talking out my a$$.

With point a) I can deal, but I am honestly struggling with point b).

This, here, is the internet’s Schiit Central. This is where all the Schiitizens, all the Schiitheads, all of Schiit’s most hard-core Fan Bois and Gyrls hang out to enjoy their fun little circle jerk. Honest and measured criticism is held at a minimum – unless it is about power switches, VU meters, and the layer count of packaging cardboard, of course — and every iota of improvement in sound quality from one product generation to the next is celebrated in the most prosaic terms imaginable, just as if the step-up (or, dare I say it, down?) from a Modi 3 to a Modi 3E would equate to the beginning of a whole new era in audiophilia.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m totally fine with that! In fact, that’s precisely what I’m here for.

But it does leave me with a problem:
If the superlatives that are being thrown around to describe something like the relatively small step up from, say, a Modi to a Modius already use up 98% of the real estate on the spectrum between “nuanced and objective” on the one end and “ridiculously over the top” on the other, then how is one to describe Tyr’s performance without sounding completely and utterly bat-Schiit crazy?

Seriously, I mean it! I am honest to goodness struggling to come up with the right words to describe these amps and do them justice, but without making me sound like I’d lost all my marbles and any and all of what may have been left of my objectivity.

And so I decided that I won’t.
There’s just no point.
Nobody who has not heard them for themselves would believe me anyway. Nor would I blame them.



So, instead of my usual 3000+ word essays about listening impressions, I’ll leave you with the following:

In pretty much every single aspect that you can think or even dream of, Tyr is nothing short of phenomenal.



I’ll be honest with you, I got them purely as a vanity purchase. I didn’t need to buy them. I was happy with my dual-Aegirs. I had almost no complaints. Sure, I could hear my Vidars and Aegirs struggle sometimes with the load of the Q950s. They’re rated at 8 ohm, but they drop down to 3.2 – and if you know what you’re listening for, you can tell. But I still love the way these amps sound. They’re playing nicely with the rest of my system.
But Jason’s “30 years in the making” chapter made me curious, and so I decided to get me a pair anyway.

Based on Jason’s descriptions, I expected them to sound kinda like Aegir, but not quite as warm. Kinda like Vidar, but not quite as analytical.

But that’s not at all what I got when I switched them on.
What I got instead was ……… nothing?

Yes, nothing. I said it, I meant it, and I’m here to represent it.

These Tyrs, they … well … they don’t sound.

As far as I can tell, they really have no color to them. I don’t know how that’s even possible. Admittedly, my experience with higher-grade audio gear is quite a bit more limited than that of some of you guys here, but I’ve heard my fair share of systems. And now I think I understand, for the first time, what “truly transparent” actually means.
It’s obviously a load of bull for anyone to proclaim that their system would make recordings sound “like the artist intended”. Unless you are the artist or you’ve been in the studio or at the venue during recording, you can’t possibly know what “sounds as intended” or “100% accurate” even means.
So I obviously won’t go there.
What I mean by “truly transparent” is that you hear absolutely everything. And I mean every last detail, but without any harshness whatsoever.

There is an effortlessness to what these amps do that’s completely screwing with my brain. I am hearing a level of detail in songs that I thought I knew like the back of my hand. I am hearing detail that I’ve never even heard with the most brutally revealing and unforgiving of my headphone setups. I have spent much of yesterday night going back and forth between the Tyrs and my ribbon headphones to check whether I’m just imagining things. I’ve even put my Aegirs and Vidars back into the system, just to make sure.

For the first time in my life and with any system I’ve ever heard, kick drums sound like actual, real-life kick drums. You get to hear everything, and not just the “thud” of the drum itself. From the first nanosecond of the beater’s impact onto the skin, to the interaction between the skin and the drum’s barrel, all the way through to the last bit of the drum’s vibrations fading out into quiet, dead air.

A concert piano actually sounds like it stands right there in front of you. Listen closely, and you’ll not just hear that distinctive timbre, that interplay between the piano’s strings and its iron frame and wooden body that you get out of a good, quality system, but also the movement of the key action, the pianist’s depressing of the pedals – even the pianist’s breathing.

