Storytime: NITSCH x Schiit Magni Piety, Magni Pi, etc.

Have had the Piety for a day, its been playing for 4 hours, I am amazed at how good this little box is. Mids are rich warm and very tube like, bass is clear, fast and well defined not bloated. Very well balanced, the top end lacks utimate refinment (I do not really care when listining) This is a really fun and great little amp. Im coming from a Studio B tweaked out. The piety does not have the air, end game tonality and glow of the Studio B. Cant wait for it to really break in. I do find at present that high gain has better dynamics,punch and it seem space arounf the instruments, will play with this more as it breaks in.

 

What vol range do you typically use on hi gain, o' the clock?

 

Read way back in the first post Purrin was saying the Piety doesn't do good with new low impedance orthos so I'm gonna guess that DanClark æon will be bad, phooey. Vali it is then, or maybe even the new Magni maybe, let's take a look.

 

this is with the fostex rp-50 between 7-8

 

Just hooked up the Piety to my Gungnir using the single ended outputs, I have the balanced going to my amp for my speakers. Again it sounds really good even though the single ended putputs on the Gungnir are not as good as the blanced.
very nice

 

Piety is an outstanding value. It has literally replaced my Jot v1 for desktop speaker use and low impedance/high sensitivity HP listening.

 

I'll have a Piety delivered Tuesday. Curiosity got the best of me. Hard to resist once I saw it was back in stock.

 

Quick impressions:

• Works fine with 18Ω planars for me, on both low and high gain. I don't see why Aeons would be an issue.
• Low gain is relaxed and slow. High gain kicks the treble up a notch, and I prefer the low gain honestly.
• Against Magni 3+, the Piety is definitely colored, but in a way that I like.
• The only issue is that I really don't like it as a preamp on my Rekkr. On either low or high gain the mid-bass is exaggerated. Maybe this will improve with time.

 

Gonna hook up the Piety as preamp for the Koss and see what it does with the sound, wonder if it'll do the same with the mid-bass.

 

On low gain the Piety is the closest I've heard to the Bluemini R2R dongle that comes with the Deva Pros, even when the Piety is fed by a regular Modi+. I don't have a real need to use it on the Devas though; the Bluemini dongle works perfectly well when fed by a USB Type C cable.

On the other hand, I just put the Piety between the MMB2 and my main amp (Onkyo A-9150 stereo integrated amp) and in high gain it's amazing. With a subwoofer in the system, the improved punch and slam of the bass is apparent, and both separation between instruments and stereo separation are increased significantly. I'm still running it through the built-in preamp instead of the "main in" bypass input; the Onkyo has an input sensitivity of 200mV and that doesn't leave me very much control over the volume. I think I'll leave it here for a while.

Speaking of volume, my Piety doesn't have a position indicator on the volume knob. Guess I'll have to find some white-out...

 

Oh weird- lemme know who you are in PM or email and I will put a knob in the mail for you!

 

I would

 

Cool, thanks! I sent you a message.

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "the mailman is coming".

 

So the Piety (with replacement knob, thank you CEE TEE!) has stayed in my two-channel system since it arrived. I'm really enjoying it and I'm finding any excuse I can to spend time listening. The only downside is that it's really inconvenient to use with headphones now.

For those with more experience with Schiit gear, is this what Continuity sounds like? If I switched out my amp for a Gjallarhorn or saved my pennies for an Aegir, would I be enjoying the same magic? I'm running Klipsch RP-160Ms, so the Gjallarhorn would be plenty of power. Or is this just the unique magic of the Piety, and I should be happy that I'm happy and leave things as they are?

 

Super super brief impressions, Piety vs Phonitor, using JAR660 and OG HE-6 (weirdly enough impression are same with both headphones)

Phonitor: more lower body, grunt, impact, v-shaped in comparison
Piety (low gain): holy detail retrieval Batman! strong upper mids. Finger snaps really come out, but cymbal crashes are clearer on Phonitor.

High gain - tilts everything too far forward and my sense of reference is thrown off, I thought it would gain more oomph in the bottom but it did not; nope not for me, gonna stick with low gain for now, maybe revisit at a later time.

 

Hey, I’m new here. Been reading a lot about this Piety and have been interested in getting one. I wanted to ask, how does it compare to the Vali 1? I’m still rocking one and actually had the tubes replaced recently. I have a Modi Multibit v1.2 and an OG Bifrost that I’m about to upgrade to multibit and Unison. Do you think it’d be a step sideways or would it be a big upgrade?

 

What headphones do you use?

Musical prefs?

The OG Vali is a nice sounding amp IMHO.

 

welcome! When you get a chance, there is a new member introduction thread (linked in the site banner)... you'll want to post there.

I have owned the Vali 1 twice (great amp) and used it side by side with a piety for about a month before selling off the vali 1. Dac was/is an OG modi MB (modded). I personally preferred the vali 1 with the HD600 and with my ZMF eikons. I preferred the Piety with lower impedance headphones (Ollo S4R, Verum 1)... the vali was just too noisy on low imedence headphones for me.

Since my use case was the S4R, I kept the Piety. Had my use case been the HD600, then I would have kept the vali 1. IMO, vali 1 vs piety comes down to the headphones you are using.

 

Headphones are Grado GH4. Musical prefs are mostly jazz, rock, and folk.

Agreed, I love the Vali. Over the years I’ve read reviews (here and other forums/sites) for the newer iterations and it just seemed like they weren’t enough of an upgrade or different enough for me to spend the money for. Though mine never gave me trouble with the ringing, a couple weeks ago the left channel had a ring that wouldn’t go away during a listen. I figured the tube or something else may have gone bad so I should just buy new instead of sending it in again, and went down the rabbit hole exploring the current options for headphone amps. The ringing was gone the next day and I figure it must’ve been a very slight breeze coming through an open window and the fact that my tubes aren’t sticking to the foam pads anymore. But ever since reading about the Piety my interest has been piqued.