Schiit Freya Preamp Review (Episodic)

I know you don't want to talk about the Parasound A23 and the Freya, is there another Amp that you are going to try with it? I'm not going to pry, but I thought the A21 the bigger brother of the A23 won lots of awards for best solid state amp. I have always been a fan of the Vincent amps at that price point, but never would shell out the cash. I'm curious as to using a balanced Class A/B amp with the Freya sounds like from someone that have experience with a lot of equipment.

Good news for my side. They just shipped my Freya and Modi Multi-Bit. Weeeeee.

 

Yes I had to do a lot to damp out the digital edge in my past. There were many ways I had to get the painful sterile sound out. I used a disc damper on my CD player and had a bunch of exotic cables that put the sound back in check. I come from an audiophile Car Stereo backround also and actually had a Denon CD player with $1,500 worth of wiring to make digital sound right in the car. I used custom built boxes for all speakers too, and the Subs sat where you put your feet in the back seat.

Anyway, tubes seem to have been always been my friend somewhere in the chain with Home Audio. The Old Krell and Mark Levinson amps were my friend years ago with tricks using exotic wiring and the right preamps. But these were for my rich clients. Me... I had NAD amp and Sony preamp with Dynaaudio speakers on top of my custom built 3-way big cabinets with 15" woofer. 8" midrange, and horn tweeter. The big box had a custom crossover with 2 dials and lots of great inner parts. So over the years I had installed quite a few different woofers and midranges into the system to achive good sound. The speaker boxes came frim Heathkit. Now that is quite a while ago, eh. I just replaced the crossover with something high end. Did that system sound good. Yes. But back at the Audio Salon a couple of Krell Mono blocks and Apogees and it was clear that "soundstage" was not one of the charms of my system. Brute power and attack with my system..... Oh Yes!!! Even more than the $40,000 system at the store. At 4 ohms my NAD amp was hitting about 220 watts RMS before clipping.

So now I am back into finding the "soundstage" in stereo. Hopefully there will be some more bloom or fullness in the sound. As it is now...... not so much. Hoping the Freya and the Modi Multi-Bit that I ordered will bring back some of the attack that I miss so much. Tubes really have a way of making other pieces with SS sound better. And I think that if you are looking for attack as well.... there is no other way to accomplish it. Thanks for the heads up with the A23. I wouldn't even think about that buy. I would buy a smaller Vincent before that. I like my NuPrime Class D so far. Spent a solid 3 hours with my eyes closed listening at low volume without fatigue. The amp itself is like a lead weight for it's size. There is something inside that case. I like the fact that they dialed it down a little to make it tube like. At least that's what the concensus is with the amp. I hate listening fatique. I have a set of headphones that reveal detail great. But 30 minutes later..... I'm ripping them off my head with pain. You guys know what I mean. I like this Freya. Hoping this is the cure to my preamp ills. It's been a long time since I've felt like there is a breakthru in tech and pricing. Hope it all works out. I'm not rich. Once I get this right.... I'm done.

 

So there are many options for folks who are into tubey sound / who think Jotun is too SS-like:
1. Adding pre-amps: Valhalla 2 / Saga / Freya / (used) Mjo2
2. Get a tube amp (Val2 / Crack / Elise / Mjo2 / TIII) & manually re-route audio signal depends on the mood.

In particular, I'm curious how well Saga / Freya compared to Val2 as preamps for Jotun and Sagaheim / Freyaheim compared to Mjo2 / TIII. What do you think @Marvey ?

 

You don't need to bother with Mjolnir 2 as it already has the tubes in the circuit. Just roll to suit tastes. The others...I'm not too sure. If it continues in the direction that adding Val2 to Jot improves sound stage depth and center imaging while pushing everything a hair further out then each is a viable solution.

Just remember that you can't fix a problem such as no low level detail with another amp. It's a sum of both amps qualities, good AND bad.

 

Would you consider a Freyarok? My Rag might benefit from some tube goodness, deeper soundstage and a remote. My concern is loss of some ciclotron detail as a result.

 

Marvey,
Did you listen to the Freya with the tubes that came with it? Just curious as to what the sound from them was like. I assume that they are new 6SN7 tubes.

I know you guys told me not to go crazy with Vintage Tubes but I ended up ordering 8 total yesterday (all Vintage NOS Sylvania 6SN7GTB). Thought I might get a couple of good ones out of the bunch. Spent about $115.00 all together, and most are in a set of 2 from the same batch.

 

I noticed a larger than expected amount of hum with the stock tubes on Freya into my active monitors.

Maybe I should get some tungsols. Maybe it's the amps in the speakers. Or, could it be that it was the first time I turned it on? I only got it yesterday.

 

Looks like I'll get my Schiit stuff on Tuesday. Wednesday should be fun with everything warmed up. The vintage tube stuff looks to be something to keep me occupied when my system is up and running. It will be basically a done deal with all the moving parts needed. The last thing to do is to custom build a showcase of the equipment with plexiglass and some subtle lighting in blue. I will run the lighting off a DC car stereo battery that I have for car amplifiers. I've done this before. Blue lighting is cheap with auto industry applications and this isolates the lighting from the stereo signal chain. I then charge the 9lb battery once in a while with my charger in the shop downstairs. I even used to isolate lighting in my one car stereo with a battery just like it, and bring it in my shop and charge it every once in a while. No whine. Some cars just whine with lighting. It should be a cool looking 2 story stand with 2 smoked plexiglass panels and alloy columns. The height will be 2 inches above the amp and dac on the bottom, with the Freya preamp on top. I have this thing about plexiglass. It's fun to work with to make your electronics setup complete.

I just started to FLAC some of my CDs for the occasion. I have Foobar2000 installed yesterday. Isn't that the best for playback on Windows? Looks like it is going to be some learning to get the interface looking like something nice with one of those themes. Just curious as to what FLAC player forum members use with Windows. I'm using EXact Audio Copy to rip.

 

No hum with those speakers w/ jfet or passive freya, or with the emotiva volume knob thing. I don't have anything else that takes tubes to try these in.

I'll give it some time.

 

Will be interesting to see some Freya->powered monitor combos. With the right source that could be a killer application for this preamp.

If SBAF is going deep into two channel, then the Oceans Way studio monitors should be on the short list. I might buy a pair if Trump gives me a tax refund.

 

I try Foobar every year or so and I never notice a difference between it and J River. If you don't mind paying J River has a superior interface and is easier to get up and running not to mention it has better software remotes (EOS, JRemote).

I used to use EAC to rip but I bit the bullet a few years back and switched to DBPoweramp. IMO it is superior as it cuts down on a few steps for me and has superior error catching and error correction and it does all that while being faster on average than EAC. Like J River it isn't free but it is better and you only have to buy either once.

 

Not gonna happen this year - Sad!