Well, looks like someone already started a thread for this. Enough circle jerking around regarding theories of balanced/SE or whatever! Time for some real information:
A few people have asked about the Schiit Mjolnir (a prototype which I heard at the Village meet.) I know a few folks had expressed some apprehension because I didn't want to say much about it back then other than it needed to be tweaked or "voiced." Well today , I finally had a chance to hear the Mjolnir again. LOL, I had no idea Schitt was going to be at T.H.E SHOW in Newport Breach (Irvine). Jason said this is very close to the production version - it has the production boards.
To be honest, I really did not care for the Mjolnir at the Village meet. In Jason's words, they had just gotten the thing up and running. It sounded too bassy, lacked resolution, grainy, and otherwise just really wierd, even taking into consideration that their Gungnir DAC was a little soft sounding (had a chance to isolate the DAC and hear it on my STAX rig at the time.)
Well today, it was a completely different story. I had serious doubts myself; but I also know that tweaking a dozen things here and there can incrementally result in a huge change for the better. Now taking into account these were "meet" conditions (actually not bad - only two other people and only me listening in the room, and using the same tracks and vegan pad LCD2 as last time), the Mjolnir/Gungnir combination really kicks ass. And what I mean by kick-ass is that I would actually buy one for myself. I mean, it's cheap enough!
I played the Talking Heads track
Television Man, and the music was so involving that I did not want to press stop to analyze and hear other tracks (LOL, I listened to the whole thing through.) To me, this "immediacy" aspect of music reproduction is clearly a sign of something good. The EC amps do this. The DNA Stratus does this. They draw you into the music and won't let you go.
BTW, the HE400 (not pictured) also kicks ass. Kudos to HiFiMan for making great stuff at non-BS prices. I hope they put Sennheiser out of business.
I will be bringing a modded HD800 and HP1000 to try tomorrow. The Mjolnir sounded neutral to me with the headphones, but I want to confirm with my own. Jason indicated that the modded HD800s sounded good out of it. So if anything that's a good sign.
Finally, I would urge everyone to petition Schiit to anodize the chassis in black!