Schiit Midgard Review, Impressions, Measurements, Science

It's interesting that this replaces the Magnius, but the Magnius was fully balanced?

 

Magnius was fully balanced, but I don't really consider that a huge loss. You don't really need fully balanced inputs to get balanced outputs. But mostly I think the Magnius was a forgettable chip amp, and that was the only way to keep it fully balanced in a chassis that size. They did squeeze a balanced 4 gang Alps pot in that thing, which the Midgard also has.

I would also take a moment to speculate this driver distortion correction tech, Halo, to show up on a speaker amp. Aegir 2 or something? But that is just me speculating.

 

Jason already said Halo was probably coming with Aegir 2 in the livestream announcement for Midgard. Also sounded like it might not be too far out (bearing in mind “Jason’s Law” of wrong date predictions). He also speculated more power for Aegir 2 as well.

 

Also interested in the same thing here. Could be a great recommendation to beginners this amp.

 

Sort of random aside, but one thing I liked about these medium size Schiit amps is you can flick em on and they sound their best right away. Versus a Jot2 needs a bit of time..

 

Compared to other amps' distortion surface graphs presented so far (thanks for taking the effort btw, that's a painful amount of work to get this) that is uncannily featureless. Don't suppose that a similar graph featuring a lower-impedance load may be in the works? Also, could just be eyestrain but might help to have thin vertical lines connecting the voltage to the correlating distortion level, kinda like this?



Your presentation is much cleaner looking but the gridlines in atomicbob's make it a bit easier to parse and eyeball. Could just be me though.

 

Hah! Backslid to circa 2009 habits I guess. Mainly curious because I'm trying to mentally estimate how this might translate to pieces with lots going on, assorted instruments and vocals at varying SPLs concurrently, reaching for fringe stuff similar to how I read too much into higher order noise with those tube transient response measurements a while ago.

With permission I'll probably keep taking random potshots and hopefully make the odd useful guess

 

This panel is a coarse version of the corresponding distortion contour map. Unconsciously this may have been the seed for my surface and contour maps developments.

 

aside: if i ever start another band, it's going to be called The Flaming Voicecoils.

 

I'm having a ground issue on mine delivered today. When I touch the volume pot my headphone makes a buzzing noise about 30db. Anyone else?

 

That sucks to hear your unit is having issues. I'm not hearing any buzzing on my unit. My noise floor in my house is around 33-34db, so if it is there then I can't hear it. If you haven't done it already, I would at least try using a different outlet. If the buzzing doesn't go away then I would contact Schiit.

 

Ok, good to have another owner verify that their not having problems. It's loud enough to where you'd notice it 100%. I've asked Schiit.

 

Yes I am having a similar problem - switch from RCA to balanced inputs and even switched the streaming source to a different box.

Its a pity as in every other way this is an amazing headphone amp, love the style, love the sound (though if I were to A/B test the Halo technology I don't think I would tell the difference) and love the power it provides.

 

Are your AC outlets grounded?

 

Interesting that you're in UK as Schiit stuff just doesn't seem to play right with other voltage. I am in NZ at 230v. Well that's a shame to hear it's the amp design and not a faulty unit, since you're experiencing the same thing.

My AC outlets are grounded and working as normal / as it should. The power pack the Midgaard comes with is 2 prong and not 3 prong (2 prong and an earth prong).

 

I might see can I buy a different 15V 2A power supply and see if that solves the problem. As an experiment I connected my iPad to the RCA inputs and I got no problems until I touched both the iPad and the volume and then I could hear the ground loop - this was on high gain, on low gain it was fine (or inaudible)