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Schiit Freya S Preamplifier Review 2

jjk

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I am the ASR member that sent the Freya S to Amir for review.
I would like to thank T.M. Noble for his help in refurbishing this unit. It speaks well of the Schiit operation.
Schiit replaced the main board and the unit seems to operate very well, as best I can tell.
Thanks also to Amir for validating the second unit.
Play it loud!
 

jsy

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We went through that in the first review thread.

Thanks for the clarification! I see now that you specifically pointed out "I won't be repeating all the previous measurements", but I missed this
 

Xyrium

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seems like schiit is finally behaving like a legit company?

Because of the gaping gap in the fit on the lid in the back, or the 9dB difference in channel performance? ;)
 

stereo coffee

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Actually no. I set the level lower than max because otherwise it had an extra 6 dB of gain. This is for the dashboard. The sweeps use max volume.

Can you comment on why you choose to use maximum volume sweeps, and not lower volume settings that are indicative of actual use ? Do you agree ( or can you see ) that testing a passive at maximum volume, test's very little other than the devices wiring, as it is exhibiting close to zero resistance from input to output.

Rather a passive has different approach when tested - that is it needs to be tested at its lowest volume setting and i would suggest 5 other incremental levels before reaching maximum, to test its attenuation characteristics.

Also do you agree 4v RMS is a very unrealistic figure applying to levels of input for passives, as it is unrelated to typical level seen with CD replay? The attached image shows a audacity screen that indicates 220mv RMS as maximum attained in this beautiful 13 min piece by Vangelis
 

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nquery

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Well, the first unit was purchase second hand. Because I cannot guarantee how this unit was treated, either by the original owner or when it was shipped, its not a fair comparison. Amir needed to test one from the mother ship so I grabbed on off the rack and sent it. I know that every single unit that leaves our doors has been tested by our equipment and human ears. We also do a great job holding up our warranty and treating customer right who are unsatisfied. I would call that a 100% chance of a good one.

So, I owned the unit prior to selling to the current owner, and I actually hand delivered it to Amir as I happen to live nearby. It sat on my shelf for about 8 weeks and was certainly never opened, damaged nor had coffee spilt on it. It functioned perfectly well but did not add anything vs the pre-amp inside my integrated amp at the time so I sold it. I never noticed the channel difference.

I still own a Gumby that has worked very well and without issue for a couple of years. I have also owned 2 other pieces of Schiit gear, both of which performed well but had minor issues - some bad ground loop hum in an Vidar amp and a volume knob that fell off of a Saga and could not be reattached. So based on my sample of 4 different Schiit pieces, there *have* been some QC issues. That said, they do generally perform very well for their price.

I don't really have any bones in this, but I have to say that I am a little surprised that a random instance from the user base that had a big channel difference was overlooked and yet a unit delivered directly from the manufacturer was willingly accepted. At worst, the new unit could have been cherry-picked. At best, it suggests that there still may be ongoing QC issues.
 
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amirm

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The attached image shows a audacity screen that indicates 220mv RMS as maximum attained in this beautiful 13 min piece by Vangelis
??? There is no notion of a voltage in digital audio. It is all relative. You only get a voltage when you convert the samples to analog. That, never shows up in any audio editing application.
 
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amirm

amirm

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I don't really have any bones in this, but I have to say that I am a little surprised that a random instance from the user base that had a big channel difference was overlooked and yet a unit delivered directly from the manufacturer was willingly accepted.
Overlooked? The entire thread is there to be read and linked to here. I was given another sample and I post that result as well. I am not here to perform statistical analysis of entire model production from any company. The data is there for people to judge which one they want to trust.

I also commented in the review that some variability is likely going to be there in this device:

I think some variation is inevitable given the architecture here (stepped attenuator with many passive parts).

If I had refused to test this unit, then the company would accuse me of picking bad/used samples to make them look bad.
 

Spocko

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Seems like it except for the 256 steps and the 28 dB gain from the LA4, but man the SINAD performance of Schiit in active mode to is close to LA4 per JA's measurements https://www.stereophile.com/content/benchmark-la4-line-preamplifier-measurements. Then again, you will definitely get better internals and BOM parts for 4x the price of the Freya
But the kicker is that in a DBX test, audible differences if any would be negligible. Truly impressive and as many here have stated: well measured products just need to be competently designed using proven blueprints, no exotic magic necessary. It’s like what these Chi-Fi boutique makers are doing - focus on proven designs and suddenly you are getting world class DACs and IEMs for 1/4 the cost of established brands.
 

majingotan

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But the kicker is that in a DBX test, audible differences if any would be negligible. Truly impressive and as many here have stated: well measured products just need to be competently designed using proven blueprints, no exotic magic necessary. It’s like what these Chi-Fi boutique makers are doing - focus on proven designs and suddenly you are getting world class DACs and IEMs for 1/4 the cost of established brands.

If you read more about the gain amplification of the Freya, it's rather exotic on its own as it converts SE to Balanced and vice versa without using summers. Couple that with good performance and the price tag, it's worth Amir's recommendation IMO. Then again, they also do some "exotic magic" with their MB DACs, but unlike Mola Mola Tambaqui's "exotic magic" implementation, they can only muster mediocre to abysmal performance.

