[Rowethren]

Still only just comfortable for me. Much better in 28-34 degrees
Then we get the Aussie summer 40+ degree days ... that's good beer drinking weather

I went to the Dordogne for 2 weeks a couple of years ago for a summer holiday and it was around 38°C every day. Honestly, I struggled but then I am a English with a mix of Scottish so my roots are firmly in the cooler temperatures... Still had a very memorable time but it did involve jumping from shadow to shadow and staying in air conditioned areas as much as possible!

 

[DougD]

Some questions for fans of tubed gear (*): The arrival of Freya+ gives us a high-quality tubed preamp at a compelling price.

Q1: Does this change the future landscape for headphone amps with tubes?

Q2: Is there a significant SQ difference when the tubes are in preamp vs in the headphone (power) amp?

Q3: I'm guessing (for Q2) that there's more synergy with tubes in a power amp, for better or worse. More upside/downside leverage for happy/unhappy sound changes, so to speak. If that's true, does having the tubes in the preamp reduce the risk of going down the tube-rolling rabbit hole, and finding madness, bankruptcy & divorce at the bottom of said hole?

Q4: In general, is a tube preamp paired with a tube headphone amp too much of a good thing?

My underlying thought in posing these questions is that, everything else being equal, having tubes in the preamp gives fabulous flexibility. With a flip of the switch on the preamp, you can have solid-state sound or tube sound. One preamp does this for every amp you own, each amp can get some degree of tubiness.

(I'm assuming that, given enough input and output connectors on the preamp, at their main listening station most people would have one preamp they'd use more or less permanently as the central control unit. But you might have 2 or 3 amps hooked up at any given time, from your museum collection of amplifiers that seemed like a good idea at the time.)

(* I have one cheap tubed amp, a Project Sunrise III. I hardly ever use it anymore, and even less often try to swap in other tubes for experimental purposes. I've found that to be more hassle than fun; a distraction from listening to the music. So I have very little real experience with tubes or gear with tubes. Hence the questions.)

 

[tincanear]

Some questions for fans of tubed gear (*): The arrival of Freya+ gives us a high-quality tubed preamp at a compelling price.

Q1: Does this change the future landscape for headphone amps with tubes?

Q2: Is there a significant SQ difference when the tubes are in preamp vs in the headphone (power) amp?

Q3: I'm guessing (for Q2) that there's more synergy with tubes in a power amp, for better or worse. More upside/downside leverage for happy/unhappy sound changes, so to speak. If that's true, does having the tubes in the preamp reduce the risk of going down the tube-rolling rabbit hole, and finding madness, bankruptcy & divorce at the bottom of said hole?

Q4: In general, is a tube preamp paired with a tube headphone amp too much of a good thing?

My underlying thought in posing these questions is that, everything else being equal, having tubes in the preamp gives fabulous flexibility. With a flip of the switch on the preamp, you can have solid-state sound or tube sound. One preamp does this for every amp you own, each amp can get some degree of tubiness.

(I'm assuming that, given enough input and output connectors on the preamp, at their main listening station most people would have one preamp they'd use more or less permanently as the central control unit. But you might have 2 or 3 amps hooked up at any given time, from your museum collection of amplifiers that seemed like a good idea at the time.)

(* I have one cheap tubed amp, a Project Sunrise III. I hardly ever use it anymore, and even less often try to swap in other tubes for experimental purposes. I've found that to be more hassle than fun; a distraction from listening to the music. So I have very little real experience with tubes or gear with tubes. Hence the questions.)

presently, the Schiit line-up includes four HP amps with tubes, the Valhalla 2 which is all-tube, and the other 3 (Vali, Lyr 3, and Mjolnir 2) are tube / solid-state hybrids. Additionally, if one were to use a Freya+ as their primary control center with the benefit of being able to select from Solid-State or tube hybrid gain on the fly, they would also undesirably introduce an additional gain stage and volume control from the HP amp in the signal path.

@Jason Stoddard how about offering a solid state buffer headphone driver for use with your Saga / Freya pre-amps (no input switching, no volume control, fixed gain 1 ~ 1.5 range)? Mjolnir level performance in a mid-size chassis. Nexus, Balanced out (optimized for high impedance phones) or SE (optimized for low impedance phones). Continuity.

