[US Blues]

I like vapor products.

Better for the lungs, or so it is said.

 

[sam6550a]

In the Emotiva product mentioned it is. If I bought a 30 grand speaker then I expect commensurate performance i.e. excellent speaker sound quality. Now the speaker could be junk, but then I wouldn't be too smart to buy it.
I noted the price because you don't want to spend a teensy fraction of the speaker price on an amp. Pair like with like.
Now granted the gen 2 is still a teensy fraction of the price. But it provides a lot more class A power.

It provides 60W in class A. You get the higher power ouputs by transitioning to class AB.

 

[AudioBear]

Jason has made it clear that Schiit's policy is to call Class A only that which is pure Class A. Amps that are biased into Class A and then transition into Class AB at higher output levels do not meet Schiit's criteria for calling an amp Class A although in fairness to Emotiva it is industry practice to call such amps Class A. Jason has outlined why Schiit believes the two are distinctly different. I can't find the link....but it's there. I haven't ever had a chance to A-B the two designs so I don't know if it's a meaningful difference to me.

 

[garbulky]

My Dynaudio C4's aren't quite 30k speakers, however in my experience a pair of Vidar on them is on par with the pair of Parasound JC-1's I ran them with before, which was night and day better than the gen 2 Emotiva XPA I had on them before that...

You ran the Vidars with a C4?! Interesting. I have a feeling I'm going to get a chance to hear the Vidars soon, perhaps on my system. Will they be competition for my beloved XPA-1 amps? Honestly, I'd be very surprised if they were - in my setup. Nothing sticks out in it that gives me an indication otherwise. But I have been wrong before. The proof in the pudding is listening! I think the Vidars chassis however looks fantastic and I like the size. The JC-1's also look interesting. Thanks for the impressions.

 

[garbulky]

It provides 60W in class A. You get the higher power ouputs by transitioning to class AB.

Yep. It's a high bias design. Mine are cooking nicely on my shelf.

 

[KoshNaranek]

Better for the lungs, or so it is said.

Not really

 

[Brubacca]

Jason,

My last comment on Class A amp. I hope you make one, I would buy one if I can afford it. There is a new Pass Labs one going for just under $5,000 this is not in my price class.

You mentioned Vidar Chassis and I'm hoping relatively close in price. Maybe this is not possible, less than 3x the price of Vidar and I'd give it a shot.

Good luck with 2018. I am loving my EITR into Gumby from my MicroRendu. Great combination for anyone interested.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Let's just see what SOL brings us.
Which brings me to a question...
When I was young and had a turntable those things were grounded on the backside of the amplifier.
I just looked and didn't find such a connection on the Ragnarok.
So... does SOL have to be grounded and if yes, where?

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Let's just see what SOL brings us.
Which brings me to a question...
When I was young and had a turntable those things were grounded on the backside of the amplifier.
I just looked and didn't find such a connection on the Ragnarok.
So... does SOL have to be grounded and if yes, where?

To the phono preamp.

JC

 

[rlow]

Let's just see what SOL brings us.
Which brings me to a question...
When I was young and had a turntable those things were grounded on the backside of the amplifier.
I just looked and didn't find such a connection on the Ragnarok.
So... does SOL have to be grounded and if yes, where?

Rag doesn't have a phono preamp, the ground screw is on the back of Mani (per the previous poster.)

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

To the phono preamp.

JC

Of course.
How stupid can I be.

 

[dmckean44]

It provides 60W in class A. You get the higher power ouputs by transitioning to class AB.

"Biased into Class A" is a misnomor. Let's look at Jason's Class A debunking post one more time:

Okay, guys, enough discussion of marketing BS. As I've said before, this is a Schiit thread, not "any old manufacturers' thread." If you bring claims from another company, expect them to be dissected (exactly like our claims are). If you are dissecting, you need to add lots of caveats unless you have the circuit diagram right in front of you.

Because, the final word on "Class A" is this: about 98% of "Class A" claims are for amps that are not true Class A designs.

To see what I mean, let's see what Schiit calls "Class A." Exactly ONE product is tagged as Class A: Asgard 2. Asgard 2 is, by any definition, Class A. It cannot ever leave Class A. Its single-MOSFET output stage is always 100% on. It's not handing off to an opposite polarity device, it's not sliding the bias around, it's not "biased into Class A a lot of the time," it is Class A. Period. End of statement.

"Buh, buh, buh, other guys say that their complementary-output amps are Class A, and other guys say their bias slides around to keep it in Class A, and other guys say their preamp circuitry is Class A, and other guys say they bias op-amps into Class A," you might be saying.

And that's fine. They can say that. They can always find a way to make some tenuous connection to Class A, just like McNuggets are "Made with white meat." (Perhaps the single greatest marketing phrase of all time, as it says absolutely nothing. Think about it.)

Here's the reality: unless the circuit is a single output transistor biased to its highest operating point, it will not provide all the benefits of real Class A. And that's what Schiit defines as Class A.

Why? Let's look a bit deeper:

1. Complementary output stages, with both N-channel and P-channel devices, can be biased such that they are running all the current they're ever expected to source, and called "Class A." However, these output stages CAN go out of Class A, so they are more properly called "high bias Class AB." They also have problems with transconductance doubling past the turn-on region and are hobbled by the fact that N and P devices are never really "complementary." Magni and Jotunheim use complementary output stages.
2. Sliding bias can keep the output stage nominally in Class A, but it cannot predict the demands of the music, so their sonics are dependent on their control system, and how finely it is tuned. Lyr uses a sliding bias output stage, we spent a lot of time tuning it. It does not sound like Class A.
3. Preamp circuitry being Class A? Well, I'd certainly hope so. There's no reason that it needs to be anything else.
4. Biasing op-amps into Class A? Yeah, you can do that. Sometimes it can make them sound better. Sometimes not. But again, it's a complementary output stage, with the limitations of that approach.

As a bonus, consider Mjolnir 2 and Ragnarok. They use a circlotron output stage. Circlotrons use same-type devices (all N-channel, for example), so they sidestep the "complement mismatch" problem. They are not inherently Class A, however. Both Mjolnir 2 and Ragnarok run high bias Class AB. Do we call it Class A? No. Because it's not.

And there you have it. Bottom line, the best thing to do, when comparing marketing claims, is simply to not do it at all.

 

[rlow]

He covered that in the Magni 3 chapter.

I'm not seeing mention of Vali 2 in that chapter...

 

[US Blues]

Not really

Maybe Baldr can built a multibit vape that retains all the original molecules without any vaping "glare."

 

[decodm]

Since there’s some discussion of possible future products going on, let me ask: any chance of a 230v Cthulhu ?