Schiit Aegir Power Amp Impressions

Yes you could also get by with a Sys and a single Aegir. No remote of course, but Sys is actually a very good/transparent preamp. The only issue with the Sys is no gain. And Aegir is not a high gain amp either. Klipsch claim they do 96dB sensitivity, but Stereophile measured 89.6dB. However in a small room (sitting under 10ft away from the speakers) at sane volumes, you’re probably ok. You can of course add gain with the iFi tube buffer, if that’s in the chain. I have a Sys and love it, and it’s great as a backup preamp if I ever need one.

 

Thank you for the help and reassurance! It appears that I’m good-to-go, so I just pulled the trigger on a Sys and Aegir. Bear in mind that the Sys/iTube is just a stop gap until I decide to keep the amp. I may go for a second Aegir and Freya (or Brooklyn DAC+) eventually. However, I don’t mind dropping $50 on a piece of equipment that could come in handy later. I'll post some impressions with and without the iTube (with/without 9db gain) soon...

 

I have had an Aegir for about two months now and love it. I was originally going to jump to a Freya +, but wound up ordering an Asgard 3 for a headphone amp, which I also love. I previously sent the Magni back. The A3 has a preamp out, and I am thinking of trying it with the Aegir for now, in addition to using with my Senn's. Let us know how you go with your trial. (BTW, the Asgard 3 uses the same "continuity" design as the Aegir: first few watts Class A.

 

My Aegir arrived last week and here are my first impressions. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I'm coming from a Cambridge Audio 35w integrated amplifier (AM10) and have a Mani phono preamp, Modi MB DAC, and a iFi iTube 2 that I recently purchased. I currently have Klipsch RP600M speakers, but just pre-ordered some Zu Omen Dirty Weekend speakers that may ship as soon as April 2. By the way, my Aegir arrived without a power cable. I immediately inquired Schiit’s customer service if I was supposed to just provide my own now that I’m an elite audiophile who owns a piece of equipment on Stereophile magazine’s A-list? I told them the audio snobs of the world would be very disappointed as I was having to just grab one off my son’s old Xbox to set it up. They got back to me fast and apologized and said they were putting a cord in the mail for me. I was more relieved that the pressure was off than that a cord was coming ;-)

I purchased a Sys (Switch Your Schiit) along with the Aegir as a preamp, so that I could easily switch between the Mani and the Modi and have a volume control. The iTube has a volume control, but only a single input, so I put the iTube 2 in buffer mode between the Sys and the Aegir and I am able to switch it in and out of the path with a cheap RCA switch I rigged up. I tried the iTube with and without its available 9dB of gain via dip switches on the bottom. I also bought an amplifier A/B switch to compare the Aegir with my Cambridge, but could have just saved my money as the difference was night and day. Once I switched on the Aegir my Cambridge immediately became eBay fodder.

I was concerned if the 20w Aegir would be loud enough. However, my listening room, an office where I edit photos and sell photography all day is small and my speakers are fairly sensitive. Well, I can tell you the Aegir is plenty loud. Not only is it louder than my 35w Cambridge, but much cleaner also, which allows me to turn it up even more. Without the gain of the iTube switched on I could peg the Sys’ volume control when playing digital music from the DAC without the least bit of distortion. This was not quite the case with the gain from the Mani phono preamp, certainly not with the 9dB gain of the iTube. I can make it to perhaps 2 o’clock on the Sys’ volume control with the added gain. How loud is that? Loud enough to drown out my wife's loud complaining!

Regarding the iTube 2, I’ve been using it between my DAC and the Cambridge integrated amp to try and warm up my digital music, but had not been impressed with it and was about to return it. I couldn’t tell a real difference in the tube modes, XBass modes, or 3D+ soundstage modes despite all of the rave reviews that I had read. Coming from the guitar world, I’m a big fan of tube sound and had hoped to introduce a bit of it into my meager system. When I placed the iTube 2 between the Sys and the Aegir, however, I finally heard what people have been saying about this tube buffer. Suddenly, I could hear the differences in all of its various modes and they ALL sounded GOOD! Well, perhaps not the extreme Bass setting. I guess that forgot to mention that I have a subwoofer too (a Q Acoustics one).

