Golden Schlong Awards 2024 - Nominations

Second for the Soekris 1221 (VE).
nth for the Mercury (VE!).

Did Schiit GJallarhorn get a schlong for VE?

 

ETA O2: L
ZMF Caldera Closed: E
Apos/Audio-Technical ATH-R70x: V
Schiit Modius, Magnius: L, V

 

Pietus Maximus for VE: what everybody else said.

xDuoo TA-66 for V, with a caveat that you might not get good tubes on the first roll of the dice. If you do, it’s darned nice for the money. I haven’t even tube rolled mine yet; once the stock tubes had a few hours on them, they’ve paired magnificently with the HD 800 S.

My perpetual nod for V, E, and L goes to World’s Best Cables on Amazon. Darned good interconnects and speaker cables, built solidly out of quality wire and connectors, and with a minimum of fuss.

Greatest hype-to-reality ratio goes to the ATH-R70x Refine and the FiiO K11 R2R (tie).

 

Love World’s Best Cables!

 

+1 for the TA-66 with the stock tubes. It's actually quite good with the stock Shuguang (!) power tube and Voshkod Rocket driver. There's good bass and lovely mids, and there's a good amount of clarity with the tubiness. It's OTL so only high impedance headphones, but it's a value amp with the Verite Open and the HD600, especially if you can get it for around $215 on sale.

 

I'll second (or fourth) Vali 3 for V.

I have Vali 1 and 2+ but the 3 is a big step up for me. Much smoother and more spacious sound with a little bit of the magic the Vali 1 had but later versions lost.

Vali 3 with a GE 5670w tube from the BF2 OG takes a huge chunk of listening time away from my Pietus which is also good value, so a big V win in my opinion.

 

Might not be popular opinion here, but I’d add HEDDphone Two for VE.

Excellence because, to my ears, it delivers perfectly natural sound with a resolution that is matched by nothing else I’ve heard in this price range.

Value because headphones I heard that I would rank similarly start at roughly € 1000 on top the HEDD2’s price.

 

Vali 3 for "V"
Mercury is another item for"V",no one can go wrong with this streamer.
Puritan PSM156 - "E". This is a mains purifier. Very well designed product and works well
ZMF Atrium Ooen - "EL", I love this headphone so have to nominate

And how can I forget MJ3 - "V". Best amp in its price category.

 

Audioengine HD6 - VLE

Powered speakers that scale with every combination of gear I've thrown at them, including power sources. They were pleasant to listen to with the Multibit Bifrost 1 for years, but they stepped up the imaging and engagement when I switched to the Yggdrasil A1 full-time (along with cleaning up the power around the inputs). They scaled up again with I found out my soundcard was faulty and switched inputs around. If nothing else, they'll provide a great benchmark for when (if?) I start exploring other speaker options.

 

Looks like the ECP DSHA-3F won a Golden Schlong for excellence in 2019: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/golden-schlong-awards-2019.8835/. Perhaps the Nitsch DSHA-3FN is worth considering for both excellence and longevity now that it’s been five years.

I “agreed” with the Mercury / Mjolnir 3 posts up top too.

Not sure about Gungnir 2 as it just came out and we haven’t had the loaner yet. Yggdrasil maybe for longevity too if it’s been a while since it won something? Still going strong as a platform almost a decade after buying my original Analog 1 version, and still offering upgrades to the latest flavors (LIM/MIB), firmware, and chassis.

 

Has the Magni Unity been nominated for V before? Feel like it deserves it.

I haven't ever heard the Magni+ but the Unity outresolves both the Piety and Magni 3+, and while it doesn't have the beautiful midrange or recklessly lively (in a good way) bass that the Nitsch does or the more well-rounded headstage of the 3+ (the mild hole in the middle effect on the Unity is really my main gripe with it), I feel like it ought get a nomination just for how ludicrously well-balanced and refined the treble is (Piety and MCTH have midtreble sizzle, 3+ has lower treble glare, Liquid Carbon was a bit muted); that is bonkers for an amp at this price I think.

Tempted to also suggest those cheapo Tangzu IEMs as a counterpoint to the Zero:2s cuz I like them more and they're a bit cheaper, but lmao I think I'm the only one talking about em. Just gotta say that people are spoilt for choice for good affordable IEMs I think, there's also the Truthear Gate recently which seems insanely competitive.

 

i'm glad to see my ad money going to a good cause! This is why this forum is so much fun!

 

I'll also recommend the TA-66 for Value category, as a great entry OTL amp, in the case that you get one that works properly. Had to send one back for a noisy tube (got greedy with Amazon, should have just replaced the tube) and the second back for faulty relay pot that would mute the left channel every 3 or so of the 24 relay steps. Also gotta look past the clunky relay steps.

But once the stock tubes open up, it really is a great sounding amp, especially with HD800(S). With dynamic headphones, I like the sound over the many OTC amps I've tried, and over other cheaper OTLs that I've had around (Valhalla 2). Really considering trying a third time since it's the best I've heard Sennheisers recently. Really an awesome value for $249 or $215 on sale if you can look past the build stuff.

 

Schiit also has frequent updates and aggressive product release schedules. That probably makes them more likely to win annual awards just on that basis alone.

 

Current incarnation of Vali for Value (V). Eventually Vali family for longevity (L). Definitely FFF for fun form factor.

 

So is the Magni Unity really dramatically better than the Magni+?

 

To be honest, I think SBAF is already stuck with that label. That said, problem has always been having a reliable way of finding gems out there without going the HF route of relying on shills.

 

Schiit is just good at getting the word out about their stuff. Which I suppose means they don't really need the awards anyway.

With respect to being overlooked, Magni Unity probably has the issue of a very large portion of the dedicated hobbyist audience already owning both some sort of Magni AND some sort of bigger better amp more to their tastes, to the point where bothering to buy something that "only" claims to be a good normal headphone amp is a pretty hard sell. But that's beside the point.

Truthear Gate IEM - Value - extremely cheap, and has a nicely executed clean and not very warm tuning, for people who are into that sort of thing. The sound and build quality are excellent by historical budget IEM standards. I can think of some older IEMs of that sort that sounded better to me, but this is better built than basically all of them. The cost is shockingly low - something like 15 bucks shipped, and the stuff it compares to from several years ago cost several times that.

There are a few other IEMs from around this year that would seem to fit this bill, just this is the only one I've heard. Maybe they all deserve the award.