Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up

[Ableza]

I would have bought a third one too just to drive my subwoofer.
I'm passing on it because my wallet is waiting for silver Stjarnas to become available...oh well.

I wouldn't waste a Tyr on a subwoofer. There are more suitable amps for the limited bandwidth of a sub...

 

[BeyerMonster]

Interesting, didn't Jason state that the Yggdrasil MIB was still better than Gungnir 2 in the previous chapter? Granted like you said "at least for (his) speakers" Gungnir 2 is better.

If you search, you can find articles detailing some of the experiments held at the Schiitr comparing OG Yggy, LIM, MIB.
There is never 100% consensus.
If you wait for upgrades to get "the best thing", it's a fruitless exercise as best is always in the eye of the beholder.
System synergy is a thing, but at some point, just sit back and enjoy the music.

 

[Adam Balm]

I wouldn't waste a Tyr on a subwoofer. There are more suitable amps for the limited bandwidth of a sub...

So true that.

 

[Syan25]

Yup...you better!

Cheers!

The Old Man Season 2 is great so far. Ep. 2 done.

 

[VoTT]

2024 Chapter 13
Bring Back Big


The first amp I ever worked on was the Sumo Andromeda 2.

This was a giant bruiser of an amp, a 7” tall, 19” wide, 16” deep, 50 lb beast that did 200W into 8 ohms—stereo. It was one of the few amps that could drive the Infinity Kappa 9s, an audiophile speaker in vogue at the time.

Aside: Think a pair of Tyrs, sans chokes, in one chassis with a single big transformer. That’s Andromeda 2, pretty much.​

Now, by “worked on,” I mean, I fixed some issues with the original amp design, making it more reliable and producible, and then, a couple years later, I moved it forward to Andromeda 3, with more power, a new simplified topology (ironically, it was Supersymmetry before that became a thing, I just did it because it saved parts, but hey, oh well, there you go), and no overall loop feedback, because the amp had error correction and didn’t need it to make its numbers, including it’s insane 200A peak current capability.

Why do I bring this up now?

Well, there’s the new Wotan, which, at first blush, seems very much like a modern Andromeda 3. But that’s a bit like saying a 2024 Corvette is much like a 1964 Corvette, in terms of technology.

But then there’s the other thing. Which is, even though Sumo made smaller, less expensive amps—amps that were 1/2 and 1/3 the cost of Andromeda 3, amps that included the Polaris 2, a 120W stereo/400W mono amp like Vidar—Andromeda always killed them, sales-wise.

And I mean, annihilated. We sold 8x more Andromedas than Polarises. Despite one being $799 and one $1699. And one being huge and crazy and unwieldy and rated less than two Polarii!

Why?

Let’s start there.



The Magnepan Epiphany

Show, don’t tell, they say. And they’re right. So let’s look at what happened when we first ran Wotan in the lab at Schiit Corpus:

“Holy hell,” Tyler yelled, pressing his hands over his ears. “I’ve never heard the LRSes do that!”

“They have bass,” Evan added, looking wonderingly at the slim speakers. “I mean, bass bass. Actual real bass.”

Other staff literally ran out of shipping, customer service, and production, to see what was making all the racket. They stared at the LRSes, for a moment uncomfortably like the protohumans in 2001 around the monolith.

“Why didn’t they ever sound like that before?” someone asked.

“Did they ever go that loud?” asked another.

“And clean!” added a third.

So what happened?

Wotan.

I mean, we’d all heard the LRSes in the lab before. They’re one of the speakers we use for testing, since they are relatively inefficient, and, to be frank, they can take a lot of abuse, in case an early, half-baked amp design has a big oopsie.

And we quickly learned the limits of each amp into the LRSes.

• Gjallarhorn wasn’t worth trying
• Aegir 2, despite the fact that it should be kinda-sorta fine at low volumes, was dire, sounding strained and unhappy most of the time
• Vidar 2 really woke them up—a good pairing
• Tyr, oh yeah Tyr, but that was a bit over the top, and maybe, in the end, maybe still just a tiny bit polite

But Wotan…holy hell. I mean, night and day.

It grabbed those little planars and shook them good. It produced prodigious volume with no sign of strain. And the bass—I mean, mentioning Magneplanars and bass usually elicits polite chuckles, but with Wotan, the tiniest Magneplanars went scary deep.

“No. No nope nada sorry,” someone says. “I refuse to believe an amplifier can make such a huge difference. All amplifiers sound the same when run under their clipping limit—”

No.

Let me stop you.

You weren’t there.

You didn’t hear this.