The iTube’s gain allows me to get much higher volumes out of the Aegir, but even with it switched out I am really very happy with the sound of the Aegir. I am suddenly hearing details that I hadn't noticed before in my music. I can hear the slight modulation of a sustained Chick Corea keyboard note, a secondary vibration on George Harrison’s sitar, and “hair” on Keith Emerson’s Moog synthesizer. It is truly enjoyable! Obviously, I’ve taken a big step up in my system that I could have accomplished a number of ways, but the Aegir, iTube 2, and Klipsch speakers really seem to be a wonderful combination. That said, I suddenly find myself wanting more!!!

I've ordered a Freya Plus and will probably go for a second Aegir after my Zu speakers arrive next month. We'll see how much money I have left ;-) In the meantime, I'm going to continue to enjoy my single Aegir very very much!

 

You are on a roll. It sounds like you have no opposition from the household finance committee.

 

I'm a full-time professional photographer/videographer, so "sound equipment" falls under the category of BUSINESS EXPENSE. Yes, I am writing off these purchases. Yes, I love my life!

 

@hifiandrun I've just made my way through 27 pages of this amazing thread...talk about information! Thank you very much for posting your impressions as they are very relevant to me. You seem to be one of the few people running KEF LS50s. I have the same speakers and a pair of REL T9i subs to help fill out their sound. I don't listen at kidney shattering sound levels as I'm in an apartment and like my neighbours. Using a phone app I generally listen at about 83 to 85 dB from about 3.5 m away. I listen to a wide variety of music but particularly enjoy female vocals, blues, light jazz though I will listen to Guns N Roses, Queen etc. I was wondering whether you find the sound level limiting at all when mono blocking your Aegirs? I've got a Freya+ on order and am thinking of replacing my Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum 2 integrated tube amp with a pair of Aegirs.

 

Except for maximum volume levels, what are symptoms to tell that the Aegir is underpowered for the speakers?

 

I'm sure others can give a better explanation, but based on my experience with the HE-6, your speakers might sound flat and lacking in bass and macrodynamics if they're underpowered. My understanding is that this is because the transients get clipped when there isn't enough power, and the amplified signal has more distortion as you get past the amp's max power output rating. I think there's a technical reason why low frequencies requires more power (ie why the bass suffers worse when the amp is underpowered), but I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to explain it.

Hopefully this is helpful until someone else comes along to explain.

 

The KEF LS50s are not for big rooms. They would fit a small to medium size room. And they are not for everyone - for example, they are not for near-field listening. They need space, they need stands, they need plenty of clean power (especially low impedance current) to be able to sound great. Placement and room treatments are among the key factors for making bookshelf speakers sounding good, LS50s are not exceptional. One Aegir with LS50 sounded very nice on the "warm" sounding side, and loud enough to me. Two Aegirs mono-block setting added dynamics but also changed the sound signature a bit - Marv mentioned several times about this (https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...ower-amp-impressions.6953/page-25#post-288888). I didn't find Aegir mono-block lack of power. Please let us know once you have your new gears settled in.

 

Thanks for getting back to me. I have the LS50 speakers and good Foundation filled stands as can be seen from my photos and I don't listen nearfield. Everything you pointed out fits well with my use case so I appreciate your feedback for dual Aegirs. In the meantime, there will likely be a re-think needed since Schiit (contrary to their website info) has actually no real availability date as they're waiting on parts for the Freya+. I may go in another direction and cancel my order since they don't seem to have any idea when they can actually supply. 1st world problems I know, especially with everything that's happening around us at the moment. Will likely just get the Bifrost2 and run single ended into my tube amp which controls my speakers beautifully. Thanks again.

