Schitt Lokius Tour Impressions

Discussion in 'Headphone Amplifiers and Combo (DAC/Amp) Units' started by bilboda, Aug 7, 2021.

  1. scblock

    scblock Friend

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    Introduction

    I don't typically use any form of correction in any of my setups, except for a small bass adjustment of about -1 dB using the tone controls on the back of my Vandersteen 2c speakers because of some room interactions.

    I do have a miniDSP UMIK-1 microphone and have taken measurements of both my desktop and main two channel setups to understand the in-room response of both setups. I've tried applying corrections a few times, including using convolution filters derived from those measurements or developing equalization curves based on them, and applying those adjustments in Roon. Similarly I've tried building EQ curves for several pairs of headphones based on measured frequency response. In every case I conclude that the result sounds wrong somehow. It seems like no matter what I do with digital EQ in Roon I dislike the results and go back to applying no adjustments.

    The Lokius loaner was a great chance to try some minor EQ adjustment without dealing with the whole digital side of things. I spent a few days with it at my desktop setup with both speakers and headphones, then moved it down to my main two channel setup for a weekend.

    Gear
    • Headphones: Roon -> HifiBerry Digi+ Pro -> Modius -> Lyr 3/SW51+/Bottlehead S.E.X. -> HD8xx, HD650, HD58x, DT177x Go
    • Desktop: Roon -> HifiBerry Digi+ Pro -> Modius -> Bottlehead S.E.X. -> Klipsch R-51M bookshelf speakers
    • Two channel digital: Roon -> HifiBerry Digi+ Pro (or Parasound C/DP-1000) -> Bifrost Multibit -> Vidar -> Vandersteen 2c speakers
    • Two channel analog: Sol -> Mani -> Vidar -> Vandersteen 2c speakers

    Everything single ended, so I won't be able to comment on SE vs. balanced.

    Impressions

    Overall I liked the Lokius quite a bit. It does not appear to audibly degrade the sound, making minor adjustments is easy and the real-time feedback is a vast improvement over making minor changes in Roon, where the audio stops momentarily on every adjustment. Also, unlike using the digital EQ in Roon it never sounded "wrong" in way the digital EQ did. The results of EQ adjustments with the Lokius were for the most part fairly subtle until I turned the dials most of the way in either direction.

    Most of my headphone listening was with the HD8xx. I personally find the HD8xx to be quite nice as-is. I'm not particularly sensitive to the slightly recessed vocal range, and unlike my Beyers I find the highs pleasant and non-fatiguing. My main complaint is that though the bass has good extension it has little heft. After playing around a while I settled on a bass boost for both lowest channels at about 3 o'clock, a slight reduction in lower mids, a stronger increase in upper mids at about 4 o'clock, and a very small reduction in the highs. I played with the last knob a bit but found I preferred it as-is. This brought the vocals forward slightly and the bass up a little closer to my preference without vastly changing the overall sound.

    On my desktop speaker setup I honestly didn't find a set of adjustments that I thought really improved the sound. The things it needs are more bass and fixing some of the room interactions. But I'm using small bookshelf speakers, a sub is out of the question, and this is my office so overall desk placement and arrangement is more important than best possible sound.

    On my main stereo I settled on a slight bass reduction in the lowest channel, a slight lower mids reduction, pushing upper mids to about 3 o'clock, and a tiny reduction of the highest frequency. The bass reduction is to slightly reduce booming with my bad room mode (that I don't really have the resources to fix right now). The best adjustment was just bringing the vocals slightly forward. It was a nice improvement in presence, though maybe slightly less accurate than without.

    Honestly after about a week with the Lokius I'm not sure I really have a need for it in either of my systems. While it was nice to be make some small adjustments in my systems, it also led to me having some nervosa about exactly what adjustments to make.