Yet none of this comes with any harshness. You can get somewhat close-ish to this level of detail with some analytical amps, like Vidar. But at least for my personal taste, you always find yourself toeing the line between detail and something that’s like pins and needles to your ears. They ensure that you get to hear the full beauty that’s in your music, but they also amplify all of the warts and wrinkles in those recordings — and you find yourself never truly relaxing, never truly giving fully in to your music.
To avoid that, you choose to go with something warmer, like a pair of Aegirs. Now all those nasty pins and needles are a thing of the past, but so is a bit of that detail.

Tyr does neither. They don’t amplify any warts and wrinkles, but neither do they hide anything from you. They simply present you with what’s in your recording, and they make absolutely no fuss about it. They just sit there, in their smoking jacket and alpaca wool slippers, leaning back in their lounge chairs, sipping on a glass of 50 years old single-malt Glenfiddich, smiling, while they watch you drool like a freshly lobotomized imbecile over the show they’re putting on for you.

And don’t get me started on staging. Exactly as @dstrimbu has already described in an earlier post, the stage I get from them is mind-bending. It’s not just much wider than the room itself, not just twice as high or 1.5x as deep as it ever was before. The stage fully envelops you.

Separation? Just listen to a live acoustic or jazz recording, and while you could always tell exactly where in the room each instrument was placed, now you’ll be able to shoot a fly off that bassist’s shoulder without so much as gracing her dress.

Bass? It's otherworldly. It goes deep, it's linear, it's lush, it's instant, it's crystal clear — nothing short of phenomenal.

Noise? None that I can hear. And believe me, I’ve planted my ear right against my Q950s’ Uni-Q drivers.
(Take that, ASR! It just don’t get any more scientific than that.)

And they run cool. Really cool. The only piece of gear in my chain that runs cooler to the touch than these Tyrs is my M1 Mac mini. When it’s sleeping.

I honestly don’t know how Tyr does it. I’m sure that a big part of the overall impression is coming from my Yggy OG, as it alone elevated the level of detail, separation, and staging my system could reproduce worlds above the Gumby, or any other DAC that I had in that system before this Yggy arrived. But my Aegirs are highly capable amps. And so are my Vidars. Yet these Tyrs make them sound like toys. And they do so without so much as breaking a god-damned sweat.

If it’s all down to the choke-input topology, and Schiit’s competition isn’t making use of them for the reasons Jason mentioned in Tyr’s release chapter, then they’re just dumb.

Based on anything I’ve seen and heard from Schiit’s competition, Tyr physically shouldn’t be possible. If it were, they’d make their own Tyrs, and they’d sell them for five to ten times of what Schiit’s asking for them.

But they don’t. What they do make is Aegir and Vidar competitors for five to ten times the cost of a Tyr.

And now, Jason’s “little” pet project of 30 years is wiping the floor with even the best of them.

I have said it before, and I am sure that I will say it again:
Schiit doesn’t believe in the law of diminishing returns. In fact, they turn it on its head: The higher up the price scale you climb, the bigger your returns.

See? I told you I wouldn’t know how to do Tyr justice without sounding like a driveling Schiit fan boi.
But such is Tyr; it blew my mind and broke my brain.

It’s that good.

Dang, that was an enjoyable review! It is absolutely believable. How in the world can I be happy with my single Aegir now? I am definitely now Tyr curious.

 

[Balthazar B]

Very intrigued by a LISST V2, but can't imagine that they beat real tubes - at least for me.

I'm intrigued too, especially as it sounds like there'll be LISST V2a and V2b flavors. If they sound better than 75% of the shrinking supply of available tubes, that would make them compelling. I think the original LISSTs were sort of lark for Jason, but now that schiit got real -- and as long as the Russians keep targeting civilians and practice other terror tactics, it'll stay real a lot longer than most people expect -- there's an opportunity to turn out a much better product. I want some for the day there are no more tubes to glow in the dark...though I'll happily make do without the mariachi static on my radio.

 

[Paladin79]

Interesting! I had Mjolnir 2 with LISST, because I did not want to join the tube game (but I gladly very quickly did).

I also own a Saga OG and had Freya 1, but I really can't recall that there were LISST available for them. To me it does not make a lot of sense, especially with Freya's JFET buffer as a build-in tube alternative.

And because I decided against LISST in MJ2 I probably never looked back, also for other (pre)amps.