What is this Nexus thing? More Schiit blathering?

Nexus is what we’ve been referring to as the “holy grail gain stage” internally, during development. Now, maybe we’re a little too much into Monty Python, or maybe we’re a bit touched in the head. But it took a long time to come up with Nexus, which is a current-feedback stage with nested differential amplification, and has the following interesting qualities:

  1. It does not exhibit the N/N+1 gain relationship when fed a single-ended signal, so it seamlessly converts single-ended to balanced.
  2. It also converts balanced to single-ended.
  3. It also is quite happy to amplify, differentially, a differential signal for differential output.
  4. It does this without summers, op-amps, or any other tricks; it is a single, discrete, differential stage.
 

solderdude

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Do you agree ( or can you see ) that testing a passive at maximum volume, test's very little other than the devices wiring, as it is exhibiting close to zero resistance from input to output.

Correct but to get the best S/N ratio for the test you need to test with a high voltage.
4V (XLR) is very common FS voltage for DACs so Amir made this kind of a standard input voltage for his AP so measurements can be compared.

Rather a passive has different approach when tested - that is it needs to be tested at its lowest volume setting and i would suggest 5 other incremental levels before reaching maximum, to test its attenuation characteristics.

That would only be needed to test passive devices that severely limit frequency response (amplitude dependent) or add distortion (LDR)

Also do you agree 4v RMS is a very unrealistic figure applying to levels of input for passives, as it is unrelated to typical level seen with CD replay? The attached image shows a audacity screen that indicates 220mv RMS as maximum attained in this beautiful 13 min piece by Vangelis

Nope, The only reason to use a passive pre-amp is when the output voltage of a DAC is well above that of the power amp it feeds. By definition this means the max output voltage will be higher than 220mV for sure.
There are just a handful of DACs that have a very low output voltage of around 1V FS. Most DACs are rated at 2V rms FS.
The 4V is actually 2V in SE because XLR is used (so 2x 2V in counter-phase = 4V) so this is a realistic value to test at.
A value that actually is reached IRL with many recordings.
 

Soniclife

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??? There is no notion of a voltage in digital audio. It is all relative. You only get a voltage when you convert the samples to analog. That, never shows up in any audio editing application.
I am loving the debating tactic of making a weird claim, then linking to something you claim is evidence but is not connected to what you claim. I can now prove how effective this approach is.
1UiGQyv.jpg
 

maltux

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What is the thinking of having no power button on the front panel? Reaching around to the rear is a deal breaker. To be honest I would consider the Saga S for my needs but it shares the same issue. :rolleyes:
 

T.M.Noble

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So, I owned the unit prior to selling to the current owner, and I actually hand delivered it to Amir as I happen to live nearby. It sat on my shelf for about 8 weeks and was certainly never opened, damaged nor had coffee spilt on it. It functioned perfectly well but did not add anything vs the pre-amp inside my integrated amp at the time so I sold it. I never noticed the channel difference.

I still own a Gumby that has worked very well and without issue for a couple of years. I have also owned 2 other pieces of Schiit gear, both of which performed well but had minor issues - some bad ground loop hum in an Vidar amp and a volume knob that fell off of a Saga and could not be reattached. So based on my sample of 4 different Schiit pieces, there *have* been some QC issues. That said, they do generally perform very well for their price.

I don't really have any bones in this, but I have to say that I am a little surprised that a random instance from the user base that had a big channel difference was overlooked and yet a unit delivered directly from the manufacturer was willingly accepted. At worst, the new unit could have been cherry-picked. At best, it suggests that there still may be ongoing QC issues.

Just to be clear, I was never implying there was damage to this unit. I said in another post that we could not determine the problem but when we switched the board, the channel difference problem wasn't found.

I understand the your concerns however I think you present a false dilemma. The fact the a unit, at some point, fails is neither a unique issue to Schiit Audio nor must it represent a QC problem. Parts break. In the cause of this first unit, it was not operating as intended so we resolved the matter. As to the cherry picking of devices for testing, we post our own measurements as well as a means of transparency. If you feel we are cherry picking devices, then I hope you apply that skepticism to every single unit reviewed on this site that was sent in by a manufacturer. If there is another way short of voiding the warranty of our products to testing them that would satisfy you, I am all ears.

Thanks again for the support and your comments.
 

xxie

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Well, the first unit was purchase second hand. Because I cannot guarantee how this unit was treated, either by the original owner or when it was shipped, its not a fair comparison. Amir needed to test one from the mother ship so I grabbed on off the rack and sent it. I know that every single unit that leaves our doors has been tested by our equipment and human ears. We also do a great job holding up our warranty and treating customer right who are unsatisfied. I would call that a 100% chance of a good one.
The problem is 99.9% people don't have an AP unit to verify it, and I am sure I cannot tell the difference between 113dB vs 104dB SINAD by ear. So far this is just speculation that 1st unit is somehow mistreated during the shipping. It would be nice to root cause this issue by manufacturer on the 1st unit, and so we can have some sort guarantee.
 
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