[leafs]

Because I need another listening station so I can watch my mother she is suffering from dementia.

Noted.

 

[redshift1]

First headphone show attended arrived about noon checked-in and given a wrist band/raffle ticket. Guess I arrived at the wrong time because there were many people ahead of me in line to audition the equipment. I waited about 15 minutes and no one was entering or leaving the audition room so I left. I found the Schiit reps and employees both helpful and plentiful but I don't like to wait.
 
The show appeared well organized and once again everyone was very helpful. 

 

[US Blues]

Because I need another listening station so I can watch my mother she is suffering from dementia.

 
Sorry to hear that, Friend. It is good to take of yourself in the midst of a difficult situation.

 

[BobFiggins]

Sorry if this is a terribly novice question. Though if I wanted to get the Lyr 2, could I just get the Mjolnir 2 now, since it also has tubes? Will the sound signature be roughly the same? Going to wait for reviews before purchasing anyways, but was on the fence between Valhalla 2, or Lyr 2, and now this just complicated it more, hah. 

 

[rmoody]

  Sorry if this is a terribly novice question. Though if I wanted to get the Lyr 2, could I just get the Mjolnir 2 now, since it also has tubes? Will the sound signature be roughly the same? Going to wait for reviews before purchasing anyways, but was on the fence between Valhalla 2, or Lyr 2, and now this just complicated it more, hah. 

Well, that's a good question and a natural one in this situation. I think we'll have to see what people that own both say first. I would think they would be similar, but I would also say the M2 would be more refined.

 

[Ableza]

They are different designs, plus. Lyr input/output is single ended only, Mjolnir includes balanced I/O and amplifier topology similar to Ragnarok.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[tonykaz]

Hello Mr.Ableza,
 
You seem better informed than many of the others on this site. 
 
Can you offer or present an argument in support of Balanced vs. Single ended? 
 
Seems ( to me ) that Balanced requires lots more parts and complexity!
 
How does this help with headphones?
 
Long Pro Audio runs?, sure.
 
I must be missing some important considerations, what gives?
 

Tony in Michigan

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

A bit underwhelmed about the news TBH. At least in terms of my price range. I DO however really like the idea of the LISST tubes. A Lyr 2 with those sounds damn swell.

 

[tonykaz]

Mr. MLE,
 
The news is that the cost of Quality DACs is falling sharply and rapidly. 
 
DACs were the missing part of Superb Music Reproduction, they are doing the same work as Moving Coil Phono Carts in days of old :  they transduce bits into Analog Music, our Phono Carts transformed mechanicals into Analog Music.  
 
DAC development in recent years brought us significant quality improvements at greatly reduced prices. 
 
Schiit seems the only one's willing to give us the benefits of developments at very low ( everyman ) price points.  
 
Tony in MIchigan

 

[IndieGradoFan]

11th on the Gungnir upgrade list!

 

[abernardi]

  Wow, where are all the impressions?
 
  It was a big turn out and there were a limited amount of listening stations, so a long wait to get in, but that was fine with me because I got to catch up with fellow enthusiasts.  The venue was excellent and the listening room was small and quiet, so you could really listen.  Oh yeah, and the food was excellent. Great atmosphere all around.  Now to the sound:
 
