Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up
Feb 7, 2023 at 4:54 PM Post #110,104 of 145,769
Feb 7, 2023 at 5:09 PM Post #110,105 of 145,769
I had a surprising listening experience the other night. I was streaming the movie You People on Netflix, and whenever a song was played, I got a very wide soundstage, with music extending way past the edges of the speakers. This was in a near field set up, with the speakers about 2 feet apart. (my renovation set up)
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 5:32 PM Post #110,106 of 145,769
Please allow me to introduce the newest addition to my permanent collection of Schiit:

IMG_4594.jpeg

This OG Asgard (Yep, OG. As in: non-2, non-3, just plain Asgard!) is a recent eBay find. Was listed as "mint condition but not working, parts only." And since the OG Asgard has a relatively simple topology (and should thus be relatively easy for me to diagnose) and is entirely through-hole (and thus it's relatively easy to replace components) I thought to myself: Neat, an amp I can screw around with and practice on! And so I clicked "buy now."

Two days later, the box arrives at my door.
I open it up…
Inside the generic USPS box, I am greeted by a manual that looks so pristine, it might just as well have been printed last week. The power chord still has all the tags and labels on it. And what's that in the little plastic ziplock bag, next to that ¼" to 3.5mm adapter? Wait, are those the original stick-on feet, still unused?

Then I lift the amp out of the box, flanked on both sides by what looks like the original foam, neatly wrapped inside its original plastic sleeve. The plastic sleeve was clearly opened before, but with so much care that the Schiit seal/sticker still looked almost brand new, too.

I take the amp out of the sleeve — and can barely believe my eyes. The thing looks brand new. No, seriously, not a single scratch, not one ding, no glue residue where any stick-on feet may have been—nothing! Not a single mark or any indication of use anywhere to be found.

Wow, someone must have really treasured this thing. Too bad that it eventually broke and they had to part ways with it.

Maybe I can already get a rough idea why it broke. If the prior owner let the magic smoke out, I should at least see some "schiit stains," or maybe a blown or bloated cap or something?

So I open the thing up for a quick first glance.

Nothing.

Other than what looks like ten years worth of dust, of course. But that's nothing a few strategically applied puffs of canned air can't fix.

But the rest? Looks absolutely pristine. No blown or even just slightly bloated caps, no schiit stains, no scorched resistors or diodes, no…
…wait…
…what's that…

…no, that can't possibly be it, can it?

Right there, next to the power socket, it stares me right in the face: The fuse, one end still squarely where it belongs, but the other end popped straight up and out of its holder!?
And so I take the fuse out entirely, bend the two prongs of the fuse holder's one pole that got a bit loose back together again to give it back it's original clamping force, and snap the fuse back into place.

Well, let's see if this fixed it…

So I grab my trusty variac, plug everything in, switch everything on — and slooooowly raise the voltage.
20V…
40V…
60V…no magic smoke yet!
80V…
*click* — There's the relay for the muting circuit! So I guess the amp is still able to put itself into what it thinks should be proper operating conditions.
100V…
120V…
Hm. Gets a little toasty around the transistors. But that's par for the course with class A, so I take this as a good sign. Still no smoke, either!

OK, then. So far, so good.
I switch everything back off.

Next step: Signal generator and scope.
Let's put a sine wave in at one end and see what comes out the other.
Hm… Both channels look perfectly clean. And both show the same gain characteristics.
Neat!

Well, let's try an actual audio signal. So into my "cheap ass schiit" test chain it goes.

Hm. Sounds good to me…
Well, "good" within the limits of the relatively "meh" components that I use for that test chain.

Should I dare try this thing with my main headphone chain? Let's try Gumby first, but still just the cheap headphones I don't care about.

Works just fine.

So, up the ladder of "dearness" I go with my headphones, one by one…
Still perfectly fine.

And so now here we are: A basically "brand new" OG Asgard has joined my collection of Schiit. Sounds magnificent, too!

I just hope the original owner doesn't read this thread. I'd rather he didn't know that he parted with a perfectly good amp that he clearly treasured for a long, long time.


A question for @Jason Stoddard: With a serial number in the 950s, how old would you guess might this OG Asgard be? I don't assume it's one of the VERY early ones that were built at your house, though, right?

