[Audiolic]

Any mod on the magni to make it a competitive product versus 500 dollars amps..
 
opamps or others

 

[UmustBKidn]

  Any mod on the magni to make it a competitive product versus 500 dollars amps..
 
opamps or others

 
Buy an Asgard and put a Magni sticker on the front?

 

[ab initio]

Any mod on the magni to make it a competitive product versus 500 dollars amps..

opamps or others

Buy an Asgard and put a Magni sticker on the front?

Alternatively, you might try putting a blanket over it and have a third party tell you that they plugged you into a really expensive amp....

Cheers

 

[imackler]

Alternatively, you might try putting a blanket over it and have a third party tell you that they plugged you into a really expensive amp....

Cheers

 
The Magni does have a particular sound to it. 

 

[ab initio]

The Magni does have a particular sound to it. 

I agree, it's louder!

Cheers

 

[imackler]

I agree, it's louder!

Cheers

 
I think you'd probably agree different amps have different sounds, right?

 

[H20Fidelity]

I have Magni on demo from a kind member, I'm really impressed with the sound and most of all output power this little thing puts out.

I'm running it from Aune T1 (line out) > Magni > Combination of different headphones.

I think it's safe to say I'll be jumping onboard the Magni train rather quickly. Excellent little amp for the price. 

 

[ab initio]

   
I think you'd probably agree different amps have different sounds, right?

Amps aren't supposed to make a sound. It is the headphones or speakers which make the sounds.
 
The amplifier is there to boost the voltage of a line level signal and provide sufficient current to drive whatever transducers you've hooked up to it. Some amplifiers are ill-suited to drive certain types of loads. Amplifiers that have low voltage rails are ill-suited to drive high-impedance loads because they lack the necessary voltage swing to be sufficiently loud, and they may begin to clip if you try and drive the amp too hard. Some amplifiers cannot source enough current for low impedance loads. Again, clipping due to insufficient current may occur. Other times, some amps have high output impedance, and may provide insufficient damping to control the transducer's mechanical response.
 
However, when two properly designed amplifiers are working within their performance envelop, you will be very hard pressed to hear a difference between the two. Even tube amplifiers which tend to suffer from higher THD+noise than solid state amps usually have distortion levels lower than the threshold of hearing.
 
If  you have sensitive BA headphones, you will probably hear a difference between a high impedance tube amplifier vs any decent solid state amplifier. Is that because the amp's sound different? No, it's because of operator error: i.e., using an amplifier intended for something like an HD 800 to drive a sensitive IEM with wonky impedance behavior.
 
As for the differences between Magni and Asguard driving any sort of reasonable headphone load (let's say an HE400 or HD600) at a reasonable listening level, I don't believe it. Either of those headphones fit well within the operating envelop of both of those amplifiers. The folks that think they hear a difference are either using the wrong headphones for those amps, or they are not properly level matching before their comparison (see fletcher-munson curves), or their preconceived bias are clouding their sense (*most likely*).
 
What does Schiit say about stepping up from Magni to Asgard or so forth? See here:

Then why would I step up to Asgard, or any of your other amps?
Because you have an aluminum fetish. Or, more seriously, because you want a Class-A, no-overall-feedback design, or because you want tubes, or because you want balanced outputs. Or because you want more capability, like preamp outs.

Notice the lack of "Asgard is warmer than magni, blah blah blah" or anything else. Both amps have super flat frequency response (20Hz-20Khz, -0.1db) and vanishingly low distortion (<0.01 %).  The technical differences between the amps are below the limits of audibility for any normal pair of headphones. Asgard offers slightly higher voltage swing into high impedance loads and Magni offers slightly higher current into low impedance loads. The differences in these amps lie at the fringes of the headphones you might through at them. So, do amps sound different? Not really, unless a) you're trying to make them different via plugging in headphones with requirements outside of their target design envelop, or (b) you have a poorly designed amplifier, or (c) someone designed the amp to sound different (i.e., not a high-fidelity component).
 
