Thread for the various Schiit headphone amps
The magni 3+ is a real solid pick in the 100 buck range for something fairly neutral slightly smoother that’s pretty well rounded and can handle most things you throw at it. Overall pretty well balanced and not that standout in one specific range, hard to complain for the money
The Asgard 3 and Jotunheim 2 are a noticable step up from the magni, the Asgard 3 leans a bit more warm and relaxed from the Jotunheim 2, both excel at control and grip, overall dynamics, timbre, stage width, solid presentation, and good resolving power. Lots of power on tap. Personally I’d start with an Asgard over a magni if you can, where things start to get good, great value for the money
The Lyr 3 is a cleaner more forward take on a tube hybrid while still being fairly responsive to tube swaps, has great grip and control, fairly deep, solid timbre, dynamics are a bit muted, speed and separation are good, presentation is more holographic. An interesting approach for sure
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Is there a reason I don’t hear about the Schiit Freya +?
Whether it’s about it being good or not etc. I mean it seems like their highest end preamp, has a remote, tubes if your into that stuff at a good price.
Also I know this is the amp thread but to my knowledge theres no preamp section for schiit threads.
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It’s pretty well loved outside of here for the pricepoint.
But most here aren’t running pre’s or are at a different price point.
I personally question the value of a separate pre at it’s price point, I’d be recommending a higher quality integrated over separates, unless for some reason you need an absolute ton of power.
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Would agree, it’s an awkward price point where you would either be better off spending more, or going integrated. It does have some novel features like being able to be passive or active and has balanced, and does sound good, but it’s just weirdly positioned imo
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Hmmmm veeery interesting. I can’t say I have much experience outside of just 1 preamp, but I really enjoyed having one connected to my system. Also since I have active speakers intergrated is impossible. But gotcha gotcha, very interesting.
I had it, it was good, but after I switched from it for a Pass Labs pre, I realized how much I was leaving on the table, stage placement in general most of all in low frequency timbre.
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Would be nice if they made a higher end preamp then. One that’s priced in a better spot. Thing that really interested me about it is that it has a control. Also american of course.
Has a control? Like remote volume and input switching? It’s not hard to find pre’s with that (at least above the price point)
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dang man. I gotta get one of them pass labs ones lol.
Volume control
It’s positioned about right if your picking up their power amps.
The problem I have generally is I don’t think it’s a good overall (pre+power) pricepoint to be looking at separates, there are just better integrated options available at that price.
You either have a pre in the same box as the power amp (an integrated amp) or you have separates, while separate boxes can have some advantages, it also has a cost overhead, multiple power supplies, multiple boxes etc etc.
One of those makes more sense at higher price points.
And if you have a much more expensive power amp/amps, then you probably want to spend more on the pre.
Might be interesting to try with powered speakers if it solves a problem for you.
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Understood, thanks for the input!
I sorta been thinking about Freya+ to use as a preamp to the Orr so I can run the Orr in bypass and also maybe sweeten the sound a bit - Cheaper than buying another DAC to experiment with.
Also to tag on - Why is Ragnarok not mentioned as potential amp for Susvara - I assume there is a SQ or power issue?
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I know some people who still suggest it, personally I don’t like it because it tends to prioritize power over finesse imo, just isn’t at the technical level where I think the susvara remotely comes alive, just ends up sounding powerful yet very dull in the micro imo. To be fair though, imo there aren’t many amps that do the susvara well at the price point the rag sits in (although I did think the burson soloist 3xp + supercharger or v281 do pretty well around 1500), and moving up from there you already know the options lol
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Shiit, actually just remembered and I don’t know enough to know if this makes a difference. But when I had the Amber 3 feeding into the Freya +, The Amber documentation stated it liked pre amps with 25k ohm resistance, 50, 60k even better. One of the particulars of the Freya + is that it’s a 10k ohm input resistance. I always suspected that when I got rid of the Freya and used my Pass Labs instead, that there was much better synergy between the Amber 3 and the Pass Labs.
So maybe my experience is more to do with that than it was to a huge shortcoming. It’s just that I was surprised how much my overall system improved when I replaced it. Your experience may differ.
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Dang, didn’t even realize that there was more to it like the ohm resistance etc. Good news about it possibly being better in my setup than it was in yours but bad news that it might require more research. Altho ngl that plus
my boi delta planning to buy one as well actually makes me want to buy one too. Plus the fact that it’s cheaper price plus american made status makes it easier to want to buy one. Not to mention the added expense of buying sound treatment things for my room.
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I’ve done some questioning outside the group here as well and staging has come up a couple times as as not always the best - Overall the Freya + pretty decent with speaker setup, not so much head-fi
I’m slowing up my role on this - it might be something that sounds better on paper than practical application for my use case anyway, and though it might be something that works out I think I would have to roll tubes to have real success, and I just did not find that fun (tube rolling) personally.
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I started out with Schiit Hel 2e initially because I wanted to use better headphones for gaming. It quickly turned into something different all together but I’m now enjoying the Jotunheim 2 and Bifrost 2 set up.
As far as the Hel 2e, I can’t possibly recommend it to anyone at any point. You can get a Magni Modi stack with much better power output for the same price and I’m willing to bet the two sound better together than the Hel 2e does. It’s not very powerful and the DAC portion is just flat, 2D like with no timbre and weak imaging.
Jotunheim 2 introduced detail, stage size, better imaging, great sub bass rumble and slam. Combined with bifrost 2 fullness, holographic staging and better timbre is a tasty pairing.
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This launches tomorrow at 9 AM PST if anyone is interested. Sounds like an intriguing little amp:
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