Schiit Freya Preamp Review (Episodic)

Discussion in 'Preamps' started by purr1n, Jan 14, 2017.

  1. jexby

    jexby Posole Prince

    Staff Member Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2015
    Likes Received:
    8,145
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Exit stage left....
    this is interesting. at the volumes schiit makes boards, am expecting this is just a manual typo and not a model revision.
     
  2. e.schell

    e.schell Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Mar 8, 2016
    Likes Received:
    822
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Illinois
    I had time this morning to shoot Nick and schiits tech support an email about it he says the digital copy saying right and left is correct. Sorry to cause any unneeded confusion.
     
  3. Brad1138

    Brad1138 New

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2017
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Location:
    Olympia
    Can we get some verification on which tubes are what. I have a Freya and I originally ordered 4 TungSol NP for it, and I like them. I just bought 2 Matching Kenrad VT-231 staggered plates. I have been told that the front 2 tubes are the left channel and the back 2 are the right channel, and the right side is the Gain stage (where I want to put the new/better tubes) and the left side is the buffer.

    But that seems to conflict with the OP statement that the "1st 2" are the gain stage... (I guess it depends on what direction he is talking about)

    I just want to make sure I put them in the right place :)

    Thanks
     
  4. Garns

    Garns Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Jul 9, 2016
    Likes Received:
    2,483
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Sydney, AUS
    Hi Brad,

    Welcome to SBAF. As a general principle, it's a good idea around here to look through the threads you are posting in to see if someone has asked and answered the question before you. It helps prevent everything turning into a hellish groundhog day.

    In this case, your question is asked and answered in: the five posts immediately preceding your own!
     
  5. cskippy

    cskippy Creamy warmpoo

    Pyrate MZR
    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,999
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Tempe, Arizona
    Literally answered in the post above you...
     
  6. winders

    winders boomer

    Banned
    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2017
    Likes Received:
    1,596
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Martin, CA
    After, looking at the main board photograph on the Schiit Audio web site, that makes perfect sense. It is easy to see that the tube stages go from left to right versus front to back based on component locations.
     
  7. Brad1138

    Brad1138 New

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2017
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    3
    Location:
    Olympia
    Thanks and sorry, I did Google for the answer quite a bit and couldn't find it (beyond the one place I had found it stating the opposite). I also looked through the posts immediately after the OP and didn't see anyone bring up the contradiction. I didn't figure it would be discussed right before me :oops:...

    Glad to have it cleared up though, :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2017
  8. winders

    winders boomer

    Banned
    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2017
    Likes Received:
    1,596
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Martin, CA
    I picked up a matching pair of Sylvania JAN CHS 6SN7W tubes. Now I have these (all matching):

    4 - Sylvania 6SN7WGTA (Brown Base, Chrome Top)
    2 - RCA CRC JAN 6SN7GT VT-231 (Smoked Glass)
    2 - Raytheon 6SN7WGT (1952)
    2 - Sylvania JAN CHS 6SN7W (Black Base, Short Bottle, Chrome Top from 1940's)

    That should give me plenty of tubes to play with in the Freya that I haven't even ordered yet....
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2017
  9. winders

    winders boomer

    Banned
    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2017
    Likes Received:
    1,596
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Martin, CA
    Hey, has anyone listened through Freya, or otherwise, with the Sylvania 6SN7GT "Bad Boys" installed? The real ones with the three holes for that 3 or 4 year range (late 40's to early 50's)? Are they all some people make them out to be? What is a fair price for them?

    Thanks!!
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2017
  10. cskippy

    cskippy Creamy warmpoo

    Pyrate MZR
    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,999
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Tempe, Arizona
    May I suggest finding your favorite tubes of the bunch you have and just enjoy Freya and your music? I'm not trying to tell you to not spend your money but tube rolling can become an addiction just like chasing better gear, where the money might actually be better served upgrading headphones/speakers or gasp! buying music. Just my two cents.
     
  11. winders

    winders boomer

    Banned
    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2017
    Likes Received:
    1,596
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Martin, CA
    Oh, I agree! I don't need any more tubes now. I was just curious what the "Bad Boys" were like and what was considered a reasonable price for a matched set.

    I am focusing on speaker research now.....anyone know of good places to go listen to speakers in the San Jose, CA area?
     