Absolutely a garage build. We built well over a thousand of them in the garage.
Wow, is that kind of like finding a Barry Bonds rookie card in your sock drawer?

There are some very wealthy boneheads out there. Mostly inherited, I think...
Wealth? Bone-headedness? Both?
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 6:35 PM Post #110,107 of 145,769
For those of you who routinely compare vinyl to digital, do pressings of modern recordings have that dynamic range compression crap showing up on the vinyl version too?

There are some great albums I never listen to like Tony Bennett and Diana Krall "Love is Here to Stay". The recording sounds like ass and the "audio engineer" who did it should be shot for ruining such a great opportunity.
Depends on the particular recording, mostly. The dynamic swings on the LP version of Dire Straits “On The Night” blow away the CD and streaming versions. Some LP’s though are easily blown away by the digital version.

One thing that I’ve yet to find disappointing is a 45 RPM LP, usually devoted to a single track or couple tracks. Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush “Don’t Give Up”, Fine Young Cannibals “She Drives Me Crazy,” even Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Relax” are totally awesome on those LP’s, and seriously surpass any digital version I’ve heard.
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 7:10 PM Post #110,108 of 145,769
Please allow me to introduce the newest addition to my permanent collection of Schiit:

IMG_4594.jpeg

This OG Asgard (Yep, OG. As in: non-2, non-3, just plain Asgard!) is a recent eBay find. Was listed as "mint condition but not working, parts only." And since the OG Asgard has a relatively simple topology (and should thus be relatively easy for me to diagnose) and is entirely through-hole (and thus it's relatively easy to replace components) I thought to myself: Neat, an amp I can screw around with and practice on! And so I clicked "buy now."

Two days later, the box arrives at my door.
I open it up…
Inside the generic USPS box, I am greeted by a manual that looks so pristine, it might just as well have been printed last week. The power chord still has all the tags and labels on it. And what's that in the little plastic ziplock bag, next to that ¼" to 3.5mm adapter? Wait, are those the original stick-on feet, still unused?

Then I lift the amp out of the box, flanked on both sides by what looks like the original foam, neatly wrapped inside its original plastic sleeve. The plastic sleeve was clearly opened before, but with so much care that the Schiit seal/sticker still looked almost brand new, too.

I take the amp out of the sleeve — and can barely believe my eyes. The thing looks brand new. No, seriously, not a single scratch, not one ding, no glue residue where any stick-on feet may have been—nothing! Not a single mark or any indication of use anywhere to be found.

Wow, someone must have really treasured this thing. Too bad that it eventually broke and they had to part ways with it.

Maybe I can already get a rough idea why it broke. If the prior owner let the magic smoke out, I should at least see some "schiit stains," or maybe a blown or bloated cap or something?

So I open the thing up for a quick first glance.

Nothing.

Other than what looks like ten years worth of dust, of course. But that's nothing a few strategically applied puffs of canned air can't fix.

But the rest? Looks absolutely pristine. No blown or even just slightly bloated caps, no schiit stains, no scorched resistors or diodes, no…
…wait…
…what's that…

…no, that can't possibly be it, can it?

Right there, next to the power socket, it stares me right in the face: The fuse, one end still squarely where it belongs, but the other end popped straight up and out of its holder!?
And so I take the fuse out entirely, bend the two prongs of the fuse holder's one pole that got a bit loose back together again to give it back it's original clamping force, and snap the fuse back into place.

Well, let's see if this fixed it…

So I grab my trusty variac, plug everything in, switch everything on — and slooooowly raise the voltage.
20V…
40V…
60V…no magic smoke yet!
80V…
*click* — There's the relay for the muting circuit! So I guess the amp is still able to put itself into what it thinks should be proper operating conditions.
100V…
120V…
Hm. Gets a little toasty around the transistors. But that's par for the course with class A, so I take this as a good sign. Still no smoke, either!

OK, then. So far, so good.
I switch everything back off.

Next step: Signal generator and scope.
Let's put a sine wave in at one end and see what comes out the other.
Hm… Both channels look perfectly clean. And both show the same gain characteristics.
Neat!

Well, let's try an actual audio signal. So into my "cheap ass schiit" test chain it goes.

Hm. Sounds good to me…
Well, "good" within the limits of the relatively "meh" components that I use for that test chain.

Should I dare try this thing with my main headphone chain? Let's try Gumby first, but still just the cheap headphones I don't care about.

