Schiit Jotunheim impressions

I agree with @Psalmanazar and think he has brought up a few good points that others on the hype train may have missed.

 

Schiit loses the Arab and Satanist vote.
Deplorable.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_influence

 

Regardless of how it's reviewed or received, I consider the Jot my own personal end game amp for the 650. When the chemistry between your gear happens, it just does. Listening to these two gets me lost in the music. Finally, I'm able to quite analyzing ad-nauseam and be content and just simply, enjoy. I can see this pair monopolizing much of my attention for the foreseeable future.

 

^^^ here he goes again. Saying the $5k Pavane is the answer to the problem..... lol

 

Was the BW1 bloomier than the Gungnir form factor 2? I actually really liked the Yggdrasil -> BW2 -> HD 650 with recordings that have only single kick drums and not a lot of bass. Old rock records sounded good on it and the BW2 synergized well with the "old school heavy metal" sound of 80s Megadeth which is thin, clear, slightly tinny, and uncompressed without any fat bass tones or double kick work beyond some fills. There's not a lot for the bloom to screw up there.

Yes the Asgard 2 is not the clearest amplifier around; the Rag is noticeably clearer but grittier. I disagree on the Jotunheim actually being clearer/higher fidelity in treble timbre though. It's just different. The Asgard 2 and Rag MOSFETs have this treble uh "TING" shimmer timbre to them that's actually somewhat similar to the better delta-sigma DAC chips (AK4396/4399 and AD1955) that's not very offensive.

The Jotun does this "GLARE" thing with some cymbals similar to what ESS Sabres do all the time to them that's closer to the actual BRONZE shimmer of real life but also much more annoying than the TING. It's similar to the uncanny valley but even more obviously fake than Japanese blowjob robots as the Jotun can present more variety of treble timbres than the Rag/Asgard 2 to show you the difference between hits, but they're all just more wrong than the MOSFET TING. What in real life is ting with bronze shimmer becomes steely mixed with glare. Rock, metal, and jazz recordings with flashy drummers will just throw the off timbre in your face like a three year old with spaghetti. Is the next one going to be a fistful of noodles or meatballs?

Where the Jotunheim is better is in the supernaturally strong grip on the drivers. The amp will reproduce every hit and note but actually has too much damping of the drivers for bass and guitar sustain as the harmonics from fat guitar tones and double bass rolls do not linger long enough and leave some gaps which I tested with Black Sabbath's Mob Rules and Immolation's Dawn of Possession. There is also too much uniformity/thinness on many of the hits. Transient compression on rapid sustained ongoing transients? (different from normal transient compression, transducer compression or krell-like false dynamics being applied to transients). Certain tube amps (Mjolnir 2, MicroZOTL) do this too and sometimes do not sound as high fidelity for sustain as technically worse, cheaper tubey tube amps and cheap Linn-type Class AB solid state amps do. The Jot does not have the great tubey staging like the Black Widow and Valhalla 2 have though.

Much of the Asgard 2 and Rag softness comes from the amp being cold, let them physically warm up for an hour or so and the aural warmth and poorly-defined treble goes away.

The most right-timbre amps had the worst sources (USB/phones) so no this was not a source issues.

The Pavane is maybe the "clearest" NOS DAC I have heard but is audibly rolled/softened so that 320 kbps MP3s of classical music -> Pavane -> Magni 2U -> stock HD 800 sounded relatively inoffensive to me. I didn't get to AB it with anything or my music but yeah the Pavane is way softer than any Schiit DAC which seems to be why people with bright as the sun gear gear like the stock HD 800, Beyers, and etched tubes like it so much.

 

I have them both sitting on my desk at the moment and I would say this is spot on. The treble on the Asgard 2 is pleasant and doesn't offend, but it in general has a very flat sound and you never get beyond the sense that you are listening to recorded music through an amp. In contrast the Jot delivers some real surprises and has a clarity that surpasses any of the SS stuff I have here.

The Jot's sharpness could be a bit of a concern for some without a doubt. There is a certain inertia to some sounds such as plucked strings that can have a bit of a zing. It's not sibilance, but rather the combination resulting from a very fast and very revealing amp. I spent my first week with the Jot doing comparisons with the same cabling and setup and have now moved to "tuning" it a bit and it is much better. Different interconnects and power, and a good warm up make a lot of difference.

It's still on my desk and I don't see it coming off any time soon. Whatever problems the Jot may have it has exposed even bigger problems with my other amps. My Questyle and Bakoon sound stretched and unnatural, and the Soloist constrained.

Somewhere down the road it would be nice to see a deluxe Jot, with refined power and bells and whistles like locking connectors.

 

Tried Jot as pre to my 8050-s. The room this time is a freakin' reflection chamber, not synergistic to equipment with treble oddities.
Again vs the EC2A3 as I have nothing more appropriate on hand. My own built Ehha would be more fair comparo, I will loan it back at one point.

Honestly, all I heard with HD800X comes trough from my speakers. In short it is quite decent* preamp.
There is also the 'tzzz' present with specific hi-hats (Tool) that is annoying. Bright rock in general doesn't sound very pleasant. The highs at some particular region are very slightly diffuse, lacking in note weight and smearing together with very complex hi-hats. It might be related to the slightly unnatural transient I heard with headphones. ( I kinda agree with@Psalmanazar : not like Sabre I have heard, but it is similar effect. )

The latter is more evident with my speakers than with HP-s. Otherwise it's note weight is excellent and more similar to EC than any SS I've heard.
In my current room EC's treble somehow doesn't offend much. Bright and reflective because shitty acoustics, but tolerable even with Tool's hi-hats.

Still, to my ears Jot's treble is actually not that bad on its own with anything but bright rock. Only in direct comparison it is slightly alarming. My wife though hates the 'tzzz'. Even from the other room, because she has bat ears. Women, huh?
Otherwise, slam, fluidity, staging and clarity is very good.
The EC is still pre in its own class, not surprisingly. I must remember and forgive that Jot doesn't cost thousands and has zero tubes in it. I still like it better than other ss shit I have tried as pre.

Exactly. The sound is crystal clear, without boundaries.
This is where it is most reminiscent of my EC. No other ss or even hybrid does that.

*edit: It is not as good of a pre as I originally thought after trying it out in better acoustics.

 

...

 

first the bandwagon of positives now the bandwagon of negatives will start. Then later on both.

That is how it always goes.

 

Maybe this is what Schiit was referring to that needs a major upgrade with modern technology? Now I'm really looking forward to their RMAF product introduction!

 

And the truth falls in between...

 

when in doubt, wait a year
Though I'm glad to have the loaner coming my way.

I think mid-2017 we'll have much more of a solid (and messy) read on the Elear, Utopia, Jotunheim, etc.