 

[Timster]

I went to the Dordogne for 2 weeks a couple of years ago for a summer holiday and it was around 38°C every day. Honestly, I struggled but then I am a English with a mix of Scottish so my roots are firmly in the cooler temperatures... Still had a very memorable time but it did involve jumping from shadow to shadow and staying in air conditioned areas as much as possible!

... and of course the temps are measured in the shade (stevenson screen) so in the sun it's usually quite a bit hotter!
Would have been a great holiday down in the Dordogne, I'm sure the food and wine were superb

 

[basstrombone]

I'm so old I was the bass trombonist on the Procul Harum Live album. It was recorded in 1971 but there was no Robin Trower in the band at that time. My biggest thrill (aside from hearing Conquistador incessantly on the radio for the next year) was driving legendary engineer Wally Heider to the airport after the performance. I was driving a tiny Renault 10 and Mr. Heider barely fit but his stories of famous recordings were thrilling.
The Bon Jovi references are also close to me. Slippery When Wet was recorded at Little Mountain Sound in Vancouver, a studio I worked in through the seventies and eighties. And the producer of Slippery When Wet, Bruce Fairbairn and I played in a community band in the sixties; he was a trumpet player.
Bruce ended up owning an excellent studio built by drummer (and Bryan Adams' writing partner) Jim Vallance in which I recorded a big band jazz album a few months ago and which should have had its CD release in the Vancouver Jazz Festival this week.
I used to be the youngest member of any band but now I'm the oldest...

 

[macdonjh]

Big Block, Grease Monkey, Hip-Notica...

Yes, yes, and yes.

I've bought into what Jason has said in the past regarding it making more sense to use tubes in a preamp, but have the power amps be solid state, and I'm thrilled with Aegir, but other people ask about tube power amps.

I was happily listening that way for years. Then kids and their request for home theater... I just couldn't find a seven channel tube pre-amp.

You don't even want to know about north FL's humidity then. When you perspire it has nowhere to go. The very air itself is sweating here in August

Yeah, I'm reminded we don't have it so bad in east TX whenever we drive a bit further east. It's a whole other kind of humidity in LA, MS, AL and FL.

 

[Pedro Janeiro]

How its suppose to use Freya and Asgard? do i need turn the Asgard volume all the way up, and then control the volume in the pre amp?

 

[liamo]

I haven't heard enough Peter Green, tbh. Could you point me towards some of your favorites? Thanks

I’m not the biggest Peter Green fan but I always have Steady Rollin Man, Albatross and a few others on permanent rotation. A lot of the early Fleetwood Mac stuff has Peter playing the same 3 blues licks which is why I think he went a bit bonkers. Left to his own design I think he shines.

 

[liamo]

Bruce ended up owning an excellent studio built by drummer (and Bryan Adams' writing partner) Jim Vallance in which I recorded a big band jazz album a few months ago and which should have had its CD release in the Vancouver Jazz Festival this week.
I used to be the youngest member of any band but now I'm the oldest...

Please please point us to it when released.

 

[jcflox]

How its suppose to use Freya and Asgard? do i need turn the Asgard volume all the way up, and then control the volume in the pre amp?

I think it depends on what you're trying to achieve. For example, if you want to remotely control the volume, you would max the asgard and use freya to attenuate.

For me personally, I leave my freya on max, then use the ragnarok volume control. This is so I am getting max preamp tube gain from Freya when listening to headphones via Ragnarok.

 

[Pedro Janeiro]

Right now i have the Sys splitting the signal from my Bifrost 2 to Asgard 3 and Woo wa2. But im planning add the Freya + soon, and remove Sys from my system.
Then i can use Bifrost 2 connect directly witgh RCA cables to Woo wa2, to listen digital, and Freya + to Asgard 3 , with XLR cables to listen all sources when needed.
Just trying to figure out the best way to control the volume later.

 

[MtnMan307]

Bifrost 2 shipped this morning. I hope I’m done with DACs now.

 

[FLTWS]

Bifrost 2 shipped this morning. I hope I’m done with DACs now.

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

Bifrost 2 shipped this morning. I hope I’m done with DACs now.

One can dream

JC

 

[Ableza]

re: using a Freya or other preamp with a headphone amp. In general, this is not necessary since headphone amps (at least all of them from Schiit) are integrated amps with preamp functions built in. That being said, there is no reason why a user could not use a preamp with a headphone amp, and my advise is to set the headphone amp volume level to the max that does not induce clipping, and then control the volume using the preamp.