[Derrick Swart]

Did you steal one of our projects?

it is a headphone stand!

 

[JLoud]

Some of us have lives. Others choose to merely exist. I CHOOSE TO LIVE!!!!

“Come with me if you want to live” in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.

 

[FLTWS]

“Come with me if you want to live” in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.

And likely used in other movies a few times over the years in various forms.

 

[bochawa]

Of course it won't be all Schiit and Emotiva. In fact, there will also be customer systems, headphones from our friends, crazy homebrew speakers, and tons of other stuff. We're shooting for a fun, casual show where you can stroll and enjoy, without a ton of pressure.

Now, that's not to say it won't be exciting on the Schiit side. We're definitely bringing the big guns: Tyr, Loki Max, and Folkvangr for sure. Probably at least a couple of other new things too, but I can't talk about those yet. We'll see what makes it for the show...big, small, or in-between!

Texas Audio Roundup
July 22-23
Austin, Texas

I can't attend, but I would love to read about a shootout / comparison of Tyr vs. the XPA HC-1. I'm in the market for monoblocks to power my Magnepan 1.7i speakers.

 

[quasor]

Someone is happy for tubez!!

 

[Les Strat]

Someone is happy for tubez!!

Lovely picture @quasor
I think my wife's reaction could be a little different when my Folkvangr arrives on Thursday

 

[skraggy1981]

I always knew Jason was a marketing genius, but I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla and the product placement is absolutely insane!

 

[AudioGal]

We're on tenterhooks here @AudioGal -well I certainly am...

Please tell us that you love your new Folkvangr

Coming up for air..... Sorry for the radio silence, it has been a busy holiday week and weekend with family and non-audio stuff.

Folkvangr - I'm with @ArmchairPhilosopher on this. An astounding amplifier that can deliver beautiful performance with the right headphones. Which is causing me some consternation as to which way to go with this. I suspect that anyone who has Sennheiser HD800s will be very happy with this amp, based on my listening with HD650s (I don't own HD800s - yet). Planars are gonna be a whole lot trickier. More on all this in a day or two.

Am I keeping it? Yep.
Am I fully happy with it yet? Not yet.
Do I see/hear promise with it? Oh, yeah. Do I ever.

Bottom line - This is the most high-end-ish, non-Schitt amplifier that I've bought from Schiit yet. Best performance out of it demands correct pairing of headphones to the amp. It will surprise you with what it will power with reasonable, but not exceptional, performance. And frustrate you at the same time because you can hear the promise with those same 'phones. Welcome to the true high-end experience. My wallet is gonna hate me for a while.

A music note:
One of my all time favorite audiophile recordings, back before audiophile became a dirty word, is the Sheffield Lab's "I've Got the Music In Me" featuring Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker. Originally recorded and released as a Direct To Disc vinyl record (Direct To Disc meaning that the output of the recording studio mixing console was plugged straight into the disc cutting lathe, run in real time) in 1974. The CD is directly from the back up 2 track tape that was recorded at the same time as they were cutting the record. Rehearse the hell out of the musicians over several weeks so that everyone could play four pieces of music without a single flubbed note, stuff everyone into a large recording studio at the same time, start the lathe as they're counting off the first tune, cross your fingers and hope for the best. None of this multitrack with overdubs, we'll fix it in the mix nonsense. Get it right the first time, all 4 tunes per album side. Old school.

So you have Thelma Houston's vocals at her peak, great back up singers, really awesome musicians backing them up, all in an excellent sounding room and recorded with the utmost attention to capturing everything in the most accurate way possible at the time. One of the things I listen for with this recording is the reverb from the room. It has a signature that is easy for me to pick out, with its sound and the decay as it tails off. The better the rig, the easier it is to hear this room sound and how it fills in the trailing sounds of the singers' vocals.

The CD is available on Qobuz if you want to give it a listen.


More to come, I need to do more listening, and probably buy another pair of headphones.

 

[Plautus001]

I always knew Jason was a marketing genius, but I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla and the product placement is absolutely insane!

Don't forget the movie, "Thor: Ragnarok" featuring Zeppelin.

 

[433521]

What kind of tubes is Jason sending with FV? There are a number of ruskie tubes selling for under ten dollars each on ebay if I've identified them correctly.

 

[FLTWS]

Coming up for air..... Sorry for the radio silence, it has been a busy holiday week and weekend with family and non-audio stuff.

Folkvangr - I'm with @ArmchairPhilosopher on this. An astounding amplifier that can deliver beautiful performance with the right headphones. Which is causing me some consternation as to which way to go with this. I suspect that anyone who has Sennheiser HD800s will be very happy with this amp, based on my listening with HD650s (I don't own HD800s - yet). Planars are gonna be a whole lot trickier. More on all this in a day or two.

Am I keeping it? Yep.
Am I fully happy with it yet? Not yet.
Do I see/hear promise with it? Oh, yeah. Do I ever.

Bottom line - This is the most high-end-ish, non-Schitt amplifier that I've bought from Schiit yet. Best performance out of it demands correct pairing of headphones to the amp. It will surprise you with what it will power with reasonable, but not exceptional, performance. And frustrate you at the same time because you can hear the promise with those same 'phones. Welcome to the true high-end experience. My wallet is gonna hate me for a while.