    Also I kind of like having different headphones with different responses. My desktop speaker system has a very nice downsloping response curve overall, with a nothing below 40 Hz (bookshelves) and a few room-related nulls that EQ can't fix anyways. My main system has a nice response as well with one really bad resonance at about 50 Hz that EQ doesn't do much for either.

    Also just for clarity I hold the opinion that no, you can't make any headphone sound like any other headphone just by matching EQ curves, and that trying is fruitless. If you're going to do any EQ at all it should probably be subtle, and play on the headphones specific strengths and weaknesses. I like the relatively restrained approach of the Lokius with a limited number of channels and small initial adjustments, which nicely align with that philosophy.

    Overall then I think the Lokius is a really nice product. Making minor adjustments was easy and kind of fun, and I didn't find that it did anything negative to the sound quality, unlike the digital EQ methods I've tried. It's maybe not a great fit for me just because I don't know that I get a lot of value out of EQ adjustments, but if I was going to make adjustments I would absolutely reach for this over digital EQ in a heartbeat. If I find myself thinking again that I should make some EQ changes I'll buy this before I play with the Roon EQ again.
     
  2. Josh Schor

    Josh Schor Friend

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    the Lokius is not for me, I preferred the sound without it. That said I listened to music I do not really listen to when using it to see what it could do. Metallica and Tool ,with these I increased the lower bass a 1/4 turn and all others except the highest octave an 1/8 of a turn, it brought more punch and aggressiveness into the sound it was great fun. I typically listen to very spacious trio jazz and different forms of ambient/house dub and electronica nothing really hard or aggressive with these I preferred not having it in line. I felt it did put a slight gauze over the music, nothing drastic just softer attack and decay. If I was a hard rocker this would be fun to have. Thank you for letting me listen to it.
     
  3. wadec22

    wadec22 Almost "Made"

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    I was really excited to try to the Lokius. My MOTU has some great EQ options but nothing beats the convenience of dials at your fingertips. Below are my notes and thoughts on the Lokius - LOTS of subjectivity here.

    Testing gear & notes
    • MOTU Ultralite mk4->Lokius->Violectric v280FE (-18gain)->miniDSP EARS
    • Headphones used are LCD-X (2021 revision) for their ability to take EQ
    • My measurements were done following miniDSP manual and recommended target curve. I know I should move to SBAF curve but small kids limit my time and I have a few years library all at the same target for now.
    Disclaimer
    • Proper headphone measuring is hard AF. I have been doing it for a couple years now, reading a lot of stuff here and on the old Changstar site. I am certainly NOT good at it yet. I have about 70ish sets measured under my belt and continue to learn. I welcome constructive criticism on my measurements. The LCD-X has huge pads/drivers and are a bitch to get a proper seal and positioning on the miniDSP EARS.
    • My images are watermarked with my logo. Time is valuable and it matters to me.

    The Lokius is a REALLY great looking unit. I love the machined holes on the top that look like spectrum levels.
    [​IMG]

    Shot of the back of the unit:
    [​IMG]

    Now functionally, I do have a pretty big gripe about the Lokius. Subjectively, I feel the knobs are too large for the chassis. They are too close together. You cannot fit your fingers between them, you literally turn them by moving from the top and bottom only. This presents a challenge vertically as well. You cannot use the unit at all if you want it flat on your desktop. You can't get your finger under the dial in this setup and are now turning the dial by trying to move from only the top and have little precision control.

    Here you can see the vertical clearance, or lack thereof;
    [​IMG]

    Here is an example resting on top of another piece of gear. The other thing to note here is the brightness of the white LED. I actually prefer a strong glow like this, but if you prefer a pin-hole size LED, this will be too bright for you. The Lokius is not conveniently accessible this way;
    [​IMG]

    The solution of course is obvious and easy to rectify assuming you are using any type of rack setup or other Schiit branded gear. In my case, I threw it on top of a box of golf balls lying around my basement.
    [​IMG]

    The solution from a design perspective is not as easy. The Lokius looks great and aesthetically pleasing gear sells. My MOTU ultralite mk4 has a more functional dial setup. They use much smaller knobs for adjusting levels and gain - and they work fantastic! Admittedly, they look and feel worse and with this same set of knobs, I'm sure the Lokius would also sell fewer units..... Here are comparison shots;
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Now once up and running - I really enjoyed messing with the Lokius and tweaking the sound. It is convenient, fast and gets you to tune your preferred sound based on what you hear instead of what some other dude on the internet has told you should.

