[KoshNaranek]

Now that is a real pile of Schiit!

My biggest surprise is that an apartment dweller in the Netherlands has what appears to be a Bosch cordless screwdriver.

 

[RCBinTN]

Pietro is a real Renaissance Man.

 

[HumanFly]

And if I remember correctly it`s a Makita.

 

[bosiemoncrieff]

Reading Mike's thread is like sipping bourbon. Reading this thread is like slamming Jägerbombs, and I probably ignore half the messages posted for my own sanity.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

It's a Renaissance Man's Makita indeed.
I'm now pilfering the pile for parts.
The new one will have a small enclosure, no lcd screen, no operating system and will be named the Constanza II.

 

[Letmebefrank]

My Makita drill and 3/8 impact are beasts. The impact has torn down many engines and it's kicking.

 

[yvfed1]

Dear Jason and Co,



After having Freya for some time, I would like to share my thoughts and wish list for the V.2. Mostly wish list J



- Having 3 outputs is great.

o Having one more would be great;

- Having 5 input is great.

o I could use one more each balanced and unbalanced;

- Wish there was a solid state option instead of tubes;

- From my listening chair, it is impossible to tell which input is ON;

o Would be great to have some sort of indication which input is selected;

o The select button only pics inputs from left to right. Would be great to be able to move in both directions. For example, to compare input 1 and input 5, four clicks is needed, while 5 to 1 just one click;

- Remote is too small;

o Would be great to make the remote larger, with bigger, better, more clearly labeled buttons;

§ Would be even better to have an indication of which input is selected right there, on the remote;

- There is no way to tell in which position the volume is;

o Would be helpful to have some indication, at least big, readable mark on the volume button itself.

- Would be nice to have a rack-mounted option, or kit that would allow for rack mounting.



- Lastly, I would gladly pay double for such Freya v.2! Even if the power switch is still on the back!

 

[Robert Wortman]

So is it fair to say that Magni 3 and Jotunheim are at the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of their respective sonic presentations? And would it be oversimplifying it to suggest that Ragnarok possesses the best attributes of both amps and elevates it by n levels?! It would be great if someone did an epic comparison of Magni 3 vs Asgard 2 vs Jotunheim vs Ragnarok!

It seems unlikely to me that two amps designed and tweaked by the same guy would be at opposite ends of anything.

 

[Robert Wortman]

It's been a long time since school but at audio frequencies, load impedance does not affect amplifier FR. Power, phase, damping factor are affected, but not frequency response.

Someone correct me if I am misremembering...

The load impedance is in series with the output impedance. If the load impedance is fixed, the output FR is unaffected. If the load impedance varies all over hell with frequency,(as most transducers do) the output FR will vary with it. The amount of variation is directly proportional to output impedance. In a solid state amp, output impedance is usually low enough that this FR variation is very small and inaudible. Some boutique audio designs and tube amps have higher output impedance and the reactive loads will audibly affect FR. Magni output impedance is spec'ed at less than .3 ohms. If you have low impedance 'phones with a lot of variation, it might produce an audible effect. You can take the impedance/frequency plot of the 'phones and calculate the effect. The shape of the curve will be the same and the amplitude will be an ohms law calculation.

 

[ToTo Man]

It seems unlikely to me that two amps designed and tweaked by the same guy would be at opposite ends of anything.

Poor wording on my part. What I meant was it is fair to say that the sonic differences between Jot and Mag 3 are more obvious than between Asgard 2 and Mag 3?

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Dear Jason and Co,



After having Freya for some time, I would like to share my thoughts and wish list for the V.2. Mostly wish list J



- Having 3 outputs is great.

o Having one more would be great;

- Having 5 input is great.

o I could use one more each balanced and unbalanced;

- Wish there was a solid state option instead of tubes;

- From my listening chair, it is impossible to tell which input is ON;

o Would be great to have some sort of indication which input is selected;

o The select button only pics inputs from left to right. Would be great to be able to move in both directions. For example, to compare input 1 and input 5, four clicks is needed, while 5 to 1 just one click;

- Remote is too small;

o Would be great to make the remote larger, with bigger, better, more clearly labeled buttons;

§ Would be even better to have an indication of which input is selected right there, on the remote;

- There is no way to tell in which position the volume is;

o Would be helpful to have some indication, at least big, readable mark on the volume button itself.