 

Why not give Freya S a try instead?

 

I currently use a tube integrated amp (Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum 2) as I do like a bit of tubey goodness and thought the idea of being able to bring the tubes into the circuit at will is wonderful. I'm concerned I won't like the sound of a full SS audio chain especially because I use KEF LS50 speakers which need a little "softening" at times for my ears which I'm happy to do because of their detail and soundstage.

 

I was auditioning the Aegir with just a Schiit Sys with an iFi iTube2 in between providing the gain. As I mentioned before, this combo with a single Aegir drove my Kilpsh RP600M speakers to more than satisfactory volume levels. Since then my Zu Omen Dirty Weekend speakers arrived. These are even more sensitive than the Klipsch (97dB claimed) and are plenty loud with the single Aegir. However, without some gain in the chain (i.e. just the Sys and the Aegir) I could peg the volume control of the Sys and it would not be very loud. So, this amp definitely requires some gain. I ordered a Freya+, but is was back ordered, so I had to do with the Sys/iTube combo for a while. When my Freya+ came in I compared the two setups. Here are some notes.

To baseline everything I A/B'd the Sys and the Freya+ into the Aegir. With the Freya+ in passive mode (it has three modes: passive, JFET, and Tube gain) they sounded identical (as they should). The passive and JFET modes are both supposed to add 0dB gain, but putting the Freya+ in JFET mode actually dropped the volume. It sounded better, however. Both preamps in passive sound cold and anemic, at least when using my DAC as the input. My phono preamp, an iFi Phono2, adds a bit of gain and warmth and doesn’t sound too bad going straight into the Aegir without any additional gain, just not very loud. Next, I tested the tube gain of the Freya+ against the Sys with the iTube2 back in the chain and that’s when things got really interesting.

It should be noted that the iTube2 can be used as a preamp by itself as it has its own volume control. However, it only has a single input and I wished to test the Aegir with both my phono and DAC, so I used the Sys in front of it. I disabled volume control on the iTube with dip switches. So, now I’m comparing the $450 Sys/iTube2 combo with all of its filters (XBass, 3D Soundstage, 3 tube modes) with the $900 Freya+ in Tube Gain mode. For a minute or two I seriously thought that I had just wasted $900!!!

For one thing the Freya+ in Tube Gain mode supposedly adds 12db of gain. The iTube has an optional 9dB of gain, which I had switched on. However, the iTube was LOUDER!!! What’s more, the volume control on my Sys was at about 11 o’clock when things started rocking and the Freya was all the way to 4:30 to get the same volume. I was a bit panicked until I realized that the Freya+ volume control is very different than that of the Sys. The Sys has a nice control, by the way. Great feel, but it’s more linear and traditional. The Freya, on the other hand, has a 128-step relay that is very different than any volume control I’ve ever used. The volume difference between 4:30 and 5:00 is pretty substantial. To be honest, I’m not sure I like it, but at least it turned out that I could get decent enough volume out of the Freya. That said, if the Sys/Tube combo sounded BETTER than the Freya the Freya was about to go right back home to Schiit for a “reasonable” stocking fee!

The iTube2 is a pretty impressive piece of kit. It’s tiny and has a Class A “tubestate” (hybrid tube) architecture. It uses a real tube, a GE5670 that, despite being very small, is a real deal triode tube with some history. Furthermore, it has three distinct tube signatures, including a Push-Pull one that makes my old Beatles LP’s sound really vintage. All this to say that the Freya+ with its own hybrid tube architecture and 4 bigger 6SN7’s and single sound signature had its work cut out for it. To be honest, I only need two inputs and I was getting used to life without a remote control. Not to mention that every wedding I was supposed to shoot this Spring got cancelled due to the coronavirus, so I could use an extra $900 if the Frey didn’t earn its keep.