  12. winders

    winders boomer

    Banned
    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2017
    Likes Received:
    1,596
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Martin, CA
    So my Freya will be delivered on Tuesday. I have been using my Mjolnir 2 as a preamp for my powered monitors (SE input only). I am curious, what kind of difference am I going to hear between the tube stage of Freya and the the Mjolnir 2?

    Also, what tubes would you recommend I start with? The stock tubes or some combination of the tubes I have listed 4 posts above?
     
  13. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2016
    Likes Received:
    2,750
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Calgary, Alberta
    Home Page:
    The sound will likely be wider and sweeter/more lush. I can say that using Mjo2 as a preamp was not my favorite.

    Tung Sol quad sets seem to be a popular first choice for rolling.
     
  14. winders

    winders boomer

    Banned
    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2017
    Likes Received:
    1,596
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Martin, CA
    Cool!

    I have these (all matching):

    4 - Sylvania 6SN7WGTA (Brown Base, Chrome Top)
    2 - RCA CRC JAN 6SN7GT VT-231 (Smoked Glass)
    2 - Raytheon 6SN7WGT (1952)
    2 - Sylvania JAN CHS 6SN7W (Black Base, Short Bottle, Chrome Top from 1940's)
     
  15. cskippy

    cskippy Creamy warmpoo

    Pyrate MZR
    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,999
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Tempe, Arizona
    Personally, I would skip the current production Tung Sol. You lose some of the impact and tactility of the stock tubes and don't gain much width or depth. You need to find a good set of NOS tubes and it seems that the gain stage produces far more significant sonic changes compared to the output tubes.

    EDIT: Those Sylvania should be good, and also the RCA. You got some good tubes there. Let us know what your favorites are.
     
  16. Garns

    Garns Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Jul 9, 2016
    Likes Received:
    2,483
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Sydney, AUS
    Ok, you already told us that, and it was noise the first time...

    For what it's worth, the Freya is to my ears significantly less tubey than the Mjo2 as a preamp. If you want something to warm up your system or add obvious tube colouration, the Freya is not it. On the other hand it doesn't mess up the FR and imaging like the Mjo2 does. The Mjo2 is really not up to preamp duties. But really, if you have the Freya on the way, you can presumably figure this out for yourself pretty soon. Just a suggestion, maybe it would have been better if you waited and told us what YOU think. I have had the Freya a month or so now but haven't posted anything about it yet because I want to figure it out properly first.

    Tubes: the stock tubes are pretty poor. They sound terrible at first, and only become listenable after 25 hours or so (seems typical for Russian tubes). The Freya seems fairly insensitive to tube rolling. Think Valhalla 2 levels. Changing interconnects seems to have a bigger sonic impact. I honestly can't tell much difference between various US 6SN7s.
     
  17. winders

    winders boomer

    Banned
    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2017
    Likes Received:
    1,596
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Martin, CA
    I've had my Freya for a little over 24 hours now. What I have I discovered? Mjolnir 2 as a preamp sucks!!
     
  18. Big D Design

    Big D Design RIP 2021

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2017
    Likes Received:
    210
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Northern Region, FL
    Me thinks Freya is the best Preamp since Star Wars....
     
  19. Big D Design

    Big D Design RIP 2021

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2017
    Likes Received:
    210
    Trophy Points:
    43
    Location:
    Northern Region, FL
    @Kattefjaes
    Why you no like Freya?
    It has such great tools to tailor sound.
     
  20. Garns

    Garns Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Jul 9, 2016
    Likes Received:
    2,483
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Sydney, AUS
    Now I've had Freya in my system for a couple of months, I thought I'd share some impressions. In short it has stepped up my 2-channel setup from "great with compromises" to "no-holds-barred spooky good, freaks me out most times I listen to it". Marv has already said most that needs to be said, so I mainly want to talk around some points for my use case: as an interface between DAC (Yggdrasil) and powered monitors (Klein and Hummel O300D).

    Volume control
    A while ago I sussed on that Schiit headphone amps are not good preamps. Compared to Mjolnir and Jotunheim as pres, going direct Yggdrasil->K+H yielded very clear improvements in detail retrieval, soundstage and FR. The obvious problem is volume control. With trimpots on my monitor, I could attenuate Yggdrasil signal by 24db so that 0dBFS = 86dB SPL. But for the final few dB of attenuation I had to use digital volume control. In theory with the 20bit chips in Yggdrasil, it should be possible (if done properly) to attenuate a 16bit signal by 24db without loss of information. However, I tried this, and there were obvious aliasing artefacts. I suspect that even lesser amounts of digital gain reduction have some negative impact. Leaving SQ aside, digital volume control is a practical pain in the ass because you have to fiddle around in software whenever you want to change volume. With Freya, of course, you avoid both issues: you can attenuate in the analogue domain and don't need to get off the sofa to adjust volume.