- Would be nice to have a rack-mounted option, or kit that would allow for rack mounting.



- Lastly, I would gladly pay double for such Freya v.2! Even if the power switch is still on the back!

Why would the gentlemen at the Schiit Audio Company schiitefy every possible appliance in the audio chain and keep rebuilding it to the specs of some of their clients.
The amp you ask for is for sale somewhere. Go for it.
It's like those embarrassing prenuptials or demands for pre-marital appearance changing plastic surgery before tying the knot.
("If the doctor can squeeze an extra inch out of your soldering iron, I'll marry you".)
One thing you will get shortly is the ss-tubes (LISST) though.
First problem solved.

 

[MWSVette]

It seems unlikely to me that two amps designed and tweaked by the same guy would be at opposite ends of anything.

Poor wording on my part. What I meant was it is fair to say that the sonic differences between Jot and Mag 3 are more obvious than between Asgard 2 and Mag 3?

From the Schitt site specs for each amp...

Magni 3; Topology: Fully discrete, fully complementary all-bipolar, symmetrical current-feedback design with no capacitors in the signal path and DC servo.

Asgard 2; Topology: Fully discrete, single-ended Class A with single voltage gain stage, no overall feedback in high gain mode, 12dB feedback in low gain mode.

Jot; Unique Pivot Point Gain Stage, Jotunheim's gain stage is a unique, inherently balanced, fully discrete current feedback topology that provides both balanced and single-ended output without the need for splitters or summers. It provides extremely wide bandwidth and excellent measured performance—together with the advantages of constant, low feedback across the entire audio band. What does all this techno-talk mean? In English, excellent performance from all inputs and outputs.

Rag; Topology: Fully discrete Crossfet™ circlotron-style output stage with solid state voltage gain stage, microprocessor management of quiescent current and DC offset, as well as discrete summing stages for single-ended output.

As each of the 4 amps have different topologies one could expect sonic differences between the 4 amps.

 

[Robert Wortman]

From the Schitt site specs for each amp...

As each of the 4 amps have different topologies one could expect sonic differences between the 4 amps.

Perhaps. It is not a given that different topologies that measure similarly sound different. They might, they might not. What I meant was that since the same person or team of persons was listening to and testing the amps and those people were bringing the same sense of what an amp should sound like to the process, it is unlikely for the difference to be large enough to be called opposite sides of some sonic spectrum.

 

[AudioBear]

Mono block headphone amps are not new. The most affordable on the market is probably the NuForce HA200, and there is an uber expensive one from Woo Audio and a Questyle product.

I'm more curious about who has actually rigged up 2 SE amps to run balanced, and what the results were.

People have been bridging amps in 2-channel and multi-channel speaker systems for quite a while. I take a bridged amp running one channel to be a mono block. See for example https://knowledge.sonicelectronix.com/car-audio-and-video/car-amplifiers/how-to-bridge-an-amplifier/
I'm not a EE, correct me if I am wrong. One could define mono-block as only an amp that has the components necessary for a single channel and thus exclude bridged amps. I see that but we were talking about using 2 stereo head-amps in L-R configuration to drive a set of cans. Schiit's Vidar is being called a mono block but it has two channels.

And yes, it has been done before as @rkw points out.

 

[MWSVette]

Perhaps. It is not a given that different topologies that measure similarly sound different. They might, they might not. What I meant was that since the same person or team of persons was listening to and testing the amps and those people were bringing the same sense of what an amp should sound like to the process, it is unlikely for the difference to be large enough to be called opposite sides of some sonic spectrum.

I concur, I would not say opposite either. Only different...