If I could easily hear it (like I can on high gain) I would definitely be bothered. I’m not 100% convinced I can actually hear anything on medium gain by toggling the mute on and off, but my tinnitus sometimes comes and goes by the hour.
Since yours seems to be very pronounced I’d still suspect there is an actual issue worth contacting Schiit about. Knowing how obsessive the head-fi crowd is, if this were a design spec I’m sure we’d be hearing more about it!
Update: balanced out does not seem to make a difference here. Coincidentally, I hear the sizzle in high gain mostly on the right channel, which is the same channel that produces an audible pop/click through headphones when switching gain levels. Not sure if that’s expected, or a bad sign…
Mine also has a louder buzz in the right channel, interestingly only when balanced and only when set to 'headphone output only'
The buzz goes away if i switch to 'speaker & headphone output'.
It's noticeable on medium/high gain, but is unnoticeable on low gain (at least with my HD650, HD800S, Elex)
My finding is that there are both 'noise' and 'buzz' in medium or high gain.
The noise part is not particularly worrying for me since it's not really that noticeable in medium gain and again, totally expected for a speaker amp.
The buzz part is weird and sounds like specific frequency (measured with mic through headphones and looks like 120hz and it's harmonics) and the fact it only occurs on the right side and only when switch to headphone only mode seems odd.
I also sent out a support ticket and will see what they say.
For my use case I preferred low gain for all the headphones I own and I can't hear the noise and buzz at all in low gain, so it's not really a problem for me now, but I do fear this could be problem down the road.
Still, the Ragnarok 2 is probably the best head amp I've heard (I also owned the Mjolnir 3 and BHA-1 and Rag2 is definitely 1 tier higher than both) and upped the performance of my LS50 replacing my Audiolab 6000A. For $999 this is really a killer deal and perhaps end game for a long while for me.
Update: Buzz seems to be a grounding issue, not caused by Ragnarok 2: I unplugged everything and the buzz part disappeared, and I eventually found that the buzz will return whenever the right positive speaker output tap is connected to anything (even when tapped with fingers). I tried power outlet in another room (which I’m sure it’s grounded + correct polarity) and there are no buzz at all.