I will buy one Magni. At least. But not now, I'll do that once the really really big DAC is up for sale - and within financial reach. After all, I do live in Sweden. Shipping is surprisingly affordable, but it doesn't add up very well with these kind of prices.
In many ways this is a fine fine complementary amp to the slightly impractical Mjolnir. But I have to ask, do Schiit ever intend to please those of us with sensitive ears and sensitive IEMs? This Magni, with that wondrously low output impedance, would be even more wonderful - to us - if it weren't for it's high gain. I'm guessing channel imbalance until it gets louder than I most often want it to be. I get that with my Mjolnir and my Denon 2000s... running single-ended. Maybe I'm just a little crazy for preferring my listening level that low. And buying that kind of loud-loving setup.
Point is, I don't really understand the high gain on this thing. I think you might never use the upper end of the volume pot. This is actually more or less standard on integrated stereo amps, which have headroom for speakers of much higher impedances than I've ever seen used. I don't get this practice. However, headphones comes with wildly varying impedances, which means the volume pot needs to span a larger range of amplifications. Let us do the easiest calculation, can you ever use the full volume pot without the amp clipping?
600 Ohms and 130 milliWatts equates to roughly 8.83 volts, using U² = R*P. Electrics were never my strongest part, but I'm pretty sure that holds. Dividing this by the gain, 5, would mean a signal of 1.77 volts.
And ouch, there goes my argument, this is actually spot on for a reasonably low signal. So, the gain is apparently correct in the easiest sense I could come up with: that in the situation that requires the most gain to drive the amp to clipping (low signal in and high impedance phones), you have just enough movement available on the pot to do that.
( The spec on 300 ohms gives the exact same voltage, the others lower at 7.07 V and 6.20 V - which means lower gain, lower volume setting, before clipping. )
I'm guessing that's a pretty unreasonable SPL though - but I do not know those equations yet. Could someone more knowledgeable elucidate us?
Hmm... I'm wondering if their upcoming monster of an amp will have a gain switch. I'm gonna have even more trouble not buying that one than I have right now not buying the Modi. Schiit.