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

Plug it into your network, see what happens (JUST KIDDING)

 

Hiss with the HE-6 and slightly bright too? No go for me it seems.

 

@winders Where's the vidar review or gut feeling, and did you hook up the 2nd one "that you sent back to schiit " to play around? C'mon man! Be honest... good, bad, meh, incredible... let's hear it!

Can you try it on your bookshelves, take the new speakers out of the equation?

 

Use the Yggdrasil + Taurus/Freya SS as preamps. Both aren't laid back. Thanks for the impressions.

 

So does anyone know what the output impedance for this amp is?
It doesn't seem to be listed anywhere that I've looked.

JJ

 

Damping Factor: >100 into 8 ohms, 20-20kHz
<80m ohms perhaps.

 

I'm running a single Vidar since yesterday. Has about 7-8 hours on it at moderate volume. I've only listened for about 1.5-2 hours at various points throughout. Running with Saga, Gungnir Multibit and microRendu, and ATC SCM19s for speakers.

So far (early days mind you) I would say it is a very powerful, smooth, slightly warm amp. I've got a Hegel H80 and Exposure 3010s2 (integrated amps) that I plan to compare it against once it's had some sufficient burn-in time.

 

In another thread there were talks about Vidar not able to hit really low and the high is grainy. Has anyone notice that?

 

I would maybe agree somewhat that, out of the box, it seems slightly "rolled-off" at either end of the frequency spectrum, but I suspect this is pretty typical for a new amp that needs burn-in time. Others may disagree however. I don't have that much experience with brand new amps (most I buy have been on the used market) so I'm mainly going on what I've read in reviews of other amps.

EDIT: Oh and to the question of highs being grainy, no I do not find that to be the case for me.

 

Anybody else read that with a Boston accent?

 

My powered monitors don't have the option to be externally amped. They are bi-amped internally. So that comparison is out.

I really did send the second Vidar back. In fact, it went back with the FedEx driver that tried to delivered it. I never even touched the box.

Before I discuss my impressions, I want to say that if I weren't using the tube gain mode and used either the passive or JFET mode, two Vidar amps as mono blocks would have probably been fine. In JFET mode, I have set the dial at 3 o'clock for some tracks and it is not way too loud. Considering 5 o'clock is max volume, that doesn't leave a lot of volume control headroom. However, going any farther is way too loud so there is plenty of power and I suspect plenty of power headroom for tracks with more dynamic range. In tube gain mode, there is more noise...more hum coming from the speakers. But, it is only a slight increase compared to passive mode and certainly nothing I am going to get excited about. I don't expect the speakers to be perfectly quiet with a 200 watts per channel amp with 27db of gain and a preamp with 14db of gain.

As far as impressions go, I am not the world's best candidate to provide useful information. The last full 2 channel system I had was sold back in the mid 80's. My nearfield setup has been great but obviously limited. I don't have another amp with which to compare Vidar. I can tell you that Vidar in combination with my new Tekton Design Double Impact speakers sound great. Either the speakers are sounding better as they burn in, or I am getting used to them. I am hearing nothing that sounds like harshness or graininess in the highs. These speakers seem to do real well with bass. I am not a bass-head and I don't listen to hip-hop or rap. But songs with strong bass sound right. I didn't do a lot of speaker shopping before I bought these speakers, but they sure sound better than anything else I listened to. That may be "buyer bias", but I don't think so.

Other than getting an 8' x 10' rug to partially cover the hardwood floor, I have done nothing to the listening room to optimize it for sound. Yet, I am quite pleased with the results I am getting. I have not done any real critical listening. I've been playing with speaker placement and toe and letting all new stuff burn in.

Once everything settles in, maybe I can get someone to come over with another quality amp so we can compare Vidar to it.

 

Okay. I was listening to "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc and I got an idea. Why not see what my single Vidar sounds like in monoblock mode just listening to the right channel? I wondered if that would even work driving only one channel. So, I tried it. I get the right channel sound but it doesn't seem to work correctly. I set the volume to a level that was just bordering on too loud. I shut Freya and Vidar down and hooked everything back up in stereo mode except I did not insert the left speaker banana plugs. That way only the right channel would work. When I powered Freya and Vidar back up and continued playing the song, the volume was noticeably louder.

How can that be? Why would Vidar be louder in Stereo mode versus monoblock mode? Is my experiment flawed? Do both channels need to be hooked up for monoblock mode to work properly? In other words, do I need two Vidar amps to do this?

Note that speaker hum was no louder when I did the experiment. Now I am feeling a little sheepish for not at least trying out dual Vidar amps in monoblock mode.

 

As a monoblock, you do hook up the speaker differently, the left/right upper speaker outputs for the now single speaker. There's graphics on the back of the amp & the manual shows it.

 

Yes, I hooked the speaker up correctly. The left speaker was completely disconnected while the right speaker positive banana plug was plugged into the top right binding post and the right speaker negative banana plug was plugged into the top left binding post.

Edit: Yes, I used an XLR interconnect.

 

Cool, dunno then! But yeah... should'a held onto that 2nd amp to experiment

 

Arent the restocking fees the same regardless if you open it or not? Then yes couldve used 2 vidars for s couple of days at least to see how that goes

 

Uh, did you get a return authorization approved?

 

Hindsight is 20/20! It doesn't really matter as one Vidar has way more than enough power and I don't have to worry about using an unsupported setup.

Yep.

 

The Vidar is rated at 400 watts mono into 8 ohms. With your 4 ohm nominal speakers, you are asking the amp to deliver 800 watts. Depending on frequency, speaker impedance may be even lower. Perhaps the power supply is being over taxed at these current loads, and you're just getting heat, not power-it's never a good sign when a manufacturer doesn't spell out specific power ratings. This is taking at face value Jason's assertion that the amp is not bridged, which would lower the speaker impedance the amp 'sees' even more.

Again, not an EE, and I'm always happy to be corrected/learn from those more knowledgeable.