Well, fortunately for the Freya+ it sounds really really good, better than any of the three tube modes on the iTube and the excellent tone and soundstage, honestly, makes the other settings (XBass and 3D) on the iTube2 irrelevant. For grins, I put the iTube between Aegir and the Freya (in JFET mode) and that was pretty darn amazing as well. The iTube there with the Freya in Tube gain mode was just too much. What I finally settled on was putting the iTube between my iPhono and Modi Multibit in front of the Freya. I’d actually read that putting tube before and after the volume control is not a bad way to go. This means that I need to switch inputs using the Sys in front of the Aegir, but that’s okay. It’s not like I ever really do that from the remote. Also, all of these components on the front end are all unbalanced. I did buy the Freya+ to have the option of running Aegir monoblocks and to have balanced inputs and outputs. Perhaps, I’ll get a balanced DAC one day, but I honestly haven’t heard of too many balanced phono amps yet. I’m more interested in the balanced output going to my headphone amp as well the prospect of running a second Aegir for a little more headroom and the ability to drive more kinds of speakers later.

As I mentioned, the single Aegir drives my Zu Dirty Weekends to complete satisfaction, at least in my room. If I did buy a second Aegir it would be just to have headroom and to drive a future set of speakers down the road that require more power. Schiit claims a jump from 20w to 80w when running two Aegirs as monoblocks (in 8 ohms). However, this highly theoretical number is being disputed around the web. Audio Science Review says that the monoblocks measure more like 22w (from 18w form the single). That would not be worth the 2x expenditure for me. For my own test, I hooked up the Aegir with a balanced cable to one of my channels on the Freya and played something in mono. While not scientific I can tell you that it wasn’t very much louder than with the RCA cable, certainly not 4x more powerful. Note that I wasn’t expecting it to be 4x louder or anything because I understand that it takes a much higher percentage of watts to raise the dB level a smaller percentage the higher you go. Still, I’m not sure I want to pull the trigger on a second Aegir just based on this little experiment. I’ll update when/if I do and would be interested to hear, in the meantime, what anybody else’s experience has been when adding a second Aegir after running a single one.

Regardless, the single Aegir sounds very good and provides plenty of power to my speakers. My ears are currently ringing as testament to how loud my system can go. I’m happy with the sound. I’m happy with the volume. I guess the big take away from this very long writeup of my examination of the Aegir is that this amp really does need to be fed some gain from the preamp and it’ll probably sound much better if there is a tube in the mix there someplace (or multiple places). Overall, I’m very impressed with the sound I’m getting for the money that I spent. I suspect that I could put a lot of systems to shame that cost a heck of a lot more money!!!

 

Correction: Audio Science Review measured useable power at 23wpc when running a pair of Aegirs in monoblock mode vs. 19.5wpc when running a single Aegir in stereo single-ended mode: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...surements-of-schiit-aegir-pwr-amplifier.9314/. Stereophile magazine had different results. They measured an increase from 28wpc (single Aegir in stereo single-ended mode) to 49wpc (dual Aegirs in balanced mono mode): https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-aegir-power-amplifier-measurements. Again, neither is the 4x increase of 20-80wpc that Schiit claims. It should be noted that others have observed improvements besides an increase in power by running the Aegir in mono mode. The Audio Fool (not my favorite reviewer) says he saw a "~20% improvement in sound quality" when running dual Aegirs on mono mode:

So, as the owner of a single Aegir power amp I guess I have to decide if it is worth it to spend twice as much to get an estimated 10-75% increase in power and a subjective "~20% improvement in sound quality". Perhaps, I'll just do it to maintain a sense of feng shui balance or perhaps just to better heat my office in the winter. By the way, the Freya+ runs much much hotter than the Aegir, like oven mit hot. Even the volume nob gets super hot!!! I actually sent Schiit a customer service inquiry about this. They responded within an hour or so stating "Yes it is normal for the Freya + to run very warm, especially because of the tubes. It will not affect performance, quality, or lifespan of the Freya +". Okay, but let's just say that I'm glad that it has a 5-year warranty (and a remote control to change the volume). Wow!