Very intrigued by a LISST V2, but can't imagine that they beat real tubes - at least for me.

I hope to try the octal Lisst V2 just to have something new to try in the 6sn7 vein.

 

[Paladin79]

I'm intrigued too, especially as it sounds like there'll be LISST V2a and V2b flavors. If they sound better than 75% of the shrinking supply of available tubes, that would make them compelling. I think the original LISSTs were sort of lark for Jason, but now that schiit got real -- and as long as the Russians keep targeting civilians and practice other terror tactics, it'll stay real a lot longer than most people expect -- there's an opportunity to turn out a much better product. I want some for the day there are no more tubes to glow in the dark...though I'll happily make do without the mariachi static on my radio.

Well said, I will not speak about politics but I love the Warren Zevon reference.

I hope all have heard the new Pink Floyd collaboration, music has power and I grew up listening to music that hoped to end war.

 

[earnmyturns]

My space is pretty difficult for room treatment, so I think I'll go with with a sound system that has room correction software at some point.

I have two rather difficult rooms (complex shapes, hard floors, lots of glass) with speaker systems. I ended up with Linn systems because their room correction (SpaceOptimization is the brand name) is way better than anything we could do (and my wife would allow) within the physical and aesthetic constraints of those rooms. Expensive, sure, but cheaper than major room rebuilding

 

[Paladin79]

I have two rather difficult rooms (complex shapes, hard floors, lots of glass) with speaker systems. I ended up with Linn systems because their room correction (SpaceOptimization is the brand name) is way better than anything we could do (and my wife would allow) within the physical and aesthetic constraints of those rooms. Expensive, sure, but cheaper than major room rebuilding

I have owned Linn gear in the past and have no doubt it is still very good.

 

[dstrimbu]

There were issues like luggage, and incurring the wrath of the airlines.

I worked at an engineering software firm in San Rafael, CA. I flew nearly 2 million miles on UA during that time... and we were actively using hidden city for quite a while.
Until, of course, UA mgmt told our travel team that if we didn't stop, we'd lose our discount and our 'golden tickets' for Global Services.

I think that it was the latter that effected the policy change.

 

[dstrimbu]

I had a pair of those amps back in the late 70's. I always reflect and lament on all the fabulous sounding gear I owned and sold in decades past. The matching tubed preamp and tuner with scope were drool worthy as well. That entire Marantz package lived with me a long time.

I had two Sony pieces that I'd kill to get back - the TA-5650 V-FET integrated amp and its bigger brother, the TAN-8550. I understand that Pass Labs has bought out the world's remaining supply of Sony audio V-FET output transistors. There was a stereo store in my NW Indiana town that sold Sony, Pioneer, Revox and other 'high-end' gear. I worked my a** off to make as much money as I could to buy more gear. It drove my parents crazy, but they never complained... whenever I came home, MY stereo would be playing, with their LPs. Funny.

And yeah, those DCM Time Windows... wish I had them back, just to compare them with today's speakers.

I should have bought Microsoft stock with the money instead, but that's a different story. <g>

 

[dstrimbu]

Could you also please share the distance between speaker cable posts? Lots of speculation about it being a stretch for speaker cables, I'm curious what the actual distance is. Thanks!

It's a lot... six inches, center-to-center of the binding posts.
I had to cut the jacket back on my Blue Jeans Cable Canare 4S11 bi-wires... luckily, I was able to re-shrink the amp ends with some 1/2" diameter shrink tubing.
(Else, my OCD would have gone off the charts )

 

[billsea]

I have decided to break with my own tradition.
For the first time since I’ve made this account, I will not post a detailed write-up about some new Schiit I bought.

For two reasons:
Because
a) Tyr has broken my brain, and
b) there’s just no way of doing Tyr justice without sounding like I’m talking out my a$$.

With point a) I can deal, but I am honestly struggling with point b).

This, here, is the internet’s Schiit Central. This is where all the Schiitizens, all the Schiitheads, all of Schiit’s most hard-core Fan Bois and Gyrls hang out to enjoy their fun little circle jerk. Honest and measured criticism is held at a minimum – unless it is about power switches, VU meters, and the layer count of packaging cardboard, of course — and every iota of improvement in sound quality from one product generation to the next is celebrated in the most prosaic terms imaginable, just as if the step-up (or, dare I say it, down?) from a Modi 3 to a Modi 3E would equate to the beginning of a whole new era in audiophilia.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m totally fine with that! In fact, that’s precisely what I’m here for.

