Schiit Ragnarok 2

Wondering what the little balanced board off to the left of the Rag2 is.

 

"Don't flip out about the board to the left, that's just an internal thing we use for simulating headphone loads in testing, not a product." (source linked above)

 

My Ragnarok is driving LS50's (nearfield).

 

Here's a review for the OG Ragnorak from Stereophile:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-ragnarok-integrated-amplifier
Take away: "The Schiit Audio Ragnarok [original model] plus KEF LS50s ($1299) is the most enjoyable stereo system I've used in the 21st century."

 

Raggy is a pretty terrible speaker amp. I owned one for two years and it's bad value for a SS speaker amp honestly.

 

I wonder if the guys at Stereophile were born with ears, or if they were stapled on as an afterthought?

(I'm not digging on Raggy, just the guys who say this kind of stuff: I don't often listen through headphones, but the S2 had me pulling out my decent cans, Master & Dynamic MH40s.)

 

Yep. I've used the Rag with a variety of bookshelf speakers, including the LS50. It's powerful enough for speakers with sensitivities in the mid-80 dB range like the LS50.

I suppose if you're not planning to use it for both headphones and speakers, it might be a "bad value." You can get ~85% of the Rag's sound with something like the LS50s by using one of the budget NAD integrated amps instead. But people spend a lot of money for that extra 15%.

Mainly just because I was curious and had upgrade-itis, I went through a variety of other SS amps with my KEF Ref 1s, from a Classe CA-200 to one of the new Emotiva "differential reference" amps (with a lot of stuff in between). Most cost between 100% and 200% of the Rag's price and didn't have headphone amps.

Ultimately, none was as revealing and balanced as the Rag, and I learned to be happy with the amp I had.

I don't doubt that a well cared for M22 would top the Rag, but I think the Rag is a pretty damn good speaker amp if you don't need more power and is a great value if you're going to use it for headphones, too.

 

Here's the thing with raggy. It's a decent SS balanced headphone amp (SE is bad). If: A: you have very clean power (don't live in apartment or have shitty wiring) and B. you have a complimentary dac with warmth i.e.sfd-1, Gungnir Multibit, pavane etc.
It will drive speakers like ls50s fine, but use it any decent speaker system and you will find it lacking in almost every department. The $20 luxman I found at the dump was better with every speaker I threw at it.

If you have raggy for planars and run a set of book shelves and want an all in one amp and don't care about a remote. 2nd hand sub 1kusd raggy is value. Beyond that it's really lacklustre especially as a speaker amp. Internal pre-amp is terrible and difficult to by-pass.
Schiit is smart though, they listen to feedback and adapt and I believe raggy 2 will be leaps and bounds better.

 

I suspect you just have different tastes than mine (“warmth,” etc.) and strong opinions, which is fine.

But I think “decent” and “bad” are both significant downward exaggerations of the Rag’s headphone performance, as is “terrible” with regard to the preamp or the idea that apparently only full-range (?) speakers are “decent.” No one should try to run a pair of power-hungry speakers with the Rag, but IMO it can handle reasonably sensitive bookshelf or standmount speakers (like my Ref 1s) with aplomb. Both headphone outputs are good, with the balanced being great, IMO. It would be nice if the Rag2 brings them into parity, though.

For sure, the Rag isn’t a “warm” amp, but not everyone likes “warm,” including me. Different strokes, etc.

 

Josh, I see myself thinking similar comments of other gear. Keep in mind @Xecuter had the Studio, there is a point when you reach towards the top where the gear you started with doesn't cut the mustard anymore. I wouldn't praise my bottlehead crack, it's good value and sounds great but being critical I could say a lot of bad things of it.

 

I totally agree. But I think pitting a $7k tube amp against a $1k SS amp and saying the latter both sounds “bad” and is a “bad value” isn’t really a reasonable comparison, both in terms of price and sound preference.

 

Definitely agree. I've recently been demoing my Ragnarok 1.5 at a local dealer with a bunch of speakers, and it performed acceptably at moderate volumes only on speakers with 90dB 1W/m or higher sensitivity. I tried the KEF LS50 and at moderate volumes the Ragnarok was getting pretty warm/hot, to where you could smell the heat a bit. LS50 are power-sucking monsters. As an aside, I didn't care for the metallic coloration in their sound (or the KEF towers), regardless of the amp pairing. My Ragnarok stays cooler with my Magnepan 1.6QR than it did with the KEFs.

I think of all the impressions I've read of the Ragnarok, @zerodeefex summed up best my experience over the past year with it: https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...rok-versus-speaker-amps.381/page-4#post-33454. Really looking forward to more details re: Ragnarok 2.

 

I never compared the Rag to Studio in my comments. For obvious reasons.

Raggy is thin, etched and a bit grainy, that's why I suggested a dac with slight warmth.
The pre-amp is terrible, if you ever bother to run enough gain into raggy it will shut off and you can then evaluate a few different pre-amps with the rag amp output. and my findings were that I needed to throw a lot of goo at it to make it sound better. This is why I ultimately sold it was because I found I needed too much colouration in the dac and transducer to improve things.
Just for reference I actually enjoy a slightly brighter more clinical sound, just without the sizzle.

When I had rag I took it to a few peoples places with NAD/marantz/emotiva/naim/pass amps and they were all a lot better with speakers. Like purrin said it's a good stop gap, especially if you are a heavy headphone user. I just wouldn't recommend it as a speaker amp.

 

Was it an early Rag or a more recent one? I found that the newer rag sound quite different from the beta I owned.
Alex's (Audio Zenith) rag sounded really good at one of the past meets, where everything else pretty much sucked (could have been my mood, or the power quality in the hotel - wouldn't be the first time).
I tried the Susvara and his PMx2 on that setup and they sounded quite a bit better than on any other amp there, including an early version of Vidar, which Jason brought.

 

Mine was pretty early, I think I bought it in 2015 so probably the original production version.
It is good as a balanced headphone amp.

 

I don't want to set any phono Module. Could we choose to set 2 multibit DAC modules in RAGNAROK 2?
and hope it perform better and become true balanced.

Would it have a power switch on the front panel?
Could it have a ground plug near the power port to connect my own ground box?

 

The simple answer to all your questions is: Yes. Yes you can and yes it will.

It will also have an optional external flux capacitor power supply that will transport you back to the 60s music scene, but only once you get the volume up to 88dB per hour.

 

Damn, we're a picky bunch or maybe my hearing really sucks.

I have a first batch Ragnarok driving a pair of Ascend Acoustics Horizon speakers (92db) and am very pleased with the sound. I have several issues with ergonomics; but the sound is better than the Emotiva that it replaced or the Marantz that I use for movies.

Mainly, if your going to build an amp that is rack sized, make sure it will work in a rack. Mine gets too damn hot in a rack and runs 30° cooler on my desk. ... I'd like my desk back.

I've run the Rag into self protect; but it's ear bleeding loud by the the time it does that. Still, the Ascends are 8Ω speakers and it shouldn't do that.

That said, if Rag2 runs cool enough to sit in my rack, I'll probably buy one

 

Can the Ragnarok 2 drive the He-6 and the He-6se from the balance connector? Tried the Ragnarok 1 at the schiitr but the jotenheim sounded cleaner and had more power. Ragnarok 1 actually brought the Ether 2 to life though... was about to put them up for sale, but not anymore.