Cute new schiit speaker amps

[Xibal]

What about it?

Comments tells everything about it's nature...

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Comments tells everything about it's nature...

It sure does...?

 

[Deleted member 48726]

There's a lot of arguing about how much power you need in this thread but not a lot of empiricism being applied to the question. No transient is going to be louder than a pure tone at 0db, so determining whether an amp has "enough" power is a matter of measurement and listening. Let's take the Rekkr: I'm running the it into a pair of Jamo S801s I had lying around from another project, and while there's no measured impedance for this I'm going to assume it's similar to the S803 that Erin previously measured. The minimum EPDR on the S803 is 4.8Ω, so to be on the safe side I'll use the 4Ω rating of 3W per channel, or 3.46Vrms. The Rekkr has a gain of 4, so that works out to .87Vrms input sensitivity.

After turning off the Rekkr (very important step) I played a 1KHz tone at 0db from my source and adjusted my preamp until it was just below .87Vrms output on my multimeter. Now I could listen to a few tracks and really see if the volume was sufficient.

• Future Sound of London, Yage 2019: WAY too loud for nearfield listening, or anywhere in my office to be honest.
• Keith Jarret / Gary Peacock / Jack DeJohnette, Always Let Me Go: louder than I'd like for nearfield, pretty good at the other end of the room.
• ELP, Brain Salad Surgery (2014 remaster): initially sounded just about right in nearfield use, but after leaving it on for a few minutes I found myself absentmindedly reaching for the volume control to turn it down.
• Steve Reich, Music for 18 Musicians (original ECM recording): WAY too loud.
• Shostakovich, Symphony 14, Bernard Haitink / Decca CD: another one that initially sounded just about right, but ended up way too loud at the start of the third movement.

I then turned the volume on the preamp down to a more comfortable nearfield listening level and measured .42Vrms on a pure tone. Into 4Ω, that's about 700mW.

Your mileage, ears, and music may vary, but I'm satisfied that with bookshelf speakers of average sensitivity and a minimum EPDR of 4Ω or more, Rekkr has plenty of power for nearfield music listening. You don't have to take my word for it, though. If you have an amp with a known gain, a pair of speakers that you'd like to use in nearfield, and a multimeter, it's easy enough to perform the same experiment. Remember that if you're using EQ, you should measure at the frequency with the highest gain, or just turn off the EQ for the measurement as long as it's digital or otherwise has no gain associated with it.

So what does more power get you? The ability to drive less sensitive speakers, more power for farfield listening in larger rooms, the ability to use EQ to increase bass output without affecting the volume of the mids and highs, and better volume for movies and TV shows, which tend to have much greater dynamic range. While 3W is plenty for music in my setup, it's just adequate for watching movies. I don't tend to do that at my desk, so it's not of great concern to me, but it might be for you. Even the Gjallarhorn's 15W isn't enough here; after putting my preamp into high gain and adjusting volume until the average quieter dialogue in a movie was uncomfortably loud, I ended up with 7Vrms output from the preamp, which would work out to 28Vrms with a gain of 4 or roughly 200W into 4Ω. If you want a Schiit amp to watch movies at movie theater volumes at your desk, Vidar is your amp. For music, gaming, and typical YouTube videos, Rekkr is plenty for me.

EPDR @ 4.8 ohm is very high, isn't it? That equates to 21° at 6 ohm or 29° at 7 ohm? In other words, the S803 must have a very flat phase and high impedance. That's good of course. -Easy to drive speakers are nice. But as I recall most reviews don't show many other speakers behaving quite as nice as the Jamo in your example so I don't know if that's the best representative for bookshelf speakers in general.

 

[badspeakerdesigner]

B2031A 000.jpg на ixbt.photo:

I don't think this applies to monitor speakers with vinyl-coated chipboard cabinets.

Those are MDF fwiw, and very well built as far as cabinets go.

 

[NoxMorbis]

While 3W is plenty for music in my setup, it's just adequate for watching movies.

Doesn't gain between the TV and preamp/amp have something to do with how much power you need from yuor amp?

 

[NoxMorbis]

When I used them, I set them up once, turned them on and off with the plastic keys of the switches on top.

I usually wear these. Class 2.

 

[NoxMorbis]

@Matias In case you want to add these to your spreadsheet, the Gjallahorn has 0.005822% THD+N at 4Ω 5W, or 84.7dB SINAD AVGed across both channels:
View attachment 266959

Power at 1% is 18.04W:
View attachment 266961

The Rekkr on the other hand, doesn't even reach 5W so not sure if/how you'd want to add it.
It can output 3.78W at 1%:
View attachment 266962

Both graphs are from Schiit's measurement reports (also attached below).

I'm not really sophisticated reading these numbers, but this doesn't look very impressive. it seems worse than Aiyima level stuff at 10x the power.

 

[NoxMorbis]

I really think these needed to be integrated amps with volume pots to have mass appeal as standalone products, but I'd anticipate that nearly everybody who purchases these will already be in the Schiit environment and have some preamp in control, be it a headamp or one of their other preamp offerings.

