Please allow me to introduce the newest addition to my permanent collection of Schiit:
This OG Asgard (Yep, OG. As in: non-2, non-3, just plain Asgard!) is a recent eBay find. Was listed as "mint condition but not working, parts only." And since the OG Asgard has a relatively simple topology (and should thus be relatively easy for me to diagnose) and is entirely through-hole (and thus it's relatively easy to replace components) I thought to myself: Neat, an amp I can screw around with and practice on! And so I clicked "buy now."
Two days later, the box arrives at my door.
I open it up…
Inside the generic USPS box, I am greeted by a manual that looks so pristine, it might just as well have been printed last week. The power chord still has all the tags and labels on it. And what's that in the little plastic ziplock bag, next to that ¼" to 3.5mm adapter? Wait, are those the original stick-on feet, still unused?
Then I lift the amp out of the box, flanked on both sides by what looks like the original foam, neatly wrapped inside its original plastic sleeve. The plastic sleeve was clearly opened before, but with so much care that the Schiit seal/sticker still looked almost brand new, too.
I take the amp out of the sleeve — and can barely believe my eyes. The thing looks brand new. No, seriously, not a single scratch, not one ding, no glue residue where any stick-on feet may have been—nothing! Not a single mark or any indication of use anywhere to be found.
Wow, someone must have really treasured this thing. Too bad that it eventually broke and they had to part ways with it.
Maybe I can already get a rough idea why it broke. If the prior owner let the magic smoke out, I should at least see some "schiit stains," or maybe a blown or bloated cap or something?
So I open the thing up for a quick first glance.
Nothing.
Other than what looks like ten years worth of dust, of course. But that's nothing a few strategically applied puffs of canned air can't fix.
But the rest? Looks absolutely pristine. No blown or even just slightly bloated caps, no schiit stains, no scorched resistors or diodes, no…
…wait…
…what's that…
…
…no, that can't possibly be it, can it?
Right there, next to the power socket, it stares me right in the face: The fuse, one end still squarely where it belongs, but the other end popped straight up and out of its holder!?
And so I take the fuse out entirely, bend the two prongs of the fuse holder's one pole that got a bit loose back together again to give it back it's original clamping force, and snap the fuse back into place.
Well, let's see if this fixed it…
So I grab my trusty variac, plug everything in, switch everything on — and slooooowly raise the voltage.
20V…
40V…
60V…no magic smoke yet!
80V…
*click* — There's the relay for the muting circuit! So I guess the amp is still able to put itself into what it thinks should be proper operating conditions.
100V…
120V…
Hm. Gets a little toasty around the transistors. But that's par for the course with class A, so I take this as a good sign. Still no smoke, either!
OK, then. So far, so good.
I switch everything back off.
Next step: Signal generator and scope.
Let's put a sine wave in at one end and see what comes out the other.
Hm… Both channels look perfectly clean. And both show the same gain characteristics.
Neat!
Well, let's try an actual audio signal. So into my "cheap ass schiit" test chain it goes.
Hm. Sounds good to me…
Well, "good" within the limits of the relatively "meh" components that I use for that test chain.
Should I dare try this thing with my main headphone chain? Let's try Gumby first, but still just the cheap headphones I don't care about.
Works just fine.
So, up the ladder of "dearness" I go with my headphones, one by one…
Still perfectly fine.
And so now here we are: A basically "brand new" OG Asgard has joined my collection of Schiit. Sounds magnificent, too!
I just hope the original owner doesn't read this thread. I'd rather he didn't know that he parted with a perfectly good amp that he clearly treasured for a long, long time.
A question for
@Jason Stoddard: With a serial number in the 950s, how old would you guess might this OG Asgard be? I don't assume it's one of the VERY early ones that were built at your house, though, right?
