· I have been testing SA-1 and Jot 2 with Arya and Clear for 5 days. XLR was used as output (Forza Noir Hybrid HPC cable)
· Bifrost 2 was the DAC used.
· Both amps were connected 24/7 to the same pure sine wave UPS.
· XLR and RCA were used for this test (Mogami XLR and AudioQuest RCA) (DAC>AMP)
· A/B test took less than 1 second to switch between the amps. Volume were matched using a sound meter and 1khz tone. Low gain and Low Z.
· For this test I selected songs that I knew 100% from start to end. HQ FLACs with Foobar2000 and JRiver. ASIO/Bit Perfect mode.
SA-1: Very first time I noticed the same as with A90. Really clean and detailed sound, dark background, very defined and sharp, but not TOO sharp.
Jot 2: I won't forget the first time with this, the slam everyone was talking about is real, how it presents the music the first hours until your ears make use to it was a really gratifying experience.
Differences are really small, very hard to notice but they're there, it was easier to find them with Arya so I opted to only use the Arya for this comparison.
SA-1 is more accurate playing music, slightly superior to Jot 2, sharper if you will. Details of songs come out easily to the point where some instruments sound like they have an sharpy edge attached to them, like it sharpens every sound on purpose and I don't really like that, it's not as analytical as A90 but it's there. Anyhow, this is extremelly hard to notice in A/B test.
Changing to Jot 2 I had to try the same song over and over to find real differences to avoid psychoacoustics from controlling my mind and judgment. Like when you eat sushi and take a laminae of ginger to refresh the palate.
Jot 2 doesn't sound as sharp nor defined/detailed as SA-1. It has something that smoothes the edges of some instruments attaining/making them sound more real/natural to my ears. I always seek organic/texturized sound over sharp/detail. I've had the luck to assist many times to events like Distant Worlds in different countries with different echoes, distances and room sizes and I know how instruments must sound in real life.
Soundstage, wide, depth, air etc was almost identical to my ears. Both were able to transmit holographic sound and with Arya it was very easy to pinpoint instruments in space with both amps. But of course, it was always depending on how the music was recorded and the intention of the engineer behind it.
Volume: While the Jot 2 moves the Arya effortlessly at 12 o'clock without high gain with SA-1 I had to go 2-3 o'clock, always low gain both amps.
Volume update 04/23/21: It opened somehow and now it is almost similar in power, Arya at 12 and SA-1 at 12:30 for a normal listening (both amps matched in volume using sound meter)
Temporal Verdict:
You cannot never go wrong with any of these 2 amps, they are both beasts at playing music in a really pleasant way, I wouldn't care to keep one or the other but to my ears from my own perspective, liking and judgment I must go, for now, with Jotunheim 2.
I'm not a Schiit fan-boy and I have nothing against the infame so-called Chi-Fi, I respect every company's work and the people behind it. I'm not a professional or audio engineer but I know what I like and how the things I like must sound.
I will make more tests in the next days and I really want to try DC mode using jumpers with the SA-1 when I make sure it is safe.
Update 04/24/2021:
While I still prefer the Jotunheim 2 over the SA-1 from the words above, the SA-1 keeps getting better day after day and I must be honest here: I still prefer the Jot 2 but I really want to keep trying SA-1 to get the best out of it and see what I do, specially now that I got a Final D8000 Pro and it sounds almost perfect even from the mobile.