    Speaking of boobs on the internet... The Lokius is audibly transparent at it's zero settings. You will not get any added color, distortion or noise, regardless of what egomaniac with a quantum analyzer on the net tells you. Rest easy, enjoy your music.

    Now the Lokius manual is pretty sparse. It tells us the dials are for 20hz, 120hz, 400hz, 2khz, 6khz and 16khz. However it does not mention gain levels or q factors. So I thought it would be handy to take some measurements and share some screens of the effects. Before grilling me over my measurements, please refer to the Disclaimer section above. Yes, I did not get a perfect seal on the LCDX here. You'll notice the sub bass steps off early by about 2-6db. My bad, but our comparative measurements are still handy for showing what the Lokius is doing to the sound.

    Each measurement shows the LCD-X with the Lokius at neutral settings and then only that one dial set at 3pm (approximately half the available gain to be added) and 5pm (basically full gain for that dial). For the first measurement I included a 4pm setting to show a little more precision. For the following measurements, I figured you could fill in the missing line with your keen eyes and sharp minds.

    20hz dial - neutral, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm:
    [​IMG]

    120hz dial - neutral, 3pm, 5pm:
    [​IMG]

    400hz dial - neutral, 3pm, 5pm:
    [​IMG]

    2khz dial - neutral, 3pm, 5pm:
    [​IMG]

    6khz dial - neutral, 3pm, 5pm:
    [​IMG]

    16khz dial - neutral, 3pm, 5pm:
    [​IMG]

    Now I must say, for me I would not purchase the unit given the issue I have with the knobs. I don't think it will be a deal breaker for most. If that were addressed, I would seriously consider it. Now the newer big brother has a remote, which solves my issue but its super pricey and for that, I want more dials. I'm particular. :)

    Anyway, I hope this is helpful for those that did not try it. I really enjoyed my time with the unit and am grateful for being allowed to be a part of the loaner!
     
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  4. Jerry

    Jerry Friend

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    Thanks for this. I happen to be using it with LCD-X and these graphs give me a clear picture on the effect of the Lokius.

    I notice for the 120hz dial, the effect from 3-5PM is huge, while 12-3PM is rather small. It is not a linear increase.
     
  5. wadec22

    wadec22 Almost "Made"

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    glad it was helpful. After seeing the effect of each dial, I was a little surprised they don't comment on the effects at all in the manual with a little explanation or detail.
     
  6. Jerry

    Jerry Friend

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    I have been playing it by ear so far on the LCD-X. It is so much easier with graphs.

    I was careful on pushing it to 3PM. Though my ears didn't detect a lot of increase, my mind always thought "is this too much?". Because 12-3PM is a long way on the dial, while 3-5PM is just a short turn.
     
  7. Ksorota

    Ksorota Friend

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    Hard to follow up on Wadec22’s great review, but here are my thoughts compiled after a week of playing with the Lokius.

    Setup is M1 MacMini > Spring 2 KTE > Lokius > Quicksilver HPA > Genesis G

    First Impressions: Great looking unit, standard Schiit quality and no surprises in form or function

    Listening Impressions:
    Early on I was not convinced I was going to want one of these units in my chain. I had a bit of fun playing with the settings but was just “playing” to start. As with most gear, I decided I needed to live with it for a while once I dialed in my settings for the Genesis G and just let it run.