But it does leave me with a problem:
If the superlatives that are being thrown around to describe something like the relatively small step up from, say, a Modi to a Modius already use up 98% of the real estate on the spectrum between “nuanced and objective” on the one end and “ridiculously over the top” on the other, then how is one to describe Tyr’s performance without sounding completely and utterly bat-Schiit crazy?

Seriously, I mean it! I am honest to goodness struggling to come up with the right words to describe these amps and do them justice, but without making me sound like I’d lost all my marbles and any and all of what may have been left of my objectivity.

And so I decided that I won’t.
There’s just no point.
Nobody who has not heard them for themselves would believe me anyway. Nor would I blame them.



So, instead of my usual 3000+ word essays about listening impressions, I’ll leave you with the following:

In pretty much every single aspect that you can think or even dream of, Tyr is nothing short of phenomenal.



I’ll be honest with you, I got them purely as a vanity purchase. I didn’t need to buy them. I was happy with my dual-Aegirs. I had almost no complaints. Sure, I could hear my Vidars and Aegirs struggle sometimes with the load of the Q950s. They’re rated at 8 ohm, but they drop down to 3.2 – and if you know what you’re listening for, you can tell. But I still love the way these amps sound. They’re playing nicely with the rest of my system.
But Jason’s “30 years in the making” chapter made me curious, and so I decided to get me a pair anyway.

Based on Jason’s descriptions, I expected them to sound kinda like Aegir, but not quite as warm. Kinda like Vidar, but not quite as analytical.

But that’s not at all what I got when I switched them on.
What I got instead was ……… nothing?

Yes, nothing. I said it, I meant it, and I’m here to represent it.

These Tyrs, they … well … they don’t sound.

As far as I can tell, they really have no color to them. I don’t know how that’s even possible. Admittedly, my experience with higher-grade audio gear is quite a bit more limited than that of some of you guys here, but I’ve heard my fair share of systems. And now I think I understand, for the first time, what “truly transparent” actually means.
It’s obviously a load of bull for anyone to proclaim that their system would make recordings sound “like the artist intended”. Unless you are the artist or you’ve been in the studio or at the venue during recording, you can’t possibly know what “sounds as intended” or “100% accurate” even means.
So I obviously won’t go there.
What I mean by “truly transparent” is that you hear absolutely everything. And I mean every last detail, but without any harshness whatsoever.

There is an effortlessness to what these amps do that’s completely screwing with my brain. I am hearing a level of detail in songs that I thought I knew like the back of my hand. I am hearing detail that I’ve never even heard with the most brutally revealing and unforgiving of my headphone setups. I have spent much of yesterday night going back and forth between the Tyrs and my ribbon headphones to check whether I’m just imagining things. I’ve even put my Aegirs and Vidars back into the system, just to make sure.

For the first time in my life and with any system I’ve ever heard, kick drums sound like actual, real-life kick drums. You get to hear everything, and not just the “thud” of the drum itself. From the first nanosecond of the beater’s impact onto the skin, to the interaction between the skin and the drum’s barrel, all the way through to the last bit of the drum’s vibrations fading out into quiet, dead air.

A concert piano actually sounds like it stands right there in front of you. Listen closely, and you’ll not just hear that distinctive timbre, that interplay between the piano’s strings and its iron frame and wooden body that you get out of a good, quality system, but also the movement of the key action, the pianist’s depressing of the pedals – even the pianist’s breathing.

Yet none of this comes with any harshness. You can get somewhat close-ish to this level of detail with some analytical amps, like Vidar. But at least for my personal taste, you always find yourself toeing the line between detail and something that’s like pins and needles to your ears. They ensure that you get to hear the full beauty that’s in your music, but they also amplify all of the warts and wrinkles in those recordings — and you find yourself never truly relaxing, never truly giving fully in to your music.
To avoid that, you choose to go with something warmer, like a pair of Aegirs. Now all those nasty pins and needles are a thing of the past, but so is a bit of that detail.