You didn’t see the people running out of other rooms in the building, unprompted, completely unaware of what we were doing. And you didn’t hear it carry on even at lower volume levels, giving the LRSes a richer, fuller, more dynamic presentation even when run quietly.

There is something special about big power. There is something that can’t be tied down to numbers, or calculations, or rationalizations about how if you’re just running it quiet, it shouldn’t matter.

“But I’ve run the calculations, and—”

Again, stop.

Try a big amp.

Better yet, build one.

Try some new things in audio.

Yes, even things you don’t think will make any difference. And then come back to me.

Aside: because that’s exactly what I did. I went from a stone-cold objectivist, thinking amps were only about power and distortion ratings, until I experienced firsthand an Andromeda 2 wiping the floor with another amp rated at almost twice its power.​

And that is why a big, high-power amp is fantastic to have. And that’s why Sumo sold a ton of them. Because it does make a difference. And, if you need the power, you always have it.

Now, of course, there are catches. If you don’t have the space for a big amp, it’s less exciting to have. If it has super-high gain and a high noise floor, hearing the hiss and hum may be a turn-off. And if it runs super-hot, it may not be something you want around.

But if those things aren’t an issue—and if the cost of this super-amp isn’t out of hand—then hey, you know…better to have it and not need it, right?




Why Not Tyr?

“But you guys already got Tyr, right?” someone asks. “Why not just go there?”

Well, bro, mainly because two Tyrs are a lot more expensive, a lot heavier, a lot more costly to ship, take up twice the space, and can cause additional nervosa. As in, do you choose long signal cables and short speaker cables, and vice-versa.

Face it, a $1999 stereo amp is a lot different from a $3298 mono amp stack, at least for sane people looking at semi-sane equipment at not-car-like prices.

Aside: and Tyr doesn’t have Forkbeard. When it does, it will come back a more expensive, because those chokes and transformers aren’t getting any cheaper…and we may have another trick or two up our sleeve.​

“Well, why not two Vidars, then?” someone else asks. “That’s cheaper and has more power. And then you get dual mono.”

Weeeeeeeeellll…rated as more power into 8 ohms, yes. But less capable in terms of heat management than Wotan, so if you’re running into 4 ohm Magnepans, you may be hitting thermal or current limits more quickly.

Aside: And two Vidars don’t sound as good as one Wotan on Magneplanars, so there’s that.​

Also, there’s the new tech in Wotan. Wotan is:

• Our first amp with Forkbeard. Yes, we also snuck it into Vidar 2 and Aegir 2 in a fairly major revision, but Wotan was designed from the start to be a Forkbeard amp. Which means that temperature monitoring, current monitoring, output meters, remote standby, remote feedback switching, remote input switching, and lots of other stuff started here.
• Our first dual mono amp. As in, real dual mono, all the way back to the wall. Wotan’s channels share nothing, not even transformers. This gives it a big leg up on the big Sumo amps I used to work on.
• Our first speaker amp with switchable feedback. Press a button, and you can make Wotan a no-feedback amp! This is, of course, no overall feedback. It retains a local loop around the gain and driver stage. Confused? Review our Feedback chapter.
• Our first speaker amp with nested feedback. Even with feedback turned on, Wotan only has about 8dB of overall feedback. That’s a tiny, tiny amount.
• Our first speaker amp with front panel switchable inputs. It may seem like a small thing, but Wotan allows you to use either RCA or XLR inputs, and switch them from the front panel. Also, since Wotan is a differential Nexus™ amplifier, it doesn’t care if you are using SE or balanced input. SE inputs are seamlessly converted by the inherently differential stage. Confused? Review our Balanced chapter.

“Oh boy!” someone is undoubtedly crying. “Ima gonna bridge this sucker and get a beeelion watts!”

In short: no you won’t.

Wotan, like Tyr (and Andromeda 2/3, and lots of giga-priced stuff) is an inherently differential amplifier. As in, both speaker output terminals are active. Neither is grounded. This is what true balanced, differential means.

It also means no bridging.

So yeah. Wotan is an inherently stereo amplifier. And that’s how you use it—as a single box that can drive pretty much everything.

“Ah, poop,” someone says. “I want the big power! Why not make it bridgeable?”

In short: boom.




Real Fireworks

Here’s the thing: when you’re going for big power, you have two choices:

• Big voltage rails, single-ended output
• Half the voltage rails, balanced differential output

How big are we talking? Well, in the case of a 200-250W rated amp, you’re looking at +/-80-90V main rails, and +/-100 or so for the boost rails.