A music note:
One of my all time favorite audiophile recordings, back before audiophile became a dirty word, is the Sheffield Lab's "I've Got the Music In Me" featuring Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker. Originally recorded and released as a Direct To Disc vinyl record (Direct To Disc meaning that the output of the recording studio mixing console was plugged straight into the disc cutting lathe, run in real time) in 1974. The CD is directly from the back up 2 track tape that was recorded at the same time as they were cutting the record. Rehearse the hell out of the musicians over several weeks so that everyone could play four pieces of music without a single flubbed note, stuff everyone into a large recording studio at the same time, start the lathe as they're counting off the first tune, cross your fingers and hope for the best. None of this multitrack with overdubs, we'll fix it in the mix nonsense. Get it right the first time, all 4 tunes per album side. Old school.

So you have Thelma Houston's vocals at her peak, great back up singers, really awesome musicians backing them up, all in an excellent sounding room and recorded with the utmost attention to capturing everything in the most accurate way possible at the time. One of the things I listen for with this recording is the reverb from the room. It has a signature that is easy for me to pick out, with its sound and the decay as it tails off. The better the rig, the easier it is to hear this room sound and how it fills in the trailing sounds of the singers' vocals.

The CD is available on Qobuz if you want to give it a listen.


More to come, I need to do more listening, and probably buy another pair of headphones.

I had most of the Sheffield LP's (sold years ago) and replaced several with the CD issues in the late 90's. They were always "pick of the litter" for SQ.

I still enjoy the hell out of both my HD800 and HD800S, and it's tough to find a more comfortable HP out there. While no longer the darling of the headphone cognoscenti, when used with OTL's that seem to like to look at higher impedance transducers, and for music reproduction of acoustic instrument (s) playback, I still feel the HD800's shine with appropriate gear in the electronics chain.

It will be interesting to me to find out which of the many planar magnetic's out there couple successfully with FV per posters here. I will not be buying one, I have only one more tube type to yet experience in a headphone amp and that's the 300B. Some day, I hope.

 

[artur9]

... An astounding amplifier that can deliver beautiful performance with the right headphones ...

Makes me wonder what headphones @Jason Stoddard and the other Folkvangr creators used when they were developing them. Has anyone said?

More to come, I need to do more listening, and probably buy another pair of headphones.

Hey! you're in luck. I hear the market for headphones is exploding with new ones becoming available all the time :-D

 

[Roy G. Biv]

@AudioGal Thanks for the Thelma Houston tip. Nice!

 

[Plautus001]

Coming up for air..... Sorry for the radio silence, it has been a busy holiday week and weekend with family and non-audio stuff.

Folkvangr - I'm with @ArmchairPhilosopher on this. An astounding amplifier that can deliver beautiful performance with the right headphones. Which is causing me some consternation as to which way to go with this. I suspect that anyone who has Sennheiser HD800s will be very happy with this amp, based on my listening with HD650s (I don't own HD800s - yet). Planars are gonna be a whole lot trickier. More on all this in a day or two.

Am I keeping it? Yep.
Am I fully happy with it yet? Not yet.
Do I see/hear promise with it? Oh, yeah. Do I ever.

Bottom line - This is the most high-end-ish, non-Schitt amplifier that I've bought from Schiit yet. Best performance out of it demands correct pairing of headphones to the amp. It will surprise you with what it will power with reasonable, but not exceptional, performance. And frustrate you at the same time because you can hear the promise with those same 'phones. Welcome to the true high-end experience. My wallet is gonna hate me for a while.

A music note:
One of my all time favorite audiophile recordings, back before audiophile became a dirty word, is the Sheffield Lab's "I've Got the Music In Me" featuring Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker. Originally recorded and released as a Direct To Disc vinyl record (Direct To Disc meaning that the output of the recording studio mixing console was plugged straight into the disc cutting lathe, run in real time) in 1974. The CD is directly from the back up 2 track tape that was recorded at the same time as they were cutting the record. Rehearse the hell out of the musicians over several weeks so that everyone could play four pieces of music without a single flubbed note, stuff everyone into a large recording studio at the same time, start the lathe as they're counting off the first tune, cross your fingers and hope for the best. None of this multitrack with overdubs, we'll fix it in the mix nonsense. Get it right the first time, all 4 tunes per album side. Old school.

So you have Thelma Houston's vocals at her peak, great back up singers, really awesome musicians backing them up, all in an excellent sounding room and recorded with the utmost attention to capturing everything in the most accurate way possible at the time. One of the things I listen for with this recording is the reverb from the room. It has a signature that is easy for me to pick out, with its sound and the decay as it tails off. The better the rig, the easier it is to hear this room sound and how it fills in the trailing sounds of the singers' vocals.

The CD is available on Qobuz if you want to give it a listen.


More to come, I need to do more listening, and probably buy another pair of headphones.

My.old boss at Speaker City had boxes and boxes of that album, when my brother bought him out in the early 2000s the albums weren't part of the deal : (

 

[Orange5o]

I've concluded based on another forum member having the identical issue and it being a quality cable used on 3 separate devices using 3 separate OS's that it is the Gungnir.

Kudos to Schiit, they sent me a return label, and about an hour after I told them I dropped the faulty unit at FedEx they sent me tracking on the replacement.