Tyr does neither. They don’t amplify any warts and wrinkles, but neither do they hide anything from you. They simply present you with what’s in your recording, and they make absolutely no fuss about it. They just sit there, in their smoking jacket and alpaca wool slippers, leaning back in their lounge chairs, sipping on a glass of 50 years old single-malt Glenfiddich, smiling, while they watch you drool like a freshly lobotomized imbecile over the show they’re putting on for you.

And don’t get me started on staging. Exactly as @dstrimbu has already described in an earlier post, the stage I get from them is mind-bending. It’s not just much wider than the room itself, not just twice as high or 1.5x as deep as it ever was before. The stage fully envelops you.

Separation? Just listen to a live acoustic or jazz recording, and while you could always tell exactly where in the room each instrument was placed, now you’ll be able to shoot a fly off that bassist’s shoulder without so much as gracing her dress.

Bass? It's otherworldly. It goes deep, it's linear, it's lush, it's instant, it's crystal clear — nothing short of phenomenal.

Noise? None that I can hear. And believe me, I’ve planted my ear right against my Q950s’ Uni-Q drivers.
(Take that, ASR! It just don’t get any more scientific than that.)

And they run cool. Really cool. The only piece of gear in my chain that runs cooler to the touch than these Tyrs is my M1 Mac mini. When it’s sleeping.

I honestly don’t know how Tyr does it. I’m sure that a big part of the overall impression is coming from my Yggy OG, as it alone elevated the level of detail, separation, and staging my system could reproduce worlds above the Gumby, or any other DAC that I had in that system before this Yggy arrived. But my Aegirs are highly capable amps. And so are my Vidars. Yet these Tyrs make them sound like toys. And they do so without so much as breaking a god-damned sweat.

If it’s all down to the choke-input topology, and Schiit’s competition isn’t making use of them for the reasons Jason mentioned in Tyr’s release chapter, then they’re just dumb.

Based on anything I’ve seen and heard from Schiit’s competition, Tyr physically shouldn’t be possible. If it were, they’d make their own Tyrs, and they’d sell them for five to ten times of what Schiit’s asking for them.

But they don’t. What they do make is Aegir and Vidar competitors for five to ten times the cost of a Tyr.

And now, Jason’s “little” pet project of 30 years is wiping the floor with even the best of them.

I have said it before, and I am sure that I will say it again:
Schiit doesn’t believe in the law of diminishing returns. In fact, they turn it on its head: The higher up the price scale you climb, the bigger your returns.

See? I told you I wouldn’t know how to do Tyr justice without sounding like a driveling Schiit fan boi.
But such is Tyr; it blew my mind and broke my brain.

It’s that good.

I belive what your saying and surely the choke has SOMETHING to do with it. I can justify my hunch.
Excuse me if it’s already been discussed. Been a while, but there was a company called Mercury I believe, the upgraded stock Marshall guitar amplifiers by adding a choke. Their beef with the way Marshall stock guitar amplifiers were being made is the fact that the choke had been omitted from the amplifier. They say the removal of the choke severely impaired the sound of the amplifiers. If I’m wrong about this someone correct me.

 

[yonson]

I got an RMA for my HEL2, this will be the second time it's gone back--starting to wonder about sunk cost on the thing.

Mine has been back twice as well since January of 2020. This will be #3. So I'll have had HEL, HEL2, and now HEL2E

 

[cakewalk101]

I have decided to break with my own tradition.
For the first time since I’ve made this account, I will not post a detailed write-up about some new Schiit I bought.

For two reasons:
Because
a) Tyr has broken my brain, and
b) there’s just no way of doing Tyr justice without sounding like I’m talking out my a$$.

With point a) I can deal, but I am honestly struggling with point b).

This, here, is the internet’s Schiit Central. This is where all the Schiitizens, all the Schiitheads, all of Schiit’s most hard-core Fan Bois and Gyrls hang out to enjoy their fun little circle jerk. Honest and measured criticism is held at a minimum – unless it is about power switches, VU meters, and the layer count of packaging cardboard, of course — and every iota of improvement in sound quality from one product generation to the next is celebrated in the most prosaic terms imaginable, just as if the step-up (or, dare I say it, down?) from a Modi 3 to a Modi 3E would equate to the beginning of a whole new era in audiophilia.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m totally fine with that! In fact, that’s precisely what I’m here for.