Aside: main rails are what actually feed the output, boost rails are what feed the voltage gain and driver stage, so you can ensure the amp actually clips at the output—the cleanest way to do a big power amp.​

Sounds like a lot of volts? It is.

These big voltages have big ramifications, like:

• Your filter capacitor selection becomes much more limited—and smaller. 100V rated caps might not be enough for the main rails, which means you have to go to 160V—which means the caps get bigger, more expensive, and lower in value.
• Your output selection shrinks dramatically. You really need 200+V rated output devices, which means you only have a couple dozen to choose from these days.
• Your driver selection shrinks even more dramatically. In fact, you really only have a handful of options these days, unless you want to experiment with exotic SMD devices on a daughterboard with associated isothermal coupling to the heatsink.
• Stability becomes more interesting. The more voltage, the greater chance of thermal runaway, the higher likelihood of power hogging by one device, the bigger chance there will be big issues if something gets wonky.

Despite knowing this, I decided to start the prototyping with a single-ended design. In essence, a big Vidar. This had the big voltage rails as noted above. And, to underscore the capacitor changes needed, it had only about 54,000uF of filter capacitance, rather than the 180,000uF in the differential Wotan.

The result? It worked…

…for a while.

Then, with a firecracker-loud bang and a flash I saw from across the room, it went up in flames!

What happened? Probably power-hogging, where one device gets hotter and draws more current, which makes it get hotter and draw more current, which makes it get hotter…until boom.

So I tried again. This time I matched the output transistors more closely, watched cautiously for oscillation when the output was enabled, and stared at everything with a FLIR for several minutes.

Everything seemed OK, so I walked away.

BOOM!

Another flashbang.

And by “flashbang,” I mean, “something so loud that Cameron ran out of the next room to see what happened.”

I mean, we’ve had failures of our amps before, but I’d never seen anything like this. It was big, violent, and scary.

Still, I figured one more try…this time with a new PCB layout, with very closely matched outputs, with lower bias…watched closely for 10 minutes…everything seemed fine. So I left it running.

In the meantime, Dave, Cameron, and I were talking about some other issue—maybe Gungnir 2—while the amp was running on the bench beside us.

POP! BOOM! CRACK!

Flames literally shot out of one of the amp’s output devices. Cameron jumped 3 feet in the air. I just about crapped my pants. Dave just sat there unperturbed, then he laughed as the board caught fire.

Yeah.

After that, the board was unrecoverable. It was burnt so badly it had become conductive in places (due to carbonization of the board). But by then I’d got the message:

Three strikes, you’re out.



The problem was: what next?

“Why not just do a dual Tyr?” Cameron asked. “We never have problems with Tyr.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to do bigger power.”

Cameron frowned. “Bigger power like Vidar? So you get everyone buying two of them? And then hooking them up to 2 ohm speakers and complaining that they crap out in mono?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And do you really need more power than Tyr?” he pressed.

Which was true. Tyr had plenty of power. And Wotan would have a bit more power than Tyr, since it wouldn’t have a choke.

“They neeeeeeever break,” Cameron reminded me.

And, after the trauma of the expoding prototypes, that’s all I needed. Wotan would be a dual Tyr, sans choke, real dual mono, with all the cool tricks we could throw at it.

Easy, right?

Well, except for two things. One was that we needed new heatsink clips, because the drivers took up more space for a differential amp. Not a big deal, but it’s always best when we can share parts.

And—something I’d ignored up till then—heat.


This is Our Fan Base

I left out one of Wotan’s firsts above, because I knew it would be controversial. It’s also:

• Our first product with fans. Two smart fans, normally off, with algorithmic control of variable speed based on current temperature and temperature over time.

I can hear it now: “Fans? Oh gawd why? What’s wrong with you? Why do you hate us?”

Here’s why: because Wotan needs them.



Remember I mentioned Sumo’s Andromeda 2 and 3? They got away without fans, but at great cost. They were almost twice as big as Wotan. They also had 4 separate, very expensive heatsinks.

So why can’t we do this now?

Well, we could, but Wotan would cost a lot more. The bigger chassis would cost more. The new packaging would cost more. And the new, completely custom, low-volume heatsink would be a killer. We’d have to define a new extrusion, create a new heatsink, and order it only for Wotan. And then we’d have to store it, and the new huge packaging…argh.

Aside: all of our amps, from Vidar up, use the same exact heatsink. This isn’t by chance. This is one way we keep prices down. We really really don’t want to get away from this economy of scale.​

Also, let’s talk about another important reason why the Andromeda 2 and 3 didn’t have a fan: because fans back then sucked and were expensive.

