[synfinatic]

Yall are absolutely free to do with your amps as you please. The laws of physics don't change. For me, I will run my amp cooler. Freedom is a great thing.

Honestly, I'm kinda curious how the Mjolnir sounds when running with such active cooling vs. a normally passive cooled. MOSFET's and other devices have different electrical properties based on the their temperature as any spec sheet will tell you. I have no idea if those differences are audible or what kind of a change they might have really.

 

[Nick76]

I am using a fan as well, but only like the above user, since it's in a tight rack and don't want it to fry the other gear. I would be perfectly content, comfortable and confident in using it without a fan if it was on a desktop or table instead. Note that it is an EXHAUST fan, I would not want a fan blowing air directly into the chassis to spread the heat internally where it shouldn't go. Rather it pulls the hot air out.

Mine was ordered on release date, first run, and the capacitors were replaced, even with a fan on it the entire time period of owning it. So cooling doesn't serve as as a catch all protection towards everything it seems.

 

[MacMan31]

Ghetto but the heat sinks are actually cool to the touch. Not even remotely warm. The fan is a cheapy from Best Buy, dead silent. It will be neat to hear how it sounds after a hundred hours on both. Right off the bat I can hear more musicality compared to how the mini sounded. But want to wait to see how it sounds after accumulated hours etc.
I wanted any impressions to be honest and fair.

I would love to find one of these stacks. Seems like this Amp/DAC combo is highly praised.

 

[mjstealey]

I'm aware of the comments you're referring to. At launch, it there was only black (which is quite common with Schiit nowadays since it's cheaper and has a more consistent finish). People asked for silver and Jason said he'd have to test to see if that hurt the thermals enough to make it not viable. At no point in time did Jason suggest they might add a fan (where would you put it and also, this is a limited run product- making a change like that makes no sense), but rather that silver wouldn't happen if it required active cooling.

To remind people: Yes, I'm running a fan! Well 2x 80mm case fans to be precise. But my Mjolnir is also stuck in an audio rack with a 4" air gap and since there aren't really any drafts the air/heat will cause the local ambient air around the amp to heat up and reduce the effectiveness of the heat sinks, since they need open air to be effective. The fans are running at a very low speed (I can't hear them if I put my head right in front of the amp) and only produce a very slight breeze- but that's enough to wick the hot air away from the amp and pull in cool air to let the heat sinks work effectively.

Yeah, I could have phrased that better, but an early inquiry about silver garnered this response from Jason: "Would have to be painted black on the inside for heat dissipation, and even then marginal. Or have a fan."

Your solution looks quite effective for keeping everything cool in a tight space.

 

[commtrd]

Honestly, I'm kinda curious how the Mjolnir sounds when running with such active cooling vs. a normally passive cooled. MOSFET's and other devices have different electrical properties based on the their temperature as any spec sheet will tell you. I have no idea if those differences are audible or what kind of a change they might have really.

My MJ3 sounds freakin glorious running cool. I intend to run it cool as long as I own it. Which looks like it will be a long long time. The way the fan is positioned it is drawing heat away from the rest of the chassis and out the right side looking at it from the front. Such that the entire bottom of the amp is barely warm to the touch. Sweet. And it does not matter what kind of semiconductor it is, JFET, MOSFET, bipolar transistor, capacitor, inductor, whatever, all are positively affected by running cooler. The only temperature boundary that matters negatively is when temperature approaches the upper limit of what the component fails at.

But again, anyone can and should run their equipment as they see fit. None of my business what yall do. I just don't care.

 

[MacMan31]

Yeah Im a little bit sad to hear that. If I keep hearing it Im going to have to switch up my Mjolnir3 plans and instead snag a ragnarok or Aune s17 instead. Jury still out on the Aune, too.
Ragnarok handles tf out of it.

Jason' end of 2023/2024 preview youtube video answered the "can Mjonir3 drive tungsten" with, "Maybe, but, why not just get Ragnarok?"
Well, bc IF Mj3 could handle it I kinda want that old school class-A , full choked beast. And I don't have speakers so I wouldnt even being utilizing the Ragnarok fully in a way. And it costs more.

