[Nick76]

Too hot to handle? It's worth fan or 2…
Cooling update:
Schiit Mjolnir 3 ~ Class A, Headphone Power Amp. True to form Mjolnir is a Limited Ldition piece of Schiit… it Created a Heatwave, a tropical Heatwave… Stopping this insanely jerry-rigged two small boxer fans, in a foam box drawing the air up and out. Enter then “Aircom AC Infinity component cooling System. 17” width… AC powered, sits atop Mjolnir. Three fans with 3 speeds. draw warm air up and out… 3 fans running low speed moves a good volume of air its dead quite…The Schiit Mjolnir 3 was just warm to the touch. Ran it all night, with Mjolnir 3, temp low and fan noise nonexistent…it’s been on for a week straight…. Can’t stop rehearing reording opera after opera @ 3hrs at a go. Mj is so good I’m listening to complete works… not just tracks… consider cooling options. For my tube amps in the 80s those babies required AC year round.

I also highly recommend AC infinity products. I've already written about it a few times in here, but I'll mention it again. I've got the rackmount version of the Aircom system called the AC Infinity Cloudplate T6 for my MJ3. It pulls the hot air from the Mj3 and blows it out the front of my rack. On the lowest fan speed (level 1 of 6), it barely makes any noise, and it keeps the amp at a cool 80 degrees, the coldest thing in my rack, even colder than my USB hub lol. After getting the fan, I have no worries about keeping the MJ3 powered on, and have for a couple weeks at a time.

 

[XERO1]

Too hot to handle? It's worth fan or 2…
Cooling update:
Schiit Mjolnir 3 ~ Class A, Headphone Power Amp. True to form Mjolnir is a Limited Ldition piece of Schiit… it Created a Heatwave, a tropical Heatwave… Stopping this insanely jerry-rigged two small boxer fans, in a foam box drawing the air up and out. Enter then “Aircom AC Infinity component cooling System. 17” width… AC powered, sits atop Mjolnir. Three fans with 3 speeds. draw warm air up and out… 3 fans running low speed moves a good volume of air its dead quite…The Schiit Mjolnir 3 was just warm to the touch. Ran it all night, with Mjolnir 3, temp low and fan noise nonexistent…it’s been on for a week straight…. Can’t stop rehearing reording opera after opera @ 3hrs at a go. Mj is so good I’m listening to complete works… not just tracks… consider cooling options. For my tube amps in the 80s those babies required AC year round.

Wow!!

That fact that your first post ever in over 8 1/2 years of being a Head-Fi member was about how much you enjoying listening to your Mjolnir 3 (and how you keep it running cool) pretty much says it all!!

 

[Smoothstereo]

Perhaps, I'm in the minority camp, as mentioned in my previous post, both my replacement and initial MJ3 units do not vibrate. The chasis does not vibrate nor voulme knob vibrates. I placed my hand on both areas and I don't feel any vibration. I do have a Freya N with 1 inch tall feet sitting on top of the MJ3, wondering if its the Freya weight thats holding down the MJ3 from vibrating.

Anyways, not going to sweat it, as long as the MJ3 is producing pleasant music to my ears is what matters.

 

[Rhodey]

Perhaps, I'm in the minority camp, as mentioned in my previous post, both my replacement and initial MJ3 units do not vibrate. The chasis does not vibrate nor voulme knob vibrates. I placed my hand on both areas and I don't feel any vibration. I do have a Freya N with 1 inch tall feet sitting on top of the MJ3, wondering if its the Freya weight thats holding down the MJ3 from vibrating.

Anyways, not going to sweat it, as long as the MJ3 is producing pleasant music to my ears is what matters.

Yeah it’s the freya weighing it down. Similar to how I placed a weight on it and it stopped it.

 

[GumbyDammit223]

Missed this earlier ...

So, MJ2 vs MJ3 wrt HEkse ... very different animals entirely.
I've since moved the MJ2 to my home office and the MJ3 has remained at my work office with the HEkse, so my comparison is operating off of "audio memory" here, YMMV

As you've mentioned I also find the MJ2 to be open and detailed with the HEkse. Being able to tinker with the overall sound by swapping tubes or Noval LISSTs is a nice feature of the MJ2 hybrid architecture. I'm currently using a pair of 12AT7 (CV455) 1956 NOS Brimars (with adapters) and am very happy with the overall sound. The MJ2 is an excellent head-amp, and is something that will remain in my lineup for the foreseeable future as I enjoy it with a variety of planar and dynamic headphones.

So the MJ3 ... to put it simply it's a resolution monster. It has greater depth of detail and perceived openness than I was getting from the MJ2. The background is a black void of silence that allows for an interesting appreciation of the in-between parts of a composition. It moves between notes with a liquidity that is hard for me to describe other than I find myself head-bobbing and toe-tapping and probably frighten my coworkers if they're walking past my office at the time. The HEkse IMO is wonderfully full ranged, but very neutral headphone. It isn't going to make bass-heads happy nor is it going to incise your ear bones with treble, but the mids are sublime. I find the combination of the MJ3 and HEkse to be very engaging and can lose hours in the combination without thinking about it.

If the MJ2 and MJ3 are so different why don't I have them in the same stack?
Well ... my work office stack has settled into an inverse Oreo of polar amp opposites for the time being.