Today, fans are quiet, reliable, and inexpensive, thanks to the myriad of products that use a wide range of fans. It’s a different world. So fans aren’t the horror they used to be.

And one more reason Andromeda 2 and 3 didn’t have fans: they didn’t have microprocessor management and intelligent oversight. Hell, over-current protection was by rail fuses—beyond rudimentary! Over-temperature protection was by mechanical thermostat!

Again, it’s a totally different world. Wotan continuously monitors current and temperature, with transparent electronic sensors, and reports in real time via its 32-bit microcontroller (and Forkbeard, if you choose that option) about system health. Any faults are seamlessly managed.

And, let’s be clear: during normal operation, Wotan’s fans are usually OFF.

As in, they only come on when needed.

And they start slow, and only ramp up as necessary.

So if you’re cranking it on a hot day and you hate air conditioning, then yes, you may get the fans turning on. But if you’re cranking it to that point, you won’t hear the fans anyway.

Bottom line, with fans, Wotan is much more flexible with respect to speaker loads, environmental factors, and more.

Pretty neat, huh?

So. Yeah. Fans. Don’t fear them. Fans are your friends.


So, Wait. VU Meters?

“You haven’t addressed the elephant in the room,” someone says. “Namely, this Forkbeard thing.”

Actually, I have. In fact, there’s a whole separate chapter on Forkbeard, and what it means for our whole line.

“But you’re saying that if I get Forkbeard, I get VU meters!”

Well, yes.

Ish.

And remote control.

And system health monitoring.

And integration with other Forkbeard devices.

And, if you put Wotan together with Gungnir 2 and Kara F or Freya F in a giant giga-stack, you get Visual Volume™, which shows you just how close you are to the edge via a color-coded volume knob.

“Wait, what?” someone says. “What’s this Visual Volume again?”

Simple. In the Forkbeard app, you have a volume knob. Push it and drag to the right to increase volume. Drag to the left to decrease volume. Easy.


As you adjust volume, you’ll also note that the knob itself has color bars superimposed over it: yellow and red. And these colors are pretty much what you’d expect:

• Yellow: you’re getting towards the point where the system clips. You can keep going, though.
• Red: you’re in clipping, and should probably consider backing off.

So, with Visual Volume, we’ve answered several of the biggest questions we get with our gear:

• “Am I turning it up too much?”
• “Is this amp enough for my system?”
• “How much headroom do I have left?”

Oh, and eventually, you’ll be able to do a lot more than Visual Volume—so the results will be even more personalized to your system.

Aside: Forkbeard’s unique multi-product functionality enables features like Visual Volume and many other advanced inter-product features coming down the line. ​

Aside to the aside: Are you beginning to see how this could be a big deal?​

“But VU meters!” someone says. “Tell us about that!’

Sigh.

Yes, one of the things you can do with Wotan is display its power output in real time. Which is somewhat like a VU meter.

“Well hell that’s all I ever wanted!” someone yells.

Yes, but we think that Visual Volume is a lot more interesting. Excuse us if a real-time display of how much oompf your system has left over is more our speed. We agree that having a real-time power output display is useful, because it can show you when you are getting into trouble on an instant-by-instant basis.

But we should talk about VU meters and power meters a bit, how they differ, and why some of our amps won’t have the exact same kind of display, even if they are fully Forked.

• VU meters: in the past, VU meters showed up everywhere: on tape decks to show when you were getting into tape saturation, on amps to show how much power they were putting out, on EQs for, like, the heck of it, because more dancing lights were better back then, or something. VU meters are very useful when they’re telling you how much power the amp is putting out, but they are less useful when showing you the input signal level.
• Wotan’s Real-Time Power: this is much more akin to an amp power meter from the past. It’s based on real-time current measurements, with some basic math to give you a reasonable idea of how close you are to maximum current output. Current is a pretty good measure, because the more difficult the speaker load, the more current. And the more current, the more power.

Real-Time Power, of course, has its limitations. Based on static current, it’ll max out around 10A RMS. But that isn’t peak, and with a reactive speaker load, Wotan can go far beyond 10A. So there’s a bit of fudging in the math—and that’s why the power meter doesn’t feature silly numbers that are only kinda-sorta correct.

“So where is this system health thing,” someone asks. “Are you hiding it?”

If you mean the icon for overtemperature, or the icon for over-current, yes, you’re right—these only display when there’s a fault. Which we believed would be better than obsessing over numeric displays (OMG my temperature is 57.6 degrees, is that hot? Everyone else says theirs is 51.5!) Since we don’t want to promote nervosa, we left out the specific numbers.