On paper MJ3 puts out 10% less watts than my Fiio K9 Pro , so, that seems like it might not be enough- again, on paper.
Maybe it makes up for it's lower wattage numbers with high current and voltage figures, idk. Hell, I'm not an engineer.

But I WANT to love it. I want to pair silver Mjonir3 with a silver Yggy+GS2 and some brushed aluminum Tungstens. That's already more than I would normally spend , but, I'm gonna make a go of it. I don't need any PC upgrades this year since RTX 4090 is ridiculously powerful lol.

#iNeed

So this is your current stack? Looks monstrous but I'm sure it sounds awesome.

 

[Slackaveli]

So this is your current stack? Looks monstrous but I'm sure it sounds awesome.

I have that Yggy but Im rocking a Flux Mentor amp and it indeed does sound absolutely amazing.

 

[MacMan31]

I have that Yggy but Im rocking a Flux Mentor amp and it indeed does sound absolutely amazing.

That looks quite heavy duty. I would also like to venture into Hifiman headphones.

 

[quawn0418]

That looks quite heavy duty. I would also like to venture into Hifiman headphones.

Hifiman has every tier on smash, from the sundara to the susvara they are arguably the best cans in there price range.

 

[Slackaveli]

That looks quite heavy duty. I would also like to venture into Hifiman headphones.

He1000 Stealth is truly an amazing headphone for the $1260-1399 you can get them for new. Formerly a $3k headphone.

 

[commtrd]

I was listening to Ash Acoustic Live and I thought my wife was calling me from over 20 feet away. She was not calling me, it was from the song that I never heard that before. How freakin sick is that?!? This system is blowing me away. I think detail rendering is getting even better. Talk about staging... details OMG this nuts. Hearing the sax he is playing in a way I never heard it before on the mini. Or the LiM dac, so it may be the increased resolution from the dac I am guessing. Most likely both, Currawong said in his video that the M3 was more resolving than the mini was. The output is the sum of the whole.

 

[theveterans]

I was listening to Ash Acoustic Live and I thought my wife was calling me from over 20 feet away. She was not calling me, it was from the song that I never heard that before. How freakin sick is that?!? This system is blowing me away. I think detail rendering is getting even better. Talk about staging... details OMG this nuts.

MiB is that much capable of a DAC when used with a really capable amp like the MJ3 . Staging and resolution is really the highlight of this DAC which MJ3 fully complements in a synergetic manner

 

[commtrd]

I would love to listen to a Susvara with this stack. Maybe someday. However, these Elites are just absolutely singing so nice, hard to get motivated too much about different cans right now. Someday perhaps. Re-discovering all my favorites and it is a treat.

 

[theveterans]

I would love to listen to a Susvara with this stack. Maybe someday. However, these Elites are just absolutely singing so nice, hard to get motivated too much about different cans right now. Someday perhaps. Re-discovering all my favorites and it is a treat.

Susvara is really amazing with this stack though you still aren't maxing it out to the highest possible with MJ3 in terms of sheer grip and scale (when compared to SET 300B amps and the Riviera AIC-10 Bal), but even with MJ3, there's literally no other brand new amp within its price range that drives Susvara better than it as of now IMHO.

You'll easily max out the HE1000 Stealth or HE1000SE with MJ3 though

 

[Slackaveli]

Susvara is really amazing with this stack though you still aren't maxing it out to the highest possible with MJ3 in terms of sheer grip and scale (when compared to SET 300B amps and the Riviera AIC-10 Bal), but even with MJ3, there's literally no other brand new amp within its price range that drives Susvara better than it as of now IMHO.

You'll easily max out the HE1000 Stealth or HE1000SE with MJ3 though

MJ3 and Flux Mentor. Both fantastic for $1200 and $1300 respectively.
Did you start with MiB, Vet, or did you come from A1/A2?