But it does leave me with a problem:
If the superlatives that are being thrown around to describe something like the relatively small step up from, say, a Modi to a Modius already use up 98% of the real estate on the spectrum between “nuanced and objective” on the one end and “ridiculously over the top” on the other, then how is one to describe Tyr’s performance without sounding completely and utterly bat-Schiit crazy?

Seriously, I mean it! I am honest to goodness struggling to come up with the right words to describe these amps and do them justice, but without making me sound like I’d lost all my marbles and any and all of what may have been left of my objectivity.

And so I decided that I won’t.
There’s just no point.
Nobody who has not heard them for themselves would believe me anyway. Nor would I blame them.



So, instead of my usual 3000+ word essays about listening impressions, I’ll leave you with the following:

In pretty much every single aspect that you can think or even dream of, Tyr is nothing short of phenomenal.



I’ll be honest with you, I got them purely as a vanity purchase. I didn’t need to buy them. I was happy with my dual-Aegirs. I had almost no complaints. Sure, I could hear my Vidars and Aegirs struggle sometimes with the load of the Q950s. They’re rated at 8 ohm, but they drop down to 3.2 – and if you know what you’re listening for, you can tell. But I still love the way these amps sound. They’re playing nicely with the rest of my system.
But Jason’s “30 years in the making” chapter made me curious, and so I decided to get me a pair anyway.

Based on Jason’s descriptions, I expected them to sound kinda like Aegir, but not quite as warm. Kinda like Vidar, but not quite as analytical.

But that’s not at all what I got when I switched them on.
What I got instead was ……… nothing?

Yes, nothing. I said it, I meant it, and I’m here to represent it.

These Tyrs, they … well … they don’t sound.

As far as I can tell, they really have no color to them. I don’t know how that’s even possible. Admittedly, my experience with higher-grade audio gear is quite a bit more limited than that of some of you guys here, but I’ve heard my fair share of systems. And now I think I understand, for the first time, what “truly transparent” actually means.
It’s obviously a load of bull for anyone to proclaim that their system would make recordings sound “like the artist intended”. Unless you are the artist or you’ve been in the studio or at the venue during recording, you can’t possibly know what “sounds as intended” or “100% accurate” even means.
So I obviously won’t go there.
What I mean by “truly transparent” is that you hear absolutely everything. And I mean every last detail, but without any harshness whatsoever.

There is an effortlessness to what these amps do that’s completely screwing with my brain. I am hearing a level of detail in songs that I thought I knew like the back of my hand. I am hearing detail that I’ve never even heard with the most brutally revealing and unforgiving of my headphone setups. I have spent much of yesterday night going back and forth between the Tyrs and my ribbon headphones to check whether I’m just imagining things. I’ve even put my Aegirs and Vidars back into the system, just to make sure.

For the first time in my life and with any system I’ve ever heard, kick drums sound like actual, real-life kick drums. You get to hear everything, and not just the “thud” of the drum itself. From the first nanosecond of the beater’s impact onto the skin, to the interaction between the skin and the drum’s barrel, all the way through to the last bit of the drum’s vibrations fading out into quiet, dead air.

A concert piano actually sounds like it stands right there in front of you. Listen closely, and you’ll not just hear that distinctive timbre, that interplay between the piano’s strings and its iron frame and wooden body that you get out of a good, quality system, but also the movement of the key action, the pianist’s depressing of the pedals – even the pianist’s breathing.

Yet none of this comes with any harshness. You can get somewhat close-ish to this level of detail with some analytical amps, like Vidar. But at least for my personal taste, you always find yourself toeing the line between detail and something that’s like pins and needles to your ears. They ensure that you get to hear the full beauty that’s in your music, but they also amplify all of the warts and wrinkles in those recordings — and you find yourself never truly relaxing, never truly giving fully in to your music.
To avoid that, you choose to go with something warmer, like a pair of Aegirs. Now all those nasty pins and needles are a thing of the past, but so is a bit of that detail.

Tyr does neither. They don’t amplify any warts and wrinkles, but neither do they hide anything from you. They simply present you with what’s in your recording, and they make absolutely no fuss about it. They just sit there, in their smoking jacket and alpaca wool slippers, leaning back in their lounge chairs, sipping on a glass of 50 years old single-malt Glenfiddich, smiling, while they watch you drool like a freshly lobotomized imbecile over the show they’re putting on for you.

