Schiit headphone amp thread, Asgard / Jotunheim / Lyr / Magni / Mjolnir

Sovrce Gear
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Unfortunately my Sus is gone. I’m only at 9:00 with most of my headphones but that’s not always the case with the Sus. As you know, current will play a significant role in how it sounds.

Schiit does say it’s not made for hard to drive headphones. I would imagine they’re talking about the Susvara and or He6. But on the flip side, why so much room on the pot if that’s the case? Even a 300ohm Sennheiser isn’t getting to the 12:00 position in high gain.

I’m sure you could use the Sus on it. I’m sure it’ll get loud. But how much will the dynamics suffer?

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Got my new-to-me Yggy A2 hooked up tonight. Had some real difficulty getting my Audio Sensibility Statement Silver USB cable to work. It has been working perfectly with my Bifrost 2, so I couldn’t figure out what could be causing the problem. After countless tries, I finally have it working between my Zen Stream and Yggy. I have no explanation for why it didn’t work initially or why it suddenly decided to work, but I’m just glad it is working now.

Time to let the Yggy warm up for a few weeks and settle in! I’ll be enjoying music the whole time of course.

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Thanks, this is what I assumed but had to restrain myself from saying because I’d just be assuming. I did not know too that Schiit said it was not recommended for hard to drives either - I suppose that puts the lid on things.

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I read it somewhere. I’ll try and find it.

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This is odd, because I would have sworn that I had seen that on the FAQ page for the Mjolnir 3, but I just hopped over there to look and this is what they say there.

Can I drive difficult headphones with this?

Absolutely. 2W RMS Class A is a lot more than you think. Especially with chokes backing it up.

Which begs the question, where that come from? Because we both thought they said that you shouldn’t use it for hard to drive headphones. :confused:

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I also believe I read the same thing… I wonder why they changed it. We cant be the only ones who read that.

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I remember reading that as well, and wondering why. You guys aren’t imagining
things…yet, lol.

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Cool! Congrats, I think/hope you’ll like it (a lot). It is a significant step up from Bifrost 2 (I think that’s what you had?)

Since it’s already burned in I would expect you’re pretty much golden after a day or 2 of uptime. It’s much less of an issue on mine now that it’s well burned in. Loving it with my Nitsch DSHA-3F. :+1:

Enjoy!

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I’m about 30 hours into the warm-up, and things are sounding excellent. I don’t plan to turn it off unless there’s a particularly bad thunderstorm in the area. I have the A2 board installed, which I’ve read has a similar sound signature to the OG BF2 that I’ve owned and enjoyed for a few years now. I can certainly hear the similarities. The LIM board was also included with the Yggy I bought, but I don’t see a need to install it anytime soon. I may actually end up selling it to get rid of the temptation to swap boards and compare.

A while back I got the chance to demo the LIM with my Auteur and Quicksilver. Now I use a Meze Elite and Cayin iHA-6, so I’ll admit I’m a bit curious to see how it sounds with the new headphones and amp. The A2 already sounds great , so I’m trying to fight that curiosity!

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I think maybe this is where I saw it. But it’s not exactly saying it can’t drive them, just not a numbers amp. But I thought I read that somewhere… lol I’ll keep looking.

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I think this post from Jason is what you might be looking for:

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I think Jason was interpreting that the Susvara worked fine on the MJ3 to him, but he was probably only mention on a volume level, so can’t confirm if it actually runs good with it.

There is a Schiit Meet at September 9th, 11:00am to 3:30PM at:

79°West Innovation Hub​

120 Mosaic Blvd #120, Pittsboro, NC 27312.

So anyone is interested in attending the meet here, I could bring the Susvara to that meet to so you can test it out (just need a heads up in advance, cause I’m leaving it home by default). But it’s probably not going to go well since all their gear including the DAC is entry level, so I thought to myself it’s probably not worth bringing. That’s why I’m just going to leave it home and just bring my tiny radials, HD 250 Linear 1 (test the amp with this hard to drive dynamic headphone), and Onkyo A800 (test the amp with this sensitive headphone) to test the MJ3 if they do appear there.

