Dear Schiitizens,
This review will be a rather short one, because: This amp sucks.
No, really! I'm not kidding! I said it, I meant it, I'm here to represent it; Folkvangr sounds like complete and utter a$$. Even to this blathering Schiit fanboy, this amp sounds horrendously bad.
Still don't believe me? Well, then read on and let me explain…
I like Schiit. I like headphone amps. I like tubes. So when the possibility of a completely nuts and over-the-top, ten-tube OTL and OCL headphone amp began to take shape quite a while back, I quickly realized that I needed to get my hands on one of these. Tube shortage and limited run be damned. I've been following Jason's work long enough to know that he's not going to release something that doesn't sound magnificently, so it felt like a no-brainer to hit "Buy" on this thing even though it meant shelling out just over 2 grand (silver, plus shipping and taxes) for an entirely unproven product (and topology) that no one really had a chance to audition and review yet.
And so two days ago, a package arrived here at Casa del Armchair, containing a piece of kit that I have (more or less patiently) been waiting for ever since it was first hinted at.
Eager to finally hear for myself what Jason's been so excited about all this time, I took my Mjolnir 2 out of my desktop chain and placed my shiny new Folkvangr on top of the Gumby. I plugged everything in, installed the ten tubes while grinning like a little child on Christmas Day, and switched it on. Oooooh, look at all that tube glow!
But what headphones will I try first? I am (for the most part) a planar guy. And based on past experiences with other OTL tube amps, I knew that I would have to pick a pair of dynamics to get the best results. My current favorite pair of dynamics, the Focal Elex, sound great. Magnificent mids, lush bottom end—but their highs get really harsh real quick. And so they don't do too well with solid state and hybrid amps. OTL tube amps generally have a tendency to roll off those harsh edges, though, and so I figured that the Elex would most likely offer me the highest chance to get the best possible first impression out of this newest addition to my headphone amp collection.
So I plugged in the Elex, pulled up Roon, and hit play on my playlist of benchmark tracks that I know like the back of my hand, ready to be blown away.
The first track comes on; Kicho, by the Blue Chamber Quartett.
Wait.
Hold on just a sec.
What the heck is going on here?!
All I am getting out of my cans is a muffled mess of barely defined sonic soup.
Too much bloom.
Utterly overwhelming mids.
There's no detail.
No image.
Not even so much as a hint of separation.
This can't possibly be what Jason's been so excited about all this time, can it?
Can it?!?
Oh, right… What a facepalm moment; it's the impedance, stupid! The Elex are 80 ohm, which SHOULD be high enough for OTL, but who knows. Let's try this impedance multiplyer thingy, Jason wouldn't have included this added bit of complexity into his design if he didn't feel that it was necessary.
*flip*
Hm. A tiny bit better, but no significant change. That's weird.
I know that Jason and I don't exactly share the same taste in music, but somehow I can't imagine that there could exist a genre of anything even losely resembling "music" anywhere on earth that would make whatever it is that I'm hearing have him sit there with his mouth hanging open as he listened to his prototype for the first time. This clearly wouldn't be worth leaving your better three-quarters hanging without dinner!
No, something must be wrong with this amp…
Maybe the tubes need a few more minutes to get up to operating temperature?
So I let the amp sit for another ten minutes.
No change…
Maybe the tubes themselves are faulty? I don't have eight power tubes at hand to replace the ones it came with, but since there's no need for them to be balanced, I could take the ones I have in my Valhalla and go through them two by two until I figure out what's going on. But let's try the input tubes first. I can roll in a pair of Gold Lions, at least I know that those sound really great.
So I switch off the amp, let it cool down, roll in the Gold Lions, and switch it back on.
Still, no real change…
What the heck? OK, let's try the power tubes, two by two, until I find the culprit.
Nope! Just muddy soup…
Hmmm…
Maybe it's me? Maybe I was expecting the wrong thing? After all, the whole point of designing this amp was for Jason to find out what tubes really sound like.
So… Is this what tubes really sound like? I guess so!
Either Jason finally found his limits and released something that really sounds like a$$, or I just don't appreciate "pure" tube sound as much as I thought I did.
Either way; I'm really not enjoying this.
Oh well… I guess that seals it then; let's pack it back up and—for the first time ever—contact Schiit's support for a return authorization. Bummer, because other than the way it sounds, I really like this thing!
But before I do, just for schiits and giggles, let me fetch my go-to planars real quick.
*plug*
*click*
… … … … … … … … …
What the actual fuuuuuu…!
Holy f#@k-nuts, where did this come from all of a sudden?! This sounds absolutely stunning!
I guess that it was my turn now to "literally sit there, mouth hanging open."
Wait… Let me get the Elex again…
*plug*
*click*
Hm. Muddy soup.
OK, back to the planars…
*plug*
*click*
Huh! Utter magnificence!
What in Odin's name is going on here?!
Well, as it turns out, Folkvanger does indeed sound like Louisiana swamp a$$ on a particularly muggy summer's day — with the wrong cans.
With the right set of headphones, however, this thing is capable of dwarfing even the most priced and praised headphone amps that I have had the chance to audition in the past.
Why? To be perfectly honest: I'm not sure. The whole point of Folkvangr is for you to be able to hook up directly to the tubes. No output transformer, no output caps; nothing that's sitting between your cans and your tubes. Evidently, this also means that there's no safety net, either. There's nothing there that could mask whatever the laws of physics dictate to happen between a specific set of headphones and a specific set of tubes.
Normally, I would try my best to describe what I am hearing. Transients? Detail? Stage? Frequency response? With Folkvangr, doing so would be futile. Plug in a different set of headphones, and every last bit of what I would have typed goes out the window. If there ever was a piece of kit that truly deserves that tired old caveat of "your mileage may vary" — it is this one. Whatever tubes you use, whatever headphones you plug in, the result you get will be completely unique to whichever combination you happen to use that day.
I've gone through my entire collection of headphones, Folkvangr transforms into an entirely different amp every time.
Yes, to an extent this is true for all audio gear. But what's happening here is on a completely different level.
And so I'll leave it at this:
Without hyperbole, Folkvangr has the potential to find its place among the greatest-sounding headphone amps on the planet. It also has the potential to be outperformed by a god-damned Dark Voice. Folkvangr can sound like a 25.000 dollar boutique amp, and it can sound like a 5 dollar USB dongle. More than with any other amp I've ever come across, any and all of what you will get out of it is entirely up to what you plug into it.
So, should you buy one?
Yes. Absolutely. You one hundred percent should; if—and only if—you know for certain that you can deal with the nervosa that inherrently and inevitably comes with having to not only roll tubes to find a sound that works for you, but also headphones.
Because—trust me—you
will have to.
. I’ll have to try my Sundaras and roll in the JAN 7308 Gold Pins O Getter pair I had in my Valhalla 2 after my travels and see how they compare. In anycase, I suspect I’ll be selling my other tube amps.