And don’t get me started on staging. Exactly as @dstrimbu has already described in an earlier post, the stage I get from them is mind-bending. It’s not just much wider than the room itself, not just twice as high or 1.5x as deep as it ever was before. The stage fully envelops you.

Separation? Just listen to a live acoustic or jazz recording, and while you could always tell exactly where in the room each instrument was placed, now you’ll be able to shoot a fly off that bassist’s shoulder without so much as gracing her dress.

Bass? It's otherworldly. It goes deep, it's linear, it's lush, it's instant, it's crystal clear — nothing short of phenomenal.

Noise? None that I can hear. And believe me, I’ve planted my ear right against my Q950s’ Uni-Q drivers.
(Take that, ASR! It just don’t get any more scientific than that.)

And they run cool. Really cool. The only piece of gear in my chain that runs cooler to the touch than these Tyrs is my M1 Mac mini. When it’s sleeping.

I honestly don’t know how Tyr does it. I’m sure that a big part of the overall impression is coming from my Yggy OG, as it alone elevated the level of detail, separation, and staging my system could reproduce worlds above the Gumby, or any other DAC that I had in that system before this Yggy arrived. But my Aegirs are highly capable amps. And so are my Vidars. Yet these Tyrs make them sound like toys. And they do so without so much as breaking a god-damned sweat.

If it’s all down to the choke-input topology, and Schiit’s competition isn’t making use of them for the reasons Jason mentioned in Tyr’s release chapter, then they’re just dumb.

Based on anything I’ve seen and heard from Schiit’s competition, Tyr physically shouldn’t be possible. If it were, they’d make their own Tyrs, and they’d sell them for five to ten times of what Schiit’s asking for them.

But they don’t. What they do make is Aegir and Vidar competitors for five to ten times the cost of a Tyr.

And now, Jason’s “little” pet project of 30 years is wiping the floor with even the best of them.

I have said it before, and I am sure that I will say it again:
Schiit doesn’t believe in the law of diminishing returns. In fact, they turn it on its head: The higher up the price scale you climb, the bigger your returns.

See? I told you I wouldn’t know how to do Tyr justice without sounding like a driveling Schiit fan boi.
But such is Tyr; it blew my mind and broke my brain.

It’s that good.

Impressive. So much passion it nearly reads like a journal entry: “Dear Diary, I Schiit myself a pair of Tyrs and they blew mind mind and broke my brain. They are that good.” Seriously, I’d pull the trigger on them if I had a better set of speakers then my RP-600Ms (and if I wasnt saving for the tube monster that’s coming soon?).

And on a completely unrelated note: +1 vote for LSST with a hint of (artificial) tube glow. I mean, if you don’t have the real thing, at least the appearance of warmth would be nice. All in my head, I know

 

[macdonjh]

Dang, that was an enjoyable review! It is absolutely believable. How in the world can I be happy with my single Aegir now? I am definitely now Tyr curious.

Connect a pair of inefficient, low impedance planars to your Aegir. Or an electrostatic energizer. Mine makes a great head phone amp for those uses. For more efficient, higher impedance head phones, my Mjolnir sounds better.

 

[dstrimbu]

There’s just no point.
Nobody who has not heard them for themselves would believe me anyway. Nor would I blame them.

I agree, AP.
I totally agree, and the third time is a charm...

In pretty much every single aspect that you can think or even dream of, Tyr is nothing short of phenomenal.

Not sure how many of you have lived or worked with native Germans before, but... "nothing short of phenomenal" is pretty much the highest praise possible. How do I know this? In a previous life, I spent two years commuting back-and-forth from Chicago to Munich. Early on, one of my Austrian colleagues pulled me aside after a long day of meetings and said "Don, we all quite enjoy working with you, but I must say that our German colleagues are a bit put off by your constant use of hyperbole".

Who, ME?

But Jason’s “30 years in the making” chapter made me curious, and so I decided to get me a pair anyway.

Ditto. Jason's writing has cost me quite a few shekels over the last five years... but the value proposition? It's unmatched, and I've never, ever complained. And now with Tyr, I'd be an idiot to complain.

These Tyrs, they … well … they don’t sound. <- +1
What I mean by “truly transparent” is that you hear absolutely everything. And I mean every last detail, but without any harshness whatsoever.