Works just fine.

So, up the ladder of "dearness" I go with my headphones, one by one…
Still perfectly fine.

And so now here we are: A basically "brand new" OG Asgard has joined my collection of Schiit. Sounds magnificent, too!

I just hope the original owner doesn't read this thread. I'd rather he didn't know that he parted with a perfectly good amp that he clearly treasured for a long, long time.


A question for @Jason Stoddard: With a serial number in the 950s, how old would you guess might this OG Asgard be? I don't assume it's one of the VERY early ones that were built at your house, though, right?
Just looked at mine... 000112

Works great, only paid $150 CDN a few years back because previous owner melted some wax on it...
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 7:56 PM Post #110,109 of 145,769
Wow, is that kind of like finding a Barry Bonds rookie card in your sock drawer?


Wealth? Bone-headedness? Both?
I have met one or two people whose impending inheritance robbed them of desire to learn how life actually works. Bone-headed? Or simply unwilling to improve their awareness?
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 7:57 PM Post #110,110 of 145,769
One of my favorite live releases ever, Jerry Garcia Band from 1990, was recently released on lp and it has NO SURFACE NOISE!

As silent as a digital stream! Wow.
It looks more or less like ampsandsound but half the price.

How well would transformers hold up over time in the mass produced ones from Denon and Ortofon (mass being relative) in the 70s?
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 8:22 PM Post #110,111 of 145,769
SUT? Ah yes...The Sumbawanga Airport...Or something else...:L3000: The NoK (The Nod of Knowledge) is yours sir! I have no clue as to what SUT means. Some might claim Sport Utility Truck but I am think more international, hence the airport reference.

ORT
Step Up Transformer, ORT. It's a pre-pre-amp for low output moving coil carts. The output of the SUT goes into the moving magnet inputs of one's phono pre-amplifier.
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 9:05 PM Post #110,112 of 145,769
I rarely buy current releases on vinyl. I do buy reissued/remastered LP's of stuff that I wasn't able to appreciate in my youth.

I figure that if something was recorded digitally, why not replay it back that way too?

That being said, I did buy Brian Eno and Weyes Blood's newest releases on vinyl. They both sound superb.

I had to get the Weyes Blood LP, "And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow." It was the first thing I saw coming through the door of the record store, after an extended absence. I think that our @OldRoadToad would like this album. Many of the songs sound like 70's SoCal/Laurel Canyon, for those of you who may not be familiar with this release.
Thank for the Weyes Blood mention…listening now and loving it. As a 70’s kid myself, I’m really liking the sound and was not familiar with this artist!! 👍
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 10:07 PM Post #110,113 of 145,769
Depends on the particular recording, mostly. The dynamic swings on the LP version of Dire Straits “On The Night” blow away the CD and streaming versions. Some LP’s though are easily blown away by the digital version.

One thing that I’ve yet to find disappointing is a 45 RPM LP, usually devoted to a single track or couple tracks. Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush “Don’t Give Up”, Fine Young Cannibals “She Drives Me Crazy,” even Frankie Goes To Hollywood “Relax” are totally awesome on those LP’s, and seriously surpass any digital version I’ve heard.
You are starting to make sense!! Or maybe I should lessen my scotch intake. 🤔
 
Feb 7, 2023 at 10:49 PM Post #110,114 of 145,769
Step Up Transformer, ORT. It's a pre-pre-amp for low output moving coil carts. The output of the SUT goes into the moving magnet inputs of one's phono pre-amplifier.
While there can be exceptions, in most setups the output of the (lower gain) MM stage is fed to the primary side of the step up transformers which subsequently “step up“ the gain and output it on the secondary side. Really good SU transformers do this with very little or nearly inaudible impact to the original signal, but really good SUT’s are also not cheap.
 
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Feb 7, 2023 at 10:56 PM Post #110,115 of 145,769
You are starting to make sense!! Or maybe I should lessen my scotch intake. 🤔
I had a few Belvedere’s on the rocks tonight, and I must say they weren’t bad at all. Not quite to the level of the 23 year Pappy I had on Sunday, but then not as expensive either. Trade show parties can be fun if you get invited to the right one. :sweat_smile::sweat_smile:



FD893C7D-3497-4395-9435-A1C267A7BECF.jpeg
 
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