This is a review and detailed measurements of the just announced Schiit IEMagni headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company for testing and costs US $119.99.
Naturally IEMagni looks like other Schiit products which I tend to like in black a lot more:
Operationally I wished the volume control was farther to the left as when you have a headphone plugged in, I had trouble getting my fingers around it.
The back side says "Magni 3" but don't be confused as this design is similar to op-amp architecture of Schiit Heresy:
What is new is addition of a third gain settings of -10 dB (company spec -- forgot to measure it). This is naturally intended for sensitive IEMs which then allows the more linear range of the volume control to be used as well. Of course we also need very low noise output so we will have to see if IEMagni delivers there.
Schiit IEMagni Measurements
I test headphone amps at unity gain meaning I feed them 2 or 4 volts (unbalanced/balanced) and adjust the gain/volume control to get the same voltage. I start with the lowest gain setting to get there but in this case, I could not so had to use medium gain:
Distortion is well below best case audibility threshold so IEMagni is verifiably transparent with respect to distortion. It naturally lands in top class of all headphone amplifiers tested:
Let's test for noise:
Most excellent!
So the claim of ultra low noise for IEMs is proven.
Frequency response is exceptionally flat and extended:
Those of you wondering if your high-res music is amplified by your headphone amp, you see that it most definitely is.
Most important here though is the amount of power so let's start with 300 ohm load:
My target here is anything north of 100 milliwatts and the IEMagni delivers more than three times as much so you should not have any issue driving the most inefficient high impedance headphones.
Switching to low impedance of 32 ohm, we see some strain:
As long as you stay in low or medium gain though, performance is superb, easily besting the once king of headphone amplifiers, Massdrop THX AAA 789.
We see the same strain as we step through larger set of impedance steps:
I was disappointed of the channel matching in this specific unit:
Fortunately as mentioned, you have the low gain mode to compensate. I hope other samples do better than this one.
Schiit IEMagni Headphone Listening Tests
I started my testing with the Ether CX 25 ohm headphone. Here, on medium get I could get good volume. Switching to high gain generate far higher volume but I got distinct distortion at the upper end of the volume range. Mind you, I could not listen for more than a second or two at this level so not a practical concern but there it is.
Switching to Sennheiser HD-650 provided absolutely superb performance to loudness levels you can't imagine! This amp loves to drive high impedance headphones.
Conclusions
The race that started a couple of years ago to deliver absolutely transparent yet high power headphone amplification continues with yet another great example and at budget price. Schiit has succeeded in pushing the noise level while at the same time providing a very useful negative gain setting. It is not quite as capable with low impedance and inefficient headphones but for most applications, it should still deliver stellar performance.
I am happy to put Schiit IEMagni on my recommended list. Great to see the Heresy architecture live on in other iterations, demonstrating there is value and customer demand in totally transparent headphone amplification.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Naturally IEMagni looks like other Schiit products which I tend to like in black a lot more:
Operationally I wished the volume control was farther to the left as when you have a headphone plugged in, I had trouble getting my fingers around it.
The back side says "Magni 3" but don't be confused as this design is similar to op-amp architecture of Schiit Heresy:
What is new is addition of a third gain settings of -10 dB (company spec -- forgot to measure it). This is naturally intended for sensitive IEMs which then allows the more linear range of the volume control to be used as well. Of course we also need very low noise output so we will have to see if IEMagni delivers there.
Schiit IEMagni Measurements
I test headphone amps at unity gain meaning I feed them 2 or 4 volts (unbalanced/balanced) and adjust the gain/volume control to get the same voltage. I start with the lowest gain setting to get there but in this case, I could not so had to use medium gain:
Distortion is well below best case audibility threshold so IEMagni is verifiably transparent with respect to distortion. It naturally lands in top class of all headphone amplifiers tested:
Let's test for noise:
Most excellent!
So the claim of ultra low noise for IEMs is proven.
Frequency response is exceptionally flat and extended:
Those of you wondering if your high-res music is amplified by your headphone amp, you see that it most definitely is.
Most important here though is the amount of power so let's start with 300 ohm load:
My target here is anything north of 100 milliwatts and the IEMagni delivers more than three times as much so you should not have any issue driving the most inefficient high impedance headphones.
Switching to low impedance of 32 ohm, we see some strain:
As long as you stay in low or medium gain though, performance is superb, easily besting the once king of headphone amplifiers, Massdrop THX AAA 789.
We see the same strain as we step through larger set of impedance steps:
I was disappointed of the channel matching in this specific unit:
Fortunately as mentioned, you have the low gain mode to compensate. I hope other samples do better than this one.
Schiit IEMagni Headphone Listening Tests
I started my testing with the Ether CX 25 ohm headphone. Here, on medium get I could get good volume. Switching to high gain generate far higher volume but I got distinct distortion at the upper end of the volume range. Mind you, I could not listen for more than a second or two at this level so not a practical concern but there it is.
Switching to Sennheiser HD-650 provided absolutely superb performance to loudness levels you can't imagine! This amp loves to drive high impedance headphones.
Conclusions
The race that started a couple of years ago to deliver absolutely transparent yet high power headphone amplification continues with yet another great example and at budget price. Schiit has succeeded in pushing the noise level while at the same time providing a very useful negative gain setting. It is not quite as capable with low impedance and inefficient headphones but for most applications, it should still deliver stellar performance.
I am happy to put Schiit IEMagni on my recommended list. Great to see the Heresy architecture live on in other iterations, demonstrating there is value and customer demand in totally transparent headphone amplification.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
