[ItsAllInMyHead]

My Lyr3 MB got here today. Thanks Jason, Mike, and the rest of the Schiit kickers.

Now I know why Jason and Mike said earlier they'd never combine DACs and Amps into the same product.... Where to post our praises!?

@the finisher - I love it with my HD800S. I've listened for ~3 hours (Tung Sol tube) covering a pretty wide variety of music. Burn in.... MB warm up... whatever. Out of the box, it's great, and if it gets better, then I'm cool with that. I don't see how I could find a better match for that headphone for the price.

The sound has a timbre and realism that is remarkable to me, and the clincher is that it controls the bass of the HD800S exceptionally well. No flab, tubbiness, muddiness, murkiness or pick your favorite bad bass word. It's fantastic. In one of the videos they posted, Mike talks about the CAB (Cheap Ass Balanced) version of the MB and keeps saying... it sounds "OK"... I beg to differ.

I don't want this to turn in to a review, and I'd be happy to send you more info through PM or I can post specific thoughts if you have questions. I started to describe the sound of a few songs, but I'm not sure if that's they type of info that would help. I kept trying to find different words for - damn, it's good.

FWIW - I don't see how you can go wrong if you choose that route.

Now get out to the garage...

 

[Paladin79]

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/headphone-amp-impedance-questions-find-the-answers-here.607282/

Here is a pretty comprehensive description of headphones and amplifiers, I was on my way to a meeting last night then I got back pretty late so I could not take much time with the subject.

Here is some info directly from Schiit on the Valhalla 2 and the gain switch:

"Go ahead. Do things with Valhalla 2 that you’d never attempt with other OTL tube amps. Run low-impedance headphones. Use IEMs. Valhalla 2 is a complete re-imagining of Valhalla, with improved performance, higher output capability, lower distortion and output impedance.

Tubes Made Flexible
While most tube OTL amps are really only designed for 300 ohm Senns and 600 ohm Beyers, Valhalla 2 stretches to include headphones that you’d never expect to use with a tube amp. Go ahead. Use it with Grados. Run it with AKGs. Rely on it for many IEMs. You may even like it with high-efficiency planars like LCD-X, LCD-XC, Oppo PM-1 and HE-400.

A Complete Desktop Preamp
Valhalla 2 also adds two important features: preamp outs and a gain switch. Preamp outs let you connect your powered monitors directly to Valhalla 2, to give them some of what some people call “tube magic.” The gain switch gives you better control of both output level and impedance, for better matching to your headphones. It's easy to build a complete desktop system around the Valhalla."

I have worked more with OTL tube amps and own the Valhalla 2 so when I hear gain switch, I am thinking more about what is said above and matching low impedance headphones. There are a few ways to do this and I have done some work myself with an amp so many of my thoughts are based there.

 

[sam6550a]

Yeah -- I'm not 100% sure that's correct. Could be, but not knowing the design how do we know there is not an additional amplification/gain stage to get a HIGH GAIN output? Given that the specs on Magni 3, for example, specifies a higher distortion at High Gain vs Low Gain, could certainly indciate the introduction of a 2nd gain stage over the Low Gain setting. Sure Low Gain could also be a resistor/load type of circuit applied to a single GAIN stage, but do we REALLY know that, or are we speculating? The fact that there are varying levels of feedback between LOW (more feedback) and HIGH (less feedback) seems to indicate to me that far more than a switched resistor circuit in play.

Maybe I'm a dumbass, and I'm certainly not an audio engineer, so I'm willing to say that I don't know if High Gain is a boosted Low Gain, or if Low Gain is a throttled High Gain. I also don't think @Jason Stoddard has ever really discussed the specifics of his LOW/HIGH GAIN design.

BTW -- I contacted Schiit support regarding the their implementation of LOW and HIGH Gain several months ago and never got an answer.


PS -- In the end, does it really matter? Just go with whatever sounds best to you and drown out that nagging 'You must know' voice in your head with some nice Jazz music. It'll eventually give-up and go away -- if only for a while ...

See Jason's post #36324, where he indicates that the gain change is accomplished by changing the degree of negative feedback. For example [from Schiit website], Asgard2 has no overall feedback in high gain mode, and 12 dB feedback in low gain mode. That is why many amps have 'better' distortion numbers in low gain mode, but it does not mean that they sound better. Your listning results may vary.

 

[Derrick Swart]

Yeah, this has become a, "identify the engineers" test.

Guys, one of the reasons you put an amplifier in your system is to provide gain. High gain means more gain, low gain means less gain, but they're both providing gain.

(Yeah, there's impedance matching and a bunch'a other reasons, too, but let's keep it simple.)