    Impedance
    My monitors have a 14k transformer balanced input. Should be fine straight from the Yggdrasil, right? That was my assumption too. But after some experimentation, I discovered that using the 24db trimpots on the monitors threw this off. I don't know the mechanism, but the outcome was sharp, silvery, sibilant treble. I discovered this using Jot as a provisional preamp: then rather than attenuate 24db on the monitors, I did so on the Jot. Although this introduced new Jot-related treble weirdnesses, it fixed the nasty sibiliance and sharpness I was experiencing before. The Freya allows me to fix this completely. I can leave the monitor trimpots at 0db and the treble is hugely improved.

    Passive/JFET/tubes
    From what I said above, you might expect that passive attenuation would not work in my use case. It turns out to be much better than using the trimpots on the monitors, but there is still a residual trace of sharp sibilant treble. I think this is highly cable-dependent.

    In JFET mode the sibilance is gone completely. Macrodynamics are improved and everything is fuller. I feel that in the bass JFET mode might be slightly north of neutral and even slightly tubby. From cold, there is a nasty grittiness in this mode, like a piece of sand in your seafood salad. Things get much better after 24 hrs. If you are going to use this mode, take the tubes out and leave the thing on all the time.

    However, I don't really see any reason not to use tube mode. Soundstage is much deeper, transients appear clearer, and there is a transparency to the mids which JFET mode can't approach. It's not very "tubey", even with apparently warm tubes, which suits me fine. In general, it's not very receptive to tube rolling. In both these aspects it's pretty like Valhalla 2. I've tried a few different kinds, and hope to say a bit more about that later, but my definite favourite so far are Tung-sol 6SN7GT (bottom getter, parallel gray T-plates with two rivet holes, sometimes branded Motorola or Emerson). Should be about $20-40/pair from eBay. Super smooth treble but pretty good extension. Maybe a slight roll-off in top octave, but slight. Very three-dimensional with open, clear mids. Not warm. But also not lean like some of the Sylvania I have tried.

    Tweaking
    Freya is resolving enough that, once you have fixed up your source and speakers, you can hear tiny little changes in your system. Let me mention a couple of possibilities:
    • Interconnects. I found these had a bigger impact on the sound than tube swaps. Between Yggdrasil and Freya I tried Mogami 2549, 2534 and 3080 and also Dyson "Facemelter" and I found that 2534 < 2549 < 3080 < Dyson. Mainly the quality of the treble increased going from left to right---less sibilant, smoother, more extended. 2534 and 2549 have very well-defined bass. 3080 is a bit wishy-washy in the bass. The Dyson sound more open and clear than any of the Mogami and the bass is pretty good too (though to be honest I don't care that much about bass). I am still experimenting with interconnects Freya -> monitors.
    • Vibration. No, I haven't gone swivel-eyed. In tube mode the Freya is very susceptible to low-level stuff. Many tubes I tried have low-level hum. Vibration also affects the tubes quite a bit. I have Herbie's "Tenderfeet" under the Freya. I also have two ceramic drinks coasters weighing about 150g each and by placing or removing them from the top of Freya you can easily hear a change of about 1db in the top octave and a tightening of the bass. (The coasters are actually pretty crap as coasters because they are made of UNGLAZED CERAMIC. Seriously, WTF?) I also have some of the Herbie's tube dampers. Again, adding or removing a pair of these from the input tubes seems to change the top end by about 0.5-1db.
    Annoyances
    The one thing that does bug me about Freya is the outputs. There are three outputs, one XLR and two RCA. The problem is that they are all connected all the time. In most circumstances this is fine. However, my monitors short their inputs when switched off (more precisely, a relay switches them to a 100 ohm AES input). This means that I can't use the RCA outputs while the monitors are switched off without physically disconnecting the XLR outputs from the monitors. It would have been great if the outputs were switchable in the same manner as the inputs.
     
    Last edited: Jun 22, 2017

Share This Page