Where did you get the spacers you're using between your toys?

 

[liamo]

Too hot to handle? It's worth fan or 2…
Cooling update:
Schiit Mjolnir 3 ~ Class A, Headphone Power Amp. True to form Mjolnir is a Limited Ldition piece of Schiit… it Created a Heatwave, a tropical Heatwave… Stopping this insanely jerry-rigged two small boxer fans, in a foam box drawing the air up and out. Enter then “Aircom AC Infinity component cooling System. 17” width… AC powered, sits atop Mjolnir. Three fans with 3 speeds. draw warm air up and out… 3 fans running low speed moves a good volume of air its dead quite…The Schiit Mjolnir 3 was just warm to the touch. Ran it all night, with Mjolnir 3, temp low and fan noise nonexistent…it’s been on for a week straight…. Can’t stop rehearing reording opera after opera @ 3hrs at a go. Mj is so good I’m listening to complete works… not just tracks… consider cooling options. For my tube amps in the 80s those babies required AC year round.

Many thanks, hadn’t quite worked out how I was going to place the MJ3, this will definitely help.

 

[streaml1ne]

What kinds of changes are you guys hearing when switching from SE to Push-Pull? Drastic? Minor? I hear literally no change at all on the Modhouse Tungsten. Feedback on vs off is definitely noticeable to me, but PP vs SE seems to do absolutely nothing. Based on the "Class A" chapter I expected PP to boost power and hence volume but not getting that at all. I'm starting to think maybe I have a dud switch or I'm just completely misunderstanding how it's supposed to work, or maybe it's an artifact of the Tungsten's power requirements. Admittedly I haven't tried any other sets with it yet because they're so good.

 

[A Jedi]

More power doesn't mean anything if you don't need it. If your cans require 20mW to operate properly, it doesn't matter if your amp is capable of 1000mW or 6000mW. Both have more headroom than you need.

 

[Monsieur Dionysos]

How does the Mjolnir 3 compare to the Ragnarok 2?

 

[evanescent]

Can we chill the hype about the heat from MJ3? 50W is nothing special, and not a reason to shy away from this amp.

From their spec sheets:

Schiit Mjolnirs:
MJ2 : 45W
MJ1 : 45W

Other Class A headphone amps
Bryson BHA-1 : 50W
Holo Bliss : 50W

Other appliances
Old skool lightbulb 100W
Gaming PC 500W
Space heater 1,500W

 

[Rhodey]

Agree. Recently had the bliss and currently have the BHA-1 in house with the MJ3 and they all get pretty warm. Nothing to be concerned about imo.

 

[Melting735]

Agree. Recently had the bliss and currently have the BHA-1 in house with the MJ3 and they all get pretty warm. Nothing to be concerned about imo.

What's your impression of MJ3 vs bha-1 in terms of sound?

 

[Rhodey]

What's your impression of MJ3 vs bha-1 in terms of sound?

I plan to write a decent comparison when I get time. Or hope to.

Bryston is smoother. MJ3 has this rawness to the edge of notes-comes off more detailed or definitely more noticeable imo. Mj3 isn’t harsh but just more alive sounding. This is really noticeable in the micro details. The Bryston still has these micro details but they’re much harder to spot.

Bass is very close, but I think the mj3 may hit harder at times.

Stage width goes to Bryston but depth is very close on both.

I thought early on the Bryston should do better in layering but after some time and note taking, I think I lean mj3 on layering. The separation and details of the mj3 are so good.

Timbre, is probably a tie.

The mj3 has a more intimate presentation, but it’s not terrible or uncomfortable.

Most of my comparison was done with the D8KP LE. I did use the Utopia 22 and HD800S some as well.
I think the D8KP LE is better with Mj3.
The Utopia leans Bryston.
HD800S is a toss up but I like the Mj3.

Both amps are better balanced in and balanced out.

Build quality goes to the Bryston. Love the build and the looks. MJ3 isn’t terrible but I wish the pot was better and I could have the sound of the mj3 in the Bryston chassis.

I do feel the mj3 is better from the se than the Bryston (both still using XLR input). This isn’t a huge difference but that’s how I hear it with both amps from the se output.
This is also nitpicking and if this was my main amp for the utopia, I’d go Bryston (but balanced all the way). Bryston is still a solid amp and there’s absolutely no reason not to love it. This was a tough decision on what to keep and again, if I planned to use the Utopia majority of the time with my ss amp, I’d go Bryston.

Edit: I’ll be selling the Bryston BHA-1 (black in great shape) for $1k (net to me) shipped CONUS.

 

[Menkau-ra]

How does the Mjolnir 3 compare to the Ragnarok 2?

I was able to test Mj3 vs Rag2 at the Schiitmeet NC. To me Mj3 was superior: fuller sound, more holographic soundstage, better punch and low end. I was using He6se V2 to compare.

 

[ckhirnigs113]

From the feedback coming out so far, it seems like maybe push-pull works better with planar headphones. I know a Susvara owner on another forum said the MJ3 was much better to them in push-pull versus single-ended Class A.

I can’t really say what keeps prompting me to go back to push-pull with my Meze Elite. I think I’m finding it a little more engaging than SE. My guess is it’s doing something in the mids, and specifically with human voices, that is getting me more emotionally connected. This could all be in my head of course!