Yes. Minute details that were masked in the past: the decay of a single note into silence, the echo in the recording venue, a saxophonist wetting her lips - yes, really. And and power seems effortless, I think I said something about a small V12 engine with a very light flywheel... but it's more like a F1 power unit. Elastic, instantaneous, tracking the throttle/input signal to the microsecond. Just freaking sick, I say.

There is an effortlessness to what these amps do that’s completely screwing with my brain. I am hearing a level of detail in songs that I thought I knew like the back of my hand. I am hearing detail that I’ve never even heard with the most brutally revealing and unforgiving of my headphone setups. I have spent much of yesterday night going back and forth between the Tyrs and my ribbon headphones to check whether I’m just imagining things. I’ve even put my Aegirs and Vidars back into the system, just to make sure.

I haven't done that yet, @ArmchairPhilosopher, but I may try it before I swap the Freya OG into the system...

Yet none of this comes with any harshness. You can get somewhat close-ish to this level of detail with some analytical amps, like Vidar. But at least for my personal taste, you always find yourself toeing the line between detail and something that’s like pins and needles to your ears. They ensure that you get to hear the full beauty that’s in your music, but they also amplify all of the warts and wrinkles in those recordings — and you find yourself never truly relaxing, never truly giving fully in to your music.

Bravo, sir. And no offense to the Vidars, because they sound amazing, too. I loved what they did for my setup, and I loved listening to them.

But this is different; way different.

...smiling, while they watch you drool like a freshly lobotomized imbecile over the show they’re putting on for you.

my jaw hurts from hitting its lower stop, repeatedly, last evening.

Bass? It's otherworldly. It goes deep, it's linear, it's lush, it's instant, it's crystal clear — nothing short of phenomenal.

There's that word again. The rapid drum attack at the beginning of Rhianna's "Watch and Learn" - it jumps out into the room from pure blackness. And the Tyr's control over the B&W's woofers is unlike anything I've ever heard before - regardless of volume level. Right now I'm way off-axis, upstairs in the office typing this (yeah, why am I not sitting downstairs with my laptop?) and the bass response is just amazing. No need for a loudness control, here... and yeah, Loki Max is still bypassed.

Noise? None that I can hear. And believe me, I’ve planted my ear right against my Q950s’ Uni-Q drivers.
(Take that, ASR! It just don’t get any more scientific than that.)

Nice dig, dude. Very well executed. <G>

I honestly don’t know how Tyr does it. I’m sure that a big part of the overall impression is coming from my Yggy OG, as it alone elevated the level of detail, separation, and staging my system could reproduce worlds above the Gumby, or any other DAC that I had in that system before this Yggy arrived. But my Aegirs are highly capable amps. And so are my Vidars. Yet these Tyrs make them sound like toys. And they do so without so much as breaking a god-damned sweat.

IMHO Yggy OG A2 is phenomenal in its own right. In my mind, the Tyrs let Yggy speak clearly for the first time, and I'm thinking: wow, can that dude sing!

Based on anything I’ve seen and heard from Schiit’s competition, Tyr physically shouldn’t be possible. If it were, they’d make their own Tyrs, and they’d sell them for five to ten times of what Schiit’s asking for them.

But they don’t. What they do make is Aegir and Vidar competitors for five to ten times the cost of a Tyr.

And now, Jason’s “little” pet project of 30 years is wiping the floor with even the best of them.

I have said it before, and I am sure that I will say it again:
Schiit doesn’t believe in the law of diminishing returns. In fact, they turn it on its head: The higher up the price scale you climb, the bigger your returns.

I am not a double-E, but I am relatively sure that the choke is Subject One (and that incredibly over-built output stage is Subject Two) in this lawsuit.

See? I told you I wouldn’t know how to do Tyr justice without sounding like a driveling Schiit fan boi.
But such is Tyr; it blew my mind and broke my brain.

It’s that good.

Ok, kids - here's the call - Tyr is currently available in 1-3 days (5-7 for silver, 230VAC) - get out your credit cards and do your part to deplete Schitt's stock today!
Thx again Jason and Mike... I didn't think that I could ever afford a system that sounded like this. You proved me wrong, and I'm forever grateful. /ds