  I started with the tubed Lyr2 and Bitfrost going back and forth between the new Ether C and some HD800's.  The sound was pleasing with both and I was surprised that I didn't hear more of a difference between the two headphones.  BTW, the Ether C is REALLY comfortable.
  There wasn't a whole lot of time to spend at each station because there were so many people waiting in line, so I went next to the Yggy and Ragnarok.  Listening with a pair of HE-1000, HE-560's and a pre-production Ether C.  The presentation on all three headphones was more energetic, detailed and powerful.  For some reason the HE-1000's were sounding a little bloated to my ear, the 560's were almost perfect, though the high end sounded just a bit rolled off.  There was something odd going on with the Ether C on this rig though.  I played Diana Krall "Let's face the music and dance" and there's a couple of measures in the intro that features some piano notes, a little melody played in octaves.  They are always on the edge of piercing on any system I listen to them on, but the Ether C's did not react to them well and it was too much, like knives.  Otherwise they sounded very good.  
  I left the room to give other people a chance and shmoozed for a few hours, then came in to listen to Gungnir multibit and Mjolner2 stacks.  This one confused me a little and probably wasn't a fair test because I first listened to the solid state tube Mjolner with a pair of open backed Ethers with a Double Helix headphone cable.  It sounded glorious.  This combo had the best synergy of the day for me, just right, very musical, detailed, organic and I could have listened to that setup all day.  Then I tried the Ether C with the same cable and stack and the sound noticeably hardened up and the image shrunk.  Obviously the isolation was better, but I preferred the open backed Ether by some margin.  Oh, and those peaky piano notes were fine however with both headphones in this rig.
  Next I went across the table and listened to the tubed version of the Mjolner2 and Gungnir.  I had to listen with a different pair of Ether and Ether C's with a different cable, I didn't note which one unfortunately.  I expected the sound to be warmer and more euphonic, but it was the opposite.  Once again the Ether C got peaky with the piano notes and kind of brittle.  The open back Ether sounded better, but not as alive as they did with the solid state tubes.  It's really hard to say what caused this and I suspect the Double Helix headphone cable might just be THAT good and skewed the test. 
  BTW, I'm not saying the Ether C is bad.  It does a lot right for me, the extension is excellent, the detail is excellent, and they're very comfortable.  I don't know what the peaky piano is about though.
  Even though there was a long wait, I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with all you guys and hearing some great gear.  THANKS!!!

 

[lukeap69]

Mr. MLE,

The news is that the cost of Quality DACs is falling sharply and rapidly. 

DACs were the missing part of Superb Music Reproduction, they are doing the same work as Moving Coil Phono Carts in days of old :  they transduce bits into Analog Music, our Phono Carts transformed mechanicals into Analog Music.  

DAC development in recent years brought us significant quality improvements at greatly reduced prices. 

Schiit seems the only one's willing to give us the benefits of developments at very low ( everyman ) price points.  

Tony in MIchigan

There is also Audio-gd.

 

[tonykaz]

Hello Arnold,
 
Yes, quite right.  
 
There will be others, 
 
We're gonna need some spectacularly good headphones to tell the differences. 
 
Funny is how Stereophile and TAS are still Spotlighting $30,000 Turntables as if they are some sort of logical development, what Planet are they on?
 
Where did you find one of those Audio-gd's ?
 
Tony in Michigan  ( building better gas-guzzlers for Everyman ) 

 

[Stillhart]

Hi folks,

It's been a very long couple of days for the press in attendance at the show. I'll be doing a full writeup in the next few days. Until then I'll try to answer questions and leave some impressions.

First tho, I need to get on an airplane and fly home. Then sleep. Then spend time with my family. Etc. The press doesn't hate you, we've just been busy.

<3

 

[babyryoga]

It was a nice little event.

I don't have much to say, I hung around all day and enjoyed the food and ocean breeze. Eventually I got into the show room, after much waiting around, with the goal of trying out the Ethers with the Ygg Rag combo. It was definitely worth the wait, easily one of my favorite pairings of all time without getting into electrostatics and custom amps. I didn't like the Ether C's as much as per the usual with open vs closed on similar designs (I feel the same way about the LCD-X vs XC), but I can see how the closed design would be favorable in certain conditions, thus options are always good. Also didn't like the Hifiman cans as much on the supreme Schiit stack as the open Ethers - even the he1000s, though they sounded brilliant.

I also listened to the M2 and Gmb with LCD-3s and both Ethers. The LCDs sounded better here, so the next thing for me at whichever meet-up or show comes next will be to compare the (open) Ethers and the LCD-3s on the Ygg Rag stack, with the Ethers leading my interests the most at this point.

The LISST "tubes" were interesting and innovative, and add another possible level of depth for anyone who is in to Tube rolling. I haven't used my Lyr very much since picking up a Ragnarok, but as a newbie, I feel like I could make a project out of trying out tubes vs LISST and trying to pick up subtleties in sound difference.

A fun day overall. Thanks to Schiit for arranging a chill afternoon of quality products and good accommodations.