Last weekend I drove up to Schiit’s storefront in Santa Clarita and did a mini-comparison involving Mjolnir 2.
Even though I already had an MJ2 on order, I wanted to hear what it sounded like next to all of Schiit's offerings, and also sample the Gungnir. It was good timing and there was only a couple in the next room listening to Michael Jackson's 'Bad' on the Yggy and Rag, and once they left, I had the place all to myself.
As I was mainly interested in comparing my Modi Multibit on their tube/hybrid amps, the gentleman at the counter was nice enough to allow me to carefully shift their gear around at the listening stations on their Win10 tablets. I brought both Sennheiser SE and balanced cabling for my HD800's that are stock other than Dekoni velour pads.
Using Tidal, I listened to the first track from Lisa Batiashvili's 'Visions of Prokofiev' for soundstage and treble and for an electronic track 'Bilder' by John Digweed, which has an immediate upfront bass kick.
Using Mimby and balanced out of Mjolnir 2, the bass slam and articulation on the Digweed track were on their own level. The power of the bass had me momentarily questioning if I had not accidentally picked up a different set of headphones, because even with Loki bass EQ +12dB at home, this is not something I've heard out of the Vali 2. The soundstage opened up magnificently. On the negative, the HD800 treble on both the classical and electronic track was considerably more piercing on the MJ2 than on any other setup I tried that day (although I did not try the Jotunheim, which is reportedly a much poorer match). The experience rapidly had me thinking about what type of tubes I would need to roll to take the edge off the highs. That being said, there was no question in my mind that I needed to have the Mjolnir 2 sound in my setup, even if I decided I didn't want to listen to it for 8 hours straight. It was much too impressive and unique. I also tried MJ2 with Gungnir (non-MB, I believe) but I preferred the smoother, less detailed Mimby on the HD800's.
Going back to Vali 2, it became obvious how laidback this amp sounds in comparison. It's like getting out of a Yukon into a Volkswagen. Definitely a smaller soundstage, but the least fatiguing setup there except perhaps for the Magni 3 which I momentarily tried (and was impressed with, but I like tubes). Super pleasant, but the bass response is nothing compared to the MJ2.
My suprise for the day was how much I liked Valhalla 2. I thought it was pretty laidback like Vali 2 but more clarity and small touch of some euphonic magic in the mids somewhere that was difficult to put a finger on but could be felt at times. It seemed to do everything a hair better than Vali 2. The difference in bass wasn't that much, but soundstage and detail both improved. I really nice amp.
Lyr 2 hit harder than Valhalla 2 or Vali 2, as might be expected. While it was definitely a high-quality impressive amp, there wasn't anything that jumped out at me that made me want to buy it and pair it with my 800's. I'd say it probably had a larger soundstage than Valhalla 2 and more clarity, but there wasn't really much tubiness I could discern. For some people, this is probably a bonus, but on the 800's, it didn't grab me personally. Perhaps with a warmer set of tubes, I'd have had a stronger opinion. There were also no planar magnetics around to test, as all pairs were in NYC for CanJam I was told. While good, the bass on the MJ2 is still a league above.
So, in conclusion, I'm looking forward to my MJ2, but I'm definitely going to need the right tubes to get the sound I want.