    After a few days of having the Lokius tweaking the sound I flipped it off and although only subtle changes on the dials I discovered that I had come to prefer the modified sound sig. For those interested, I turned up the 6 and 16k a bit, dialed down the 120 and 400k, and left the other two alone.

    Other Impressions:
    The Lokius makes having two sources coming into an amp easy to quickly A/B and provides a nice way of converting balanced input to SE in a convenient and fun part of the chain. The Lokius does not seem to impart anything into the chain when in bypass mode and runs barely warm while in operation.

    The Lokius short profile makes it perfect for stacking. I had it directly on my table top which made making adjustments a little awkward as my hand would be hitting the table as I was filling the knobs. I like the idea of pairing with a Bifrost 2 or Modius to make a more seamless stack, but that is a small consideration.

    Final Thoughts:
    I like the Lokius and see myself purchasing one soon. I have been working hard to reduce my collection to only the necessary gear, but of course that is easier said than done.
     
  8. wadec22

    wadec22 Almost "Made"

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    did you test converting balanced to SE? I haven't tried that, I assumed that it only will feed RCA to RCA and XLR to XLR.

    Thank you for the kind words.
    Convenient little box. It spoils you having the ability to tweak the sound so quickly.
     
  9. Ksorota

    Ksorota Friend

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    Yes, balanced to SE and SE to Bal work great out of it. I was quick A/B ing across two DACs at a flip of a switch. Was pretty nice! Convenience is more and more appreciated as life gets complicated!
     
  10. TommyD

    TommyD New

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    Hi all,
    Nice, detailed reviews of the Lokius!
    I've been thinking of getting a Lokius, in the near future.
    Have any of you stacked the Lokius with a Gungnir and Freya S?
    If I get a Lokius, it will be stacked on a Gungnir and Freya S; due to the lack of space available.
    Have any of you had any "hum" or interference, caused by stacking too close to the internal transformers of the Gungnir and Freya?

    Thanks for your time!
     
  11. Gazny

    Gazny MOT: ETA Audio

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    Shouldn't be too much of an issue as the Lokius has an external transformer so they should not couple together.
     
  12. TommyD

    TommyD New

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    Thanks for the quick reply.
    It was mentioned on the Facts page of Schiit's website; for both the Lokius and Loki Max.
    It has me a little hesitant.
    It mentions the inductors in both the Lokius and Loki Max; possibly reacting to another device nearby, which has an internal transformer.
     
  13. Philimon

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    [​IMG]
     
  14. TheloniuSnoop

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    FWIW I had a Loki+ two shelves away from my Gungnir, and got hum through the Loki's inductors, just as Schiit warns.
     
  15. Philimon

    Philimon Friend

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    Thanks for the heads up @TheloniuSnoop . I did see the warning in the Lokius manual but couldnt detect hum from T20RP. Ill keep an eye out. If hum becomes an issue I guess it’ll show up in headphone measurements. I had Loki+ for awhile and luckily had no hum issue either.

    I like in the manual that the information for the 120Hz control reads, “…moar bass”.

    I specifically bought Lokius to pair with the too dark Nectar Bee. Hopefully Lokius limited controls pair well enough. I cant find a PEQ program that works with Apple Music streaming service, so Lokius.

    In my photo the speakers are not hooked up. Just using them as side tables temporarily.
     
  16. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    I wasn't part of the tour, but got one on permanent "loan" from @Brian D (i.e. I bought it). I haven't played around with it that much as I was sidetracked by repairing my SFD-1, but I was able to roughly but easily replicate the EQ settings I use for a couple of phones on my DEQ2496. The digital parametric EQ and analogue EQ don't sound exactly the same obviously, but using my digital settings as a guide, I could quickly get Lokius to fix the FR problems to where I'd be happy to listen to them that way.

    A unexpected benefit (though it's an obvious feature of Lokius) is that my system is now simplified in that I don't need a separate SE switcher for SW51. I can just use the XLR outputs from 2 DACs and then Lokius outputs both balanced and SE to two amps.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2023

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