Yes please, let the ears speak. Talking loudspeakers now: I had a similar matter but called dim (-18dB) on my bmc2. Because of loudness difference never could decide what sounded better. Usually dimmed with acoustic/classical/vocal music but with electronic music not. But also often i had no clue what was the setting...

 

[Ripper2860]

See Jason's post #36324, where he indicates that the gain change is accomplished by changing the degree of negative feedback. For example [from Schiit website], Asgard2 has no overall feedback in high gain mode, and 12 dB feedback in low gain mode. That is why many amps have 'better' distortion numbers in low gain mode, but it does not mean that they sound better. Your listning results may vary.

I saw that. So your saying the act of adding negative feedback reduces GAIN? If that's the case, then mystery solved. He did not explicitly state that so there's no way for the non-engineer to know that. I understood the use of negative feedback as a noise reduction method used by looping a portion of the output signal back for cancelling out of differences between input and output signal. I had no idea that negative feedback could be used to REDUCE GAIN. So to the non-engineer me, it seems that switching into LOW GAIN, merely introduces an additional or increased negative feedback circuit that results in reduced GAIN. By George, I think I've got it!!

Thanks!!

 

[sam6550a]

I saw that. So your saying the act of adding negative feedback reduces GAIN? If that's the case, then mystery solved. He did not explicitly state that so there's no way for the non-engineer to know that. I understood the use of negative feedback as a noise reduction method used by looping a portion of the output signal back for cancelling out of differences between input and output signal. I had no idea that negative feedback could be used to REDUCE GAIN. So to the non-engineer me, it seems that switching into LOW GAIN, merely introduces an additional or increased negative feedback circuit that results in reduced GAIN. By George, I think I've got it!!

Thanks!!

By definition, negative feedback reduces gain [it is NEGATIVE]. Negative feedback may be used to improve distortion numbers, but it also reduces gain [and signal to noise plus noise ratios]. So, I think you do understand the concept. As I said, your listening results may vary. Enjoy!

 

[Ableza]

You guys have been busy. I've nothing to add except to reiterate what I said earlier: just use whatever sounds best to you.

 

[Ableza]

I think I will write a rock song for engineers about feedback: "(Operating on the edge of) Run Away" It'll be great.

 

[judson_w]

My b-stock Fulla 2 is at the post office and should be in my mailbox by the time I get off work.

 

[sam6550a]

I think I will write a rock song for engineers about feedback: "(Operating on the edge of) Run Away" It'll be great.

I nominate Milli Ampere and Alec Tron to do the vocals.

 

[Oveja Negra]

I'll always thank Mike Portnoy for pointing me in their musical direction. Mikael A and company rule.

Me too, besides Portnoy, I was a regular poster at Petrucci's forum. I lost the count about how many amazing artists I discovered thanks to the suggestions from other forum members. For that very reason & all the laugh and great moments with the cool guys over there, that forum (now dead) always will be one of my best internet memories

 

[yonson]

Me too, besides Portnoy, I was a regular poster at Petrucci's forum. I lost the count about how many amazing artists I discovered thanks to the suggestions from other forum members. For that very reason & all the laugh and great moments with the cool guys over there, that forum (now dead) always will be one of my best internet memories

I've been a huge DT fan since the '90's and follow all the guys side projects as well, amazing musicians all of them...

Even Max Portnoy (Mikes son) has put out some great stuff...

 

[mithrandir38]

Me too, besides Portnoy, I was a regular poster at Petrucci's forum. I lost the count about how many amazing artists I discovered thanks to the suggestions from other forum members. For that very reason & all the laugh and great moments with the cool guys over there, that forum (now dead) always will be one of my best internet memories

As an aside, you might wanna check out Nili Brosh, if you haven't heard of her. She's a protege of Tony Macalpine. A really talented instrumental songwriter with tons of technique

 

[Oveja Negra]

As an aside, you might wanna check out Nili Brosh, if you haven't heard of her. She's a protege of Tony Macalpine. A really talented instrumental songwriter with tons of technique

Thanks for the suggestion, I wasn't aware of her. At first I thought she was going to be another Malmsteen's clone, but it seems she is more into fusion/progressive metal? if so, very cool. I'll check out more of her later.

 

[mithrandir38]

Thanks for the suggestion, I wasn't aware of her. At first I thought she was going to be another Malmsteen's clone, but it seems she is more into fusion/progressive metal? if so, very cool. I'll check out more of her later.

Cool man. She definitely falls on the heavy Fusion side. A Matter of Perception is one of my favorite instrumental albums of the last several years.