ArmchairPhilosopher
Headphoneus Supremus
OK. So Fedex was kind to me today, and delivered Gjallarhorn around noon. Unboxed, set it on top of Aegir, and let fly.
Chain is Bifrost 2, Lokius and FreyaS at 1x Nexus, the amp, and Martin Logan Motion 20is (4 ohm, 90 db/2.83 v/m sensitivity).
I initially cued up Hotel California (anniversary ed.) and hit GO with the same exact settings that I used last night with Lyr 3 at the end of the chain with my DCA Ether CX headphones. Initial volume was just about perfect for normal listening with Freya volume at 1 o'clock (digital volume on squeezebox out (Pi) is at max.
Initial impressions with Hotel California (track 1, eponymous), was that guitars were spot on, kick drum sounded right, soundstage very Aegir-esque, and overall very satisfying and fun. If I max volume out at 1x, it's too loud, and I haven't even thought about 4x as yet. Room is 500 square feet (46.5ish m2), and open to the kitchen on one side. Put it this way, the room has a 9' billiard table in the middle, which is kinda why we bought the house. So not small.
In general, after about 30 minutes worth of listening, this sounds really, really good. Jason deserves to be proud of this. I like it a lot, but it's going to take a week or three to figure out it vs. Aegir, frankly. I also want to try Rekkr on it, maybe @ArmchairPhilosopher will bring his down in a few weeks and we can listen to everything and see.
Seriously impressed. Will let it play for a while and get temps. Gjallarhorn does have taller feet on it, by the way.
@JamminVMI is the kind of guy who decides his house purchases around the dimensions of the pool table he's not actually using.
@Jason Stoddard is the kind of guy who designs an insanely competitively priced miniature power amp that can easily keep up with its bigger brother that costs more than twice as much yet in and of itself is still just as competitively priced, making the bigger options in his company's very own product lineup almost appear oversized and overpriced in comparison — and then actually releases the thing to market.
I guess what they say is true; this hobby really is brimming with weirdos and nut jobs.
No wonder I feel right at home.
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