But that’s our best guess. I’m sure you’ll all let us know what you prefer. And the beauty of Forkbeard is that it can change…without having to change your product!


Wotan vs The Rest

“Spill it, bro,” someone says. “All I need to know is should I go Wotan or Vidar or Tyr or whatever. Which one sounds the best?”

Weeeeeeeellll, you know we really don’t get into that so much, but here’s what I can say: if you want something that is big and brutal and dynamic and fully the match of pretty much any speaker, you can’t go wrong with Wotan. It has more power than ever a pair of Tyrs. It has fans to get it through crazy loads. It has feedback switching for more compatibility with different systems, and more gain when feedback is off. It even has remote control switching of balanced and XLR inputs via Forkbeard.

But of course there’s Vidar 2F. Which is a heckuva powerful amp at a very low price, and it has the fun Forkbeard stuff now.

And Tyr, if you want the ultimate crazy mono amp with choke-input power supply. At a very good price now, as we work on finalizing the Forkbeard version.

Bottom line, there’s not really a bad choice.

But if you want one amp…one amp that can drive pretty much any pair of speakers you want to throw at it…then there’s one super-safe, super-smart choice: Wotan.

I hope you enjoy!

Pre ordered the Wotan Nov 2. This really got me excited. Looks like I finally found an awesome amp to match my horn loaded speakers. It just likes low damping or low feedback amps. Probably only be using within 5 watts per channel as the speakers are super efficient and dynamic. But I will be ordering the Forkbeard just to see the power level I'm using. I like a big, clean, dynamic sound as these speakers are designed to do.

 

[fidgeraldo]

The Old Man Season 2 is great so far. Ep. 2 done.

Yes, it is...and all the way!
Enjoy!

Cheers!

I started watching The Penguin!

 

[Ableza]

I have directly compared the Yggdrasil (original with A2 + Unison), Gungnir MB (original) and Bifrost 2/64. They each sound great and in my house I set each one up in the system I thought they sounded best in TO ME. The Yggdrasil is in my office headphone/2-channel system, the Gungnir is in my bedroom 2-channel system, and the Bifrost is in my living room HT system for music. Each is fed by a streamer tied to my Roon network. I refuse to compare how each sounded because that is completely subjective, but these usages are where I found the best overall result for my taste and for the systems they are in. YMMV - actually no, your results WILL vary.

 

[Syan25]

Cheekily I built a pair of shoes made of spam, slid them on - the wet gelatin means the toes slide into place...

And put this on - I dare anyone not to listen to this and not have their reality distorted....

 

[StimpyWan]

I look forward to owning beach-front property here at 1800 ft elevation in Arizona.

Will that be Atlantic or Pacific beach front property...? Maybe even Gulf property...?

 

[Syan25]

Will that be Atlantic or Pacific beach front property...? Maybe even Gulf property...?

I'd live to know where the name Stimpy Wan originated? Any connected to boiled ham?

 

[Ripper2860]

Will that be Atlantic or Pacific beach front property...? Maybe even Gulf property...?

All 3.

 

[sam6550a]

I looked at TN and it was much cheaper than FL, but I need the hotter climate for turtles. The property that I bought is 13 miles inland and not in a flood zone. The house also has a generator that can supply the whole house, and it has a buried Propane tank for two weeks. I have well water and a whole house RO filter so I can sit out the power outages and hunker down and Just listen to music while they repair the wires.

Welcome to Florida! With all of those household amenities you will love it there [except for the humidity]. I lived in central FL for 44 years before moving to south Georgia in 2014. Why? Because the wife wanted to------xxxxxxx. Yeah.

 

[sam6550a]

NASA knows we’re in deep……they just discovered a hidden secret city built by USA in 1959 under a glacier in Greenland that was abandoned in 1967 because of the accumulated weight of the glacier. Well they found it again sticking right out of the ground no ice at all. So good luck where you live, move. I don’t think it matters a smidge.

It is not "sticking out of the ground", it was found with radar that could detect through the many feet of ice covering the site.

 

[Syan25]

Welcome to Florida! With all of those household amenities you will love it there [except for the humidity]. I lived in central FL for 44 years before moving to south Georgia in 2014. Why? Because the wife wanted to------xxxxxxx. Yeah.

Stay safe. It's alligators everywhere.

 

[adydula]

There is no “better,” only different.

Like I say, "we all hear differently"....different flavors of goodness....enjoy the music!