 

While the descriptions of Aegir's sq make it sound attractive to me at the price, I am pretty convinced that a single Aegir, and possibly even a pair of them, just will not drive my 90dB (spec, no idea of the real measurement, but I am pretty sure it isn't higher) sensitive stand mounts to sufficient spl for me. But there are plenty of speaker amps out there that will, including Vidar.

 

What speakers are they @Senorx12562? Is it the Triangle Br03 (saw them in your signature). What do you think of them? You’re driving them with an Emotiva A150 right now?

 

Yes, with a Saga/Gungnir MB front end. I like them a lot actually. They have better extension on both ends than my old Monitor Audio...ahem, monitors, without the touch of fatigue the latter could impart to some music. Much better reproduction of spatial info, and much more dynamic to boot. I use them in a midfield setup 7-8 feet away. Early days yet, but they are an impovement in pretty much every particular, for me at least. Pretty impressed for the price. Emotiva A150, yes, which for $300 (all I had when my Peachtree decco65, which I thought was pretty meh, started to grate, or at least when I gave up) is pretty good, but certainly not endgame. For now though, good enough. When you are poor, it's all about value, you know?

 

Hello All,

Currently thinking on getting an Aegir+Sys (to adjust "gain") to drive the tweeters on Fyne F502 - The speakers are 92dB sensitivity @ 8ohm, but the reality is that they have couple nasty dips on the bass region, falling down to 3 ohm. I doubt I'll be playing the Aegir straight with the Fyne, would be worth to check. However, considering I live outside the US and shipping for returns might not be that much fun... I just hope I get enough benefits from dropping around 1000 USD on an amp to drive a tweeter above 1.7k - Currently, the tweeter is being driven by a Yamaha M-45 high Bias into 6 W class A. It's very warm, mellow, natural as it is, great imaging and depth. I just feel it lacks some sparkle and decay... or not? Timbre is already creepy textured and lifelike already though.

It's ridiculous, but let's say that they sound perfect but is this mental illness what makes me wonder, what if I am missing something here? What do you guys think? Worth cashing out on an Aegir to run Tweeters on the 1.7kH+ region?

Cheers,

EDIT: How lucky can I get? I wanted it black, and a second hand popped up in within Canada. From 1500 CAD to 950 CAD - Happy camper.

I'll be posting impressions how it fairs one to one against my Yamaha MX-1 driving a pair of Fyne F502. However, I use the Freya+ to bi amp, having the Yamaha MX-1 to the woofers and the M-45 to the tweeters. The M-45 isn't the best at bass control, but after complete refurbishing to premium parts it has a mellow astonishing natural sweet tone. It's Class A for the first 6 watts and I've never gone above that in the tweeter as anything under 400hz is taken out by the in-line high pass filter. The MX-1 is on its own less sweet and more forward on the treble. I acknowledge I drop 1dB or so through bi-amping and it sounds... Man, I cannot fathom what's best. I auditioned the speakers with a Luxman class A L-590AXII, and they didn't sound nearly as good as it sounds here at home. The depth, layering, and über wide soundstage wasn't there with the luxman, neither the sharp centred voice. We'll see if the Aegir can make this whole thing any better. I put it this way. I played blackbird from the beatles once and when the blackbirds sing, my wife said "oh, how beautiful!" and next thing she was crying. Tone is second to none... Or I'm just an ignorant easy to impress...

In my experience most people would not even acknowledge a Yamaha MX-1 to be a decent amplifier, much less so the M-45. So, would I be in for a rude awakening? These two has crushed a fair number of other amps that went by, but I've never had anything Pass, Mark Levinson, or any Tube amp for that matter. Let's see how long it takes to get here.

Chain is Sol with MP-200 - > Mani - > iTube2 - > Freya+ - Yamahas awful shitty amps -> Fyne F502.

Digital is Schiit Bifrost 2.