Schiit Vidar Impression Thread - UPDATED WITH REVIEW (CHECK FIRST POST)

Hmmm... insane hype levels for cheap gear that supposedly blasts TOTL stuff out of the water, is the second coming of audio jesus, etc... where have we heard that all before?

Ohhh, right.. That TFZ IEM thread.

All ribbing aside, the car analogies are a bit tired. The audio industry is nothing like the auto industry, and many of us here are here because we know first hand that price does not correlate with performance in this hobby.

 

This confirms what I remember from the old days of selling Magneplanars. The impedance is relatively flat across the board. No worries about Maggies being amp killers.

 

I stand by every line.

Iems should have never been expensive. Every bit of material in making an iem is cheap to incredibly cheap. Noble is making almost 7X cost on each iem.

 

Fair enough, GTR's selling about half of a ferrari, or around the price of a porsche. Accuphase and Airtight is the GTR of the amplifier industry.

 

To be frank, you're gonna have WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too much gain and will likely get audible tube noise with the Freya in tube gain mode and Vidars run mono. You are in completely-bonkers, insane-overkill mode with near-100-dB efficient speakers. You could literally use a 25W amp and have paint-peeling levels. I'd personally go with one Vidar--and if you want tubes, Saga (which has no gain), if you're sticking with those speakers.

Seriously, I say "Start with one Vidar," not just to hear myself talk, but because it's what makes sense for the vast majority of systems.

Sorry to be blunt. The only place I'd use Vidar in mono, personally, is for my Eminent Technology LFT-VIs, which are 82dB efficient. One Vidar is TONS for our Magneplanar 1.7s.

 

So... one Vidar for LS50s? Saga over Freya if I'm using Yggdrasil? (Or just a Ragnarok since I probably need a headphone amp anyway.)
LS50s supposedly dip to or below 4ohm and like a lot of power, but I'm not sure what their sensitivity level recommends.

 

Seriously, I say "Start with one Vidar," not just to hear myself talk, but because it's what makes sense for the vast majority of systems.

(Oh, and when a manufacturer says, "Seriously, spend less money," you can probably trust that to be an honest recommendation.)

 

I actually really enjoyed the Maggie 1.7s I heard earlier this week. I'd imagine a Saga + Vidar would be a nice place to start with those speakers

 

No need to apologize! Blunt is good and appreciated!! Based on what I have heard from others, those speaker numbers are a little on the high side. Regardless, I will certainly start out with just one Vidar and see how that sounds. I won't even unbox the other one until I test the one Vidar setup. Thank you for the feedback!

 

You're going off topic. I never said that schiit stuff was a bad deal. I just said the vidar might not be the end all, be all, no compromise amp that its marketed as. Like how the ragnarok was marketed and spoken as the end all be all. The only thing that is truly outstanding from schiit is the multibit dac's. Which is competitive at pretty much any price point. One can argue that the dave or vivaldi might sound or measure better, but the difference is too small to really matter especially given the price differential unless that 5% really matters for you.

The rest were good deals or great deals.

On the TFZ, 50 bucks for an iem that sounds as good or almost as good as the Fitear Fitear which is an iem that cost 1k at japan prices or 20 times more. That's the equivalent of a vidar sounding as good or pretty close to a Accuphase A200 at american price (20K).

One of the absolute best solid state amps on the planet is at 11k if we use japan prices. Good luck making a 46 kilogram amp, with multiple pcb's and transformers almost as heavy as the vidar, that is supposed to run at class A, with custom chassis works all round at 1k usd just for parts, if we use your costing. Commercial costing is different from boutique. I'm an external auditor with some experience in sony etc and some smaller sized electronic companies.

I also specifically stated its for people who like "that" kind of sound signature. I stand by them.

Lets keep ad hominem attacks aside, or we will go off topic really hard and fast.

 

Maggies aren't amp killers, they just tend to suck all the dynamics out of music unless they can draw a lot of power when they ask for it.

 

Just waiting on speakers.....

 

I might not be the Doge of Venice. If it bugs you that much, get your ears on one and let us know just how many compromises were made. For my part, I agree that it only makes sense compromise was made to hit the price point. The question is to what degree do they matter, and to whom.

Lets keep misuse of the term "ad hominem" aside as well, then.

 

I dont see anything about the Rag being the "end all be all" anywhere, not even on the product page. It could be that one of the people from Schiit praised it more than you think it deserves, so I'm going to leave this thread hanging.

I dont get why you're still harping about the Vidar not being the king of the amp-hill, when I already posted a direct quote from the Schiit product page. I'll do it again for you:

Also, I agree with @zerodeefex. the TFZ doesnt sound close to as good as the hype train suggests, please dont tell people it sounds as good as anything from Fitear.

 

Yeah, I got that. I'm convinced on the one Vidar. I should have been clearer. Freya or Saga? Is the tube buffer gain on Freya going to be too much? How is the balanced signal from Yggdrasil to SE out on Freya change going to affect the sound (at all?) Would connecting the Saga to Yggdrasil's SE outs matter?

These questions are probably too general for this thread.

 

The second Vidar is on its way back to Schiit! I didn't even bother opening it to try. One Vidar is more than enough with the Tekton Design Double Impact speakers.

With Freya in tube gain mode, the volume knob is just past 12 o'clock with the sound at an average of 85 db. That is with an iPhone app so it's just ballparked.

Now I just have to let everything play and burn in for while. The amp, speakers, speaker cables, and RCA interconnects are all brand new. I will say that the new setup sounds fantastic!

 

It'd be nice to see what the black version looks like on the website if it's going to be consistently available.

Silly question but is this Class AB? Does it operate in full Class A before going into AB? If so, at what wattage?