Cheers

 

[H20Fidelity]

I absolutely love this little amp for my SHR940, the pairing might be bit bright for your regular mojo though for me its perfect and completed my search so far bringing my Shure to satisfactory levels and great price. Really impressed with power output and driving capabilities, you can really feel the dynamic range. Thanks Schiit for creating an awesome affordable solution. Magni has made me become quite intrigued with further Schiit products.

 

[imackler]

Magni has made me become quite intrigued with further Schiit products.

Maybe you have stumbled upon the real reason for the Magni  
 
So, in other news, I won an iFi Micro iCan. If my Magni doesn't trade/sell before then, I'll be doing some comparing! 

 

[H20Fidelity]

  Maybe you have stumbled upon the real reason for the Magni  
 
So, in other news, I won an iFi Micro iCan. If my Magni doesn't trade/sell before then, I'll be doing some comparing! 

Maybe...maybe. 

 

If it means anything I purchased an O2 before Magni, though only kept it around a few days after hearing this Schitt.

 

[imackler]

If it means anything I purchased an O2 before Magni, though only kept it around a few days after hearing this Schitt.

 
What did you prefer with the Magni, besides things like 1/4" jack and RCA input? 

 

[H20Fidelity]

   
What did you prefer with the Magni, besides things like 1/4" jack and RCA input? 

Mostly the output power and driving authority was noticeable straight away with Magni. To me O2 sounds a touch thin in the midrange, a little too relaxed in bass. With a lot of my headphones it made the mid-range recessed fractionally. I think another deal breaker with O2 for me was when I switched the amp into high gain I would get distortion unless I lowered my source volume. It's all logged on the JDS website something about the maximum input signal O2 can take. I don't think that's very buff for an amp that was designed to be so legendary. 

It does have upsides though, like coherency and neutrality were very nice, soundstage was impressive and separation  you can easily hear mid-range samples like backup singers and I did feel O2's vibe (although it's not meant to have any) but it just wasn't the amp I was searching for in the end. I did take away experience from buying it and I'm sure it's new owner will be happy only for me Magni is a better amp for my applications.

I've become really curious now about the Modi as at the moment I'm running Magni from Aune T1 using it as the DAC from line out with a golden lion tube. It's rather hard to find infomation whether I'd be upgrading from the Aune Dac going to Modi.
 

 

[imackler]

 
Mostly the output power and driving authority was noticeable straight away with Magni.
 
Yeah, the Magni has a ton of juice. 
 
To me O2 sounds a touch thin in the midrange, a little too relaxed in bass. With a lot of my headphones it made the mid-range recessed fractionally.
 
It's funny. Those recessed mids are exactly why I'm selling my Magni. Do you mind if I ask what your Magni # is? I've heard rumors of Schiit adjusting the Magni between later and earlier versions to make it less bright. Maybe its screwing with the mids...
 
I think another deal breaker with O2 for me was when I switched the amp into high gain I would get distortion unless I lowered my source volume. It's all logged on the JDS website something about the maximum input signal O2 can take. I don't think that's very buff for an amp that was designed to be so legendary. 
 
I can't tell you how much flak I've gotten from the O2's devotees over this issue. When I paired it with the ODAC on high gain, I got horrible distortion driving the HD650. Glad to see someone else for whom it was an issue too! 
 

 

[H20Fidelity]

 

Yes, I can imagine the O2 fans would not be pleased of any mention, when I discovered the distortion within the first 20 seconds of trying the amp with Beyer DT880 I was a little disappointed which then lead me to googling the issue.

 The serial number on my Magni is: 003466. 

To be quite honest it sounds crazy to think two of one device can sound different though I've personally thought to hear differences in x2 different pairs of Westone 4, another time with x2 Brainwavs B2. By all means they sounded very similar but there was obvious (slight) gap where on both occasions one pair pulled away.

I don't mention it much because this would just be written off as placebo, I've also heard a slight difference with x2 Sansa Clip Zip. Mind you each time I had both units right beside me. So my opinion on gear varying in performance slightly is very open minded, why I really like to purchase the actual unit I've been testing or listening too if possible.