[Jason Stoddard]

Some good news: silver tops for Kara are in! Which means you can now order silver.

Elvis tells me the shipping date of December 15 is looking good, but of course now that I said this, it probably will slip due to Jason's Law (any date I give is wrong).

No photos yet. Soon.

 

[Charente]

Thank-you all for your thoughts and ideas. I also remembered that I have a pair of LISST that I can use to test if the amp is OK, instead of tubes.

 

[Mike Foley]

I’ve picked up a second hand Cyrus Pre Xvx preamp to run into the man-cave Rekkrs. It sounds fantastic. These little power amps really are revealing of what you put into them.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Thank-you all for your thoughts and ideas. I also remembered that I have a pair of LISST that I can use to test if the amp is OK, instead of tubes.

That's what I'd do. Also if you're using a single input, swap inputs L and R to see if it's on the input side. If it follows the input swap, the problem isn't the amp.

Mjolnir 2 has shared tube power supplies except heaters...are both tubes lighting up? That's another thing to check.

 

[Charente]

That's what I'd do. Also if you're using a single input, swap inputs L and R to see if it's on the input side. If it follows the input swap, the problem isn't the amp.

Mjolnir 2 has shared tube power supplies except heaters...are both tubes lighting up? That's another thing to check.

Excellent thought ! Thank-you Jason.

 

[Adam Balm]

Some good news: silver tops for Kara are in! Which means you can now order silver.

Elvis tells me the shipping date of December 15 is looking good, but of course now that I said this, it probably will slip due to Jason's Law (any date I give is wrong).

No photos yet. Soon.

Just now hit the ATC button for mine. Woo-Hoo!

 

[Jason Stoddard]

 

[HWB3]

You need not go down the rabbit hole of buying a dozen heirloom NOS tubes, like @bcowen. But if you do, he can give you great advice. I have the tong sol 6SN7, and an rca 6CG7 of some vintage.(That is NOS,]@Bowen likely knows more about it than I do.) To my ears, these tubes transform the vali 2 from something nice to something very special.

I bought a WE 396A tube for my Vali 2 ++ one evening after a few adult beverages. I got it and thought that it sounded fine but posted the values that it tested at and saying that it was French to me (sorry to our friends from France). He explained transconductance values and what the readings meant. Being new to tubes, it was a lesson. The tube went back, and I got a better testing one, but he is just one of the great resources on this site.

 

[DougD]

We're also debating this. The second run is pretty much sold out in advance of our shipping any. How does everyone feel about continuing this one, even though I said it was limited? Is that a cheat? Or just a logical response to a popular product?

I know I want a Mjolnir 3 ... but due to other "needs" (a ZMF h/p & a modern estats amp, followed by an URD, a Syn + amp/s, a Loki Max, etc) ... realistically I'm a few years from hitting the BUY button.

IMO, from what I read, Mjolnir can be as much of a "brand statement" product for h/p amps as Yggy is for DACs. As long as they keep selling, Schiit should certainly keep making & selling them.

 

[DougD]

Folkvangr is a different case. That one was done as an intentionally limited run to use up a bunch of tubes. Which it did. If we did another run, it might cut into tube supply too much given that we're planning a Valhalla 3. Which may not be that big of a deal, because tubes are still kinda on the outs with many people, so all tube stuff is, ah, less pressing than it once was.

Love my Folkvangr.

It would be REALLY GOOD (IMO) if Schiit could offer a LISST for every flavor of tube you use in Schiit products.

And maybe even for other audiophile tubes that are getting rare and/or expensive as NOS.

#1 - reduces tube anxiety for those of us *cough*bcowen*cough that don't have closets full of vintage tubes collected in our more youthful days.

#2 - less expensive alternative for times when we are not necessarily doing focused, critical listening.

#3 - potentially reduces worldwide consumption of the ever-rarer golden era vintage tubes. (When vintage tubes go extinct, so do the devices that subsist on that niche diet.)

I know the original LISSTs didn't fly off the shelves, but with some WOM aimed outside of the normal fanboi cohort, steady sales could be possible.

Looking forward to the end of year write-up, hopefully with a few little teasers for 2024.

 

[Cliffh93]

The Old Man and the Aegirs

I'm a sucker for a deal, and I've been thinking about setting up monoblocks for my Freya pre-amp for a while, at least since @dstrimbu shared his experiences with his dual Aegir setup last summer. The Brown Wednesday email was just the catalyst I needed.

So while I wait for them to make their way across the country, I looked up @Jason Stoddard 's article when he intro'd them in late 2018 to help pass the time. It's a bit disorienting to read about what was a truly advanced audio product in 2018 has now become Brown Wednesday fodder in 2023. But such is the circle of life, I guess.

What really struck me in that article was Jason's comment that he would never do another Class A amp - Continuity was that superior to it. Wow, I guess Mjolnir 3 took a hammer to that statement.

So I thought, 'hmm, did he try Continuity in that design, and then discarded it for some reason?' I recalled that he tried and discarded a lot of things in Mjolnir 3's development, so I looked that article back up and re-read it. No, lots of Nexus and wobbly tubes, but no Continuity.

Would using Continuity here have been too close to the Lyr? Maybe, but aren't the chokes (and the feedback and push/pull switches) the true differentiator in the Mjolnir 3?
All this rumination over Class A leads to another question - Could that be coming to the Aegir 2? Jason also tried fitting chokes into the original Aegir but there was no room for them due to using the Vidar chassis. But if you switched to the Ragnorak or Tyr chassis....

I'm sure whatever's coming with the Aegir 2 will be more cool/better/faster, but possibly until they get their turn in Last Call section I will be kicking it with Continuity.

 

[Moondog55]

I bought a WE 396A tube for my Vali 2 ++ one evening after a few adult beverages. I got it and thought that it sounded fine but posted the values that it tested at and saying that it was French to me (sorry to our friends from France). He explained transconductance values and what the readings meant. Being new to tubes, it was a lesson. The tube went back, and I got a better testing one, but he is just one of the great resources on this site.

I buy 'heirloom' NOS tubes but it's one of this, one of that. bcowen buys 'em by the cases in cardboard boxes and Paladin79 has the corner on the market (insider trading).

 

[NewSchiithead]

ARRRRRGGHHHH, CAN'T RESIST! Must Get Yiggie to go with MJ3. Must! This wasn't the plan at all, but the closeouts are just too tempting. Especially since you can get it with a Unison board for a mere hundred more.

I am starting to see why some of you have so much Schiit sitting around...

 

[Moondog55]

It's Christmas time, all I want is a power amp with EL34 output and choices for input..6SN7, 12A*7, 6922......

 

[wolfhill138]

Apologies if this has been answered, but is Midgard getting the silver treatment eventually, or black only?