With that said, there is no reason to get up in arms about the rated power output. This is clearly marketed as a desktop product where using more than 1W will approach ear-damaging levels. $150 for an amp with excellent measurements in the usable band from a US-based manufacturer (if that's important to you) with a strong reputation for good customer support (if that's important to you) using a technology with proven longevity (if that's important to you) is very appealing to me. If and when the time ever comes that I need an amp for my desktop use these are certain to be near the top of the list for purchase.

Are you talking about the Gjallahorn that staticV3 posted the performance to: "0.005822% THD+N at 4Ω 5W, or 84.7dB SINAD AVGed across both channels."

Unless I'm misreading something, this isn't impressive for the price, or any price. It's ok, but amps costing 50% have that same spec or better, and give you 20x the power at 4Ohms?

 

[NoxMorbis]

OSHA says 0 minutes per day is the safe level of spl greater than 115...

Turn your music down.

So, they're stupid. I can still listen to it at 115dB for 59 seconds a day!

 

[NoxMorbis]

There's a lot of arguing about how much power you need in this thread but not a lot of empiricism being applied to the question. No transient is going to be louder than a pure tone at 0db, so determining whether an amp has "enough" power is a matter of measurement and listening. Let's take the Rekkr: I'm running the it into a pair of Jamo S801s I had lying around from another project, and while there's no measured impedance for this I'm going to assume it's similar to the S803 that Erin previously measured. The minimum EPDR on the S803 is 4.8Ω, so to be on the safe side I'll use the 4Ω rating of 3W per channel, or 3.46Vrms. The Rekkr has a gain of 4, so that works out to .87Vrms input sensitivity.

Are those Jamo S801s really good? They're only 119 bucks on Amazon now. I wonder how they would sound vs the Klipsch R51-M that are now 160 on Amazon?

 

[paulgyro]

What do you guys think about using the Rekkr to power a compression driver + horn that is 109 Db sensitive (SB Audience :: ROSSO-65CDN-T)? I'll be sitting at a distance of 2.5 meters so I want to ensure to avoid the dreaded hiss. I'm thinking about using the Rekkr or the Fost Audio V3 which has a soft start and is ~$50 cheaper.
Thoughts?

 

[Elgrosso]

Well I could tell you soon, my faital hf108 are actually powered by a Fosi v3, and I ordered the rekkr to reduce noise.
It’s more a white noise than a hiss, not dramatic but still bothering.
V3s ar fine for woofers and low mids, but even on high mids it’s too noisy (about 3 meters off).
If the rekkr is silent, then I’ll probably get two more bridged for the high mids, high sensitivity too but still cones.

 

[NTK]

If you have plenty of power to spare, you can just use a L-pad to effectively lower the sensitivity of the compression driver to reduce hiss. Here is a web calculator.

L Pad Calculator + Speaker Attenuation Guide

Don't let decibels and Ohms intimidate you. My L-pad calculator simplifies designing an L-pad resistor network for your tweeters. I've done the math for you!

soundcertified.com

 

[paulgyro]

Well I could tell you soon, my faital hf108 are actually powered by a Fosi v3, and I ordered the rekkr to reduce noise.
It’s more a white noise than a hiss, not dramatic but still bothering.
V3s ar fine for woofers and low mids, but even on high mids it’s too noisy (about 3 meters off).
If the rekkr is silent, then I’ll probably get two more bridged for the high mids, high sensitivity too but still cones.

Please do report back!

 

[Elgrosso]

Finally got it, Schiit EU delivery was longer than from US directly.
Anyway it works well, silent, perfect.
I was surprised by the size, knew it but once in hand it’s still impressive.
Almost half the volume of a fosi v3, and 1/4 of a gjallahorn.
Great little amp for active.

 

[ahofer]

What about it?

The meters here are showing apparent power and are therefore probably overstating the draw. The music drones on the most difficult phase angle frequency of the loudspeaker. Discussed elsewhere in ASR.

Another conundrum solved by measurements.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

The meters here are showing apparent power and are therefore probably overstating the draw. The music drones on the most difficult phase angle frequency of the loudspeaker. Discussed elsewhere in ASR.

Another conundrum solved by measurements.

Hmm. Isn't the power to be supplied from the amp regardless of the cos-phi of the load? (phase/impedance).

 

[ahofer]

Hmm. Isn't the power to be supplied from the amp regardless of the cos-phi of the load? (phase/impedance).

Absolutely - but the meter is measuring instantaneous apparent power, and is probably overstating the draw.

What Is Apparent Power?

Apparent power is a measure of alternating current power. Find out how it's measured, how it differs from active power and how it's used.

www.techtarget.com

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Absolutely - but the meter is measuring apparent power, and is probably overstating the draw.

But is showing the supplied/needed VA/apparent power..? Thus not overstating as this VA is supplied but rather not taking into account the cos phi of the load. No meters are calculating from apparent to real power.
In any regard it's a measure of how much is needed in this setup.

 

[ahofer]

In any regard it's a measure of how much is needed in this setup.

But as I understand it, you don't need anywhere near a 500W rated amp because of this.