Schiit Mjolnir 3 Impressions

Thank you, those photos are a valuable reference for cap checking, which I just did. My 1st batch MJ3 does not show any cap bulges, fortunately. I'll check regularly from now on, of course.

 

What am I looking for? Bulging?

 

I only learned about what to look for from a brilliant dude named Voxata on one of the Discords I’m on. He is on HF and Reddit though.

 

My MJ3 is also a silver unit, so I assume that qualifies as 2nd run and this was corrected by then?

 

As another data point about the bulging/leaking/failing capacitors:

I ordered my MJ3 on launch date of the first run. The gain switch went bad after a couple weeks, not unlike a few others' experiences. The left channel would not switch over to high gain unless the switch was given some play. Then the relay would click and it would switch over (no biggie, but got annoying after some time).

Originally my MJ3 had the first run's capacitor layout: Two blue 47µF caps per channel. This is the version that others had reported failing. See image of original and faulty blue caps here (again, not my unit, just for reference):


I sent the amp in for the gain switch fix, and my amp came back with the newer capacitor layout, one black 10µF cap and the original blue 47µF cap next to it on each side (Sorry about the picture, didn't open the amp up but just peaked through the vent, can open it up if anyone is curious):



There was no mention of the capicitor swap on the repair invoice from Schiit, it only mentioned the gain switch repair. I think it's strange that they silently switched the caps and have not addressed this with the public. I'm glad however, that Schiit did do the swap while it was there for repair anyway. I commend them for that.

In my case, I'm not sure if the swap was a direct repair of faulty capacitors, or rather a precautionary measure, as I'm not sure if mine were leaking before I sent it in for the switch repair.

Otherwise, this has been my favorite sounding solid state amp that I've owned/heard and despite its quirks, it's not going anywhere. Don't want to take away from how great of a value this amp is.

 

Just a thought: if this was a car, wouldn't this situation warrant a sort of recall?

I have a first run unit too. There is a slightly but noticeably louder background hum with the left vs right channel. Otherwise, the unit sounds all right. But the images of faulty caps are bothersome indeed.

 

Yikes, good thing I held off on buying one. Not a good look for Schiit.

 

According to one person’s post on headfi, the MJ3 capacitor thing was briefly brought up and discussed in the main Schiit thread, only for all of the posts to be removed shortly after. I guess they will just silently fix them if/when they go bad, as opposed to putting out a statement and having 200 amps come in for repair at once.

5 year warranty is pretty solid and I’m happy to have it.

But again, I love this amp. Nothing has made me quite as happy besides demoing some tube amps that were 3x the price.

Not looking to stir things up here, Schiit remains my favorite company in the DAC/amp space. I'm just sharing my experience and enjoying the music!

 

I don't think it's a big deal when all new amps have warranties. However, it feels a bit off brand as Schiit has a history of being very transparent to their customers when there are issues. (The Bifrost 2 release comes to mind).

 

Is this true? If so and there is a decent chance that blown caps are likely going to happen eventually to a number of units from that first run, I would think @schiit should issue some kind of safety recall…

 

You guys are blowing this up, no pun intended. There's no fire risk from bad electrolytics. If we used tantalums (we don't), that's a different story (but we don't use any of those anywhere.)

Here's what happened: we got some bad caps in the first run. Not sure how, they are Panasonics from a Panasonic distributor, so they should be fine. We changed them in the second run. We are also replacing them prophylactically on any early Mjolnir 3s that come in for any problem.

It's important to note that not all caps are bad, and not all will fail. My personal unit has no problems, nor the long-term units in Corpus or Valencia. Nor the majority of units in the field.

If you have problems, contact us and we'll get yours taken care of. As we always do.

 

Tell me about it. When did Schiit have shit customer service? When shit hit the fan Schiit always get it fixed for customers from my memory.

 

Herrrr sorry to butt-in but that desk/hifi cabinet...can you send me the details?! Your setup is super clean.


On-topic, fortunately Schiit seems to have great customer service.

 

Knowing you and your company’s history Jason, I figured this had to be the case. Thanks for clarifying.

 

That's not to say I won't buy it eventually. Schiit Customer Service has always worked well for me when I needed it. I just don't like having to send it out and waiting for it to come back.

 

This could happen to ANY manufacturer that uses electrolytic capacitors in their products.
Aircraft
Medical Devices
Computers
Military equipment
you get the idea

The problem has been around for nearly three decades. Here is a place to find some history, lore, and practical information:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/welco...uestions-no-posting/465-the-bad-capacitor-faq

So how does this happen? Counterfeits, bad electrolyte, process problems ...?
Once upon a time it was believed that buying big name (Panasonic, Rubycon, etc.) through tier 1 vendor channels would prevent such occurrences. Not anymore apparently.

The ramifications are far reaching and a bit worrisome, far beyond our audiophile obsession.

 

Better than buying something from China and ship it back to China for repairs any day of the week.

 

Did not mean to fear-monger or anything, Schiit fixed it up before I even knew it was a potential issue, how’s that for service

 

In any event, thanks for the heads up - I'll keep an eye on it. My MJ3 has the old cap setup. When I do turn it on, my amp is on for 6-7 hours - usually the weekends. I see no bulges and I have had mine since last year.