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Yeah, many on that thread who talk about driving the Sus and He6 really only mention vol levels. I don’t take too much advice from that. Especially when previously mentioning a Jot 2 or gsx or something similar.

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@ckhirnigs wanted to move this here…

The bliss obviously has more power. MJ will be fine for most headphones outside the Sus and HE6.

Clarity is very close. It could go either way. Bliss can sometimes be a little smoothed over, so at times I think this can make the MJ seem a little better here. This is more obvious with things like vocals.

Stage probably goes to the bliss. I think it has more area to work with in the stage. The image presentation may be a tad bigger. But I would say neither of these areas kills the mjolnir. It still carries its own weight here. I don’t have an issue with the stage and this is someone who likes the HD800S and stage. Stage depth is probably a tie. It’s very close in this area.

Detail retrieval, I’d say a tie. Again, it’s not killing the mjolnir. Sometimes when I would use the MJ I could hear things that I typically didn’t pick up on with other amps, including the Bliss. So I would go back to the Bliss to see if I could hear it. I could, but there was something about how the MJ handled this. It pulls out those micro details so well but also so authentic/naturally/more analog lol? And the edge of notes is so vivid and defined with the MJ. Basically no complaints here.

Bass, I actually like the way the MJ does this. Outside of using the Sus, I don’t need a mid bass bump. The MJ hits hard/has nice impact, goes low, has a nice weight to it, and I think I may even like the texture more.

Vocals, could go either way. No complaints.

Layering, the Bliss may do this a touch better depending on the recording but the MJ isn’t bad. I think the stage of the bliss and the area that it has to work with may help this. But I don’t hear anything with the MJ and get turned off by it. It’s not like things become mush and it doesn’t stay coherent.

MJ has really good transients. This is a really good trait of this amp. Bliss is good too but I think its smoothness can hurt this area at times. MJ wins here for me. I think it’s clarity helps.

Just some quick comparisons. If you have any more questions, I’ll do my best to help. This can be tough for me lol. Me try hard :woozy_face:

And I’d say forget what others say. Gotta try it on your own chain, with your headphones. You like what you like and don’t change or settle because someone else, you won’t be happy.

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Thanks so much for the rundown! Sounds like the MJ3 is very impressive for the asking price. I may be tempted by this thing after all.

I went through a similar comparison between the Cen.Grand 9i-806 and my trusty Cayin iHA-6. This was before I got the Yggy, so the comparisons were done with my Bifrost 2. The Cen.Grand costs me more than 10x what I paid for the used Cayin, but I found the Cayin equally competent with my Meze Elite. I ended up returning the Cen.Grand right before the 30 day window closed. I tend to trust my ears!

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Getting an MJ3 in, will see how it is lol. Really curious if it’s what I’m hoping for (asgard 3 but better) or not

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I’m attempting to get a Bryston in again to compare. Have someone potentially sending me one in a few weeks or so.
Hard to compare from memory.

I think a lot of the hype is coming from people who are upgrading from things like the jot and mj2.

I do think it’s solid though. It’s just not a giant killer like some claim. And I can see it being better than a solid state amp in the 3K range, but better is more of a preference thing in this case. Or maybe just synergy with certain DACs or headphones.

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Or, that 3k solid state headphone amp isn’t all it’s cracked up to be lol

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That too lol.

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Will be really curious of your bryston vs mj3 comparison, should be pretty interesting considering it seems like they might share some pretty similar synergy for parings from what I’ve read

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Yeah, I wanna see how the noise floor compares, which one is warmer, softer, and if the Bryston has the detail on the edge of notes like the mj3. Also the decay.

Also didn’t have the D8kp when I had the Bryston.

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