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Schiit Magnius Balanced Headphone Amp Review

Racheski

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Amir is having an impact on the market, I'm not sure this will end where he intended though.
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Hemi-Demon

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Rather than trying to talk you out of calling my company dishonest and unscrupulous directly I will make you an offer: order one of these new products under pseudonym and send it to Amir for testing. Once you have done this give me all your info and I will fully reimburse you if you do not want to keep the unit. No shipping fee restocking, any of that. All you need to is put up the initial purchase.

Or if that isn't what you want I'll zoom call you. I will virtually take you in our warehouse grab a random unit of your choice off the shelf and test it in front of you live.

Your call. Let's put this to bed.

You sure are great at internet marketing. I love it. Nice offer :Thumbs Up:
 

TAWW

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Sorry if i missed this but @amirm did you do any linearity tests of the pot at different settings? The Alps pot looks great but I’m always wary of using a multi-gang pot for balanced signals. Even with relatively good imbalance tolerances, the loss of CMRR etc. particularly at lower settings where we may do a lot of our listening seems like a possible issue?
 

solderdude

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Sorry if i missed this but @amirm did you do any linearity tests of the pot at different settings? The Alps pot looks great but I’m always wary of using a multi-gang pot for balanced signals. Even with relatively good imbalance tolerances, the loss of CMRR etc. particularly at lower settings where we may do a lot of our listening seems like a possible issue?

Amir measured the complete range of all 4 'gangs' in the pot at the same time.
He could also have measured the SE output pot tracking which would give you 2 of the 4 gangs.

CMRR is of absolutely NO importance with headphones. It is a concern with very long runs of microphone cables running alongside lighting and mains cables. Not so with headphones as there is no ground and the impedance is too low to induce any audible nasties even when you run it over a transformer as only the CMRR of the cable would lead to audible induction of signals.

So no worries about CMMR of the headphone signal.
 

PuX

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Rather than trying to talk you out of calling my company dishonest and unscrupulous directly I will make you an offer: order one of these new products under pseudonym and send it to Amir for testing. Once you have done this give me all your info and I will fully reimburse you if you do not want to keep the unit. No shipping fee restocking, any of that. All you need to is put up the initial purchase.

Or if that isn't what you want I'll zoom call you. I will virtually take you in our warehouse grab a random unit of your choice off the shelf and test it in front of you live.

Your call. Let's put this to bed.
fair offer, I'll consider getting Modius since it is more interesting to me.
 

KTN46

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Pardon my noob question here, I own a Magni Heresy and I love it. On the headphones I use with it however, I rarely go above 80% Volume in the low gain mode.

I understand there are higher impediance and lower sensitivity headphones out there that require quite a bit of power, but the amount of power the Magnius puts out just seems absolutely eardrum destroying. Aside from the ability to drive headphones louder, are there any other benefits to having so much surplus power in a headphone amp? Will a really power hungry headphone sound different on my Heresy if it's volume matched to the Magnius?
 

Jimbob54

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Will a really power hungry headphone sound different on my Heresy if it's volume matched to the Magnius?

Assuming its not some really exotic beast that would push the Hersey to clipping, no.

And, in fact, the Heresy should sound notionally "cleaner" if run single ended into any normal headphones within its considerable power range than the Magnius 6.35mm output. Audible ? depends if you have golden ears, very good headphones and fancy the prospect of going deaf to find out.
 

KTN46

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Assuming its not some really exotic beast that would push the Hersey to clipping, no.

And, in fact, the Heresy should sound notionally "cleaner" if run single ended into any normal headphones within its considerable power range than the Magnius 6.35mm output. Audible ? depends if you have golden ears, very good headphones and fancy the prospect of going deaf to find out.

What headphones would really push the power envelope in the Magnius to its limits then? I have no idea what could suck that much power...
 

lashto

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Ah, so the single ended output had "warmth and character" and the balanced output is "sterile and lifeless?"
My guess is that you went for 'irony' there but that might very well be 100% true. That's what the extra H2 usually does, it adds some 'character'.
Generally, this seems to be an excellent amp for a very good price, I don't really understand all the complaints.
 

JohnYang1997

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My guess is that you went for 'irony' there but that might very well be 100% true. That's what the extra H2 usually does, it adds some 'character'.
Generally, this seems to be an excellent amp for a very good price, I don't really understand all the complaints.
It's a by product of the topology, not an intentional design choice.
 

lashto

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It's a by product of the topology, not an intentional design choice.
a by product of the budget I guess. And it could sound anywhere between H2-character, eww and not audible. A single 1kHz test is not enough to say much about the sound.
Anyway, I'm just a bit annoyed with those 'spoiled' complaints about D. And the simplistic view that "no distortion is better than any distortion". That is a bit far from being a 100% slam-dunk as many seem to think.
 

Jimbob54

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What headphones would really push the power envelope in the Magnius to its limits then? I have no idea what could suck that much power...
The hifiman he6 is often trotted out as the killer but this was when many amps couldnt muster 1w. I honestly don't know what would need the full power this can provide.
 

Helicopter

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I got mine.

I like the economical box with well-engineered closed-cell foam suspending the product and no over-pack. I prefer the red LED on the board of the Hel/Heresy/Magnius since it improves serviceability and it isn't so bright in a dark room at night... It also looks like the glow of the lava lake at Erta Ale. All of the screws on mine are matching matte black... not that I care or would have noticed without the comments about Amir's unit. My pot feels perfect.

It sounds great temporarily plugged into the SE out from the Hel I use for work with XLR into my Focal Clears listening to Marc Martel's One Take Rhapsody on Amazon Music HD. Nice and sterile, clean, whatever. Zero disappointments. I can't remember being so pleased with something that cost me $230.

It will get plugged into the Modius tonight after the kids are in bed and maybe give the LCD-X and HD-6XX a try... or maybe stick with the Clears. I doubt I can improve on this.

I wonder if Schitt will sell me a black chassis top and four black screws for my Modius.
 
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