This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit Jotunheim 2 balanced headphone amplifier including the optional DAC. Without the DAC the unit costs US $399. With the included (multibit?) DAC, it costs $599. The unit was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me.
Edit: as it has happened in the past, I misspelled Jotunheim with a Y. I fixed the test but the graphs are still wrong.
I tend to like the serious, look of the black edition although the silver volume control stands out a bit much:
You can select between the DAC, balanced and unbalanced inputs. Adjust the gain between low and high. And enable or disable the rear pre-amp output. For headphone out, you have a choice of 1/4 HP out and XLR balanced.
I was a bit disappointed that like a number of other Schiit units I have tested, they arrive with the volume control knob pushed in too far, causing it to rub against the chassis and feel rough. Pulling it out slightly solves that problem and the control feels nice then.
Rear controls are as you expect:
The inclusion of mains power supply gives the unit substantial heft which should keep it from walking if you tug on the headphone cord.
Schiit Jotunheim 2 DAC Measurement
Let's get the bad news out of the way first with respect to the performance of this old, DAC design:
I didn't see a reason to continue testing this subsystem.
Schiit Jotunheim 2 Headphone Amplifier Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard of 1 kHz driven by XLR in and measured with XLR headphone out:
Distortion is below -120 dB which is utterly inaudible. Performance is competent but doesn't play in the race to the top of the chart:
Signal to noise ratio is good enough at 4 volt but average with just 50 mv:
To win these races, they need to add a very low gain mode to reduce noise further.
Frequency response is dead flat in audible band:
This is a strong amplifier when it comes to delivering power into 300 ohm using balanced output:
There is some rise in distortion which gets worse with 50 ohm load:
Sweeping with progressively reducing load shows that the amplifier is more at east in higher impedances than low:
Running the same using unbalanced mode, distortion sets in earlier:
Finally, channel balance:
Schiit Jotunheim 2 Listening Tests
I started with my low impedance Drop Ether CX headphone. I could get the Yotunheim 2 to get distorted but that was well beyond reasonable level of listening.
Using unbalanced out with my Sennheiser HD-650 showed plenty of clean power with satisfying performance. Yes, I could get the amp to distort again but it was at super elevated volume.
So subjectively, experience is fine.
Conclusions
The headphone amplifier part of the Jotunheim 2 is competently designed, able to provide tons of power with low noise and distortion. Best performance is with balanced output and high impedance headphones however (from measurement point of view at least). The DAC is an older design and is simply not competitive from numerical point of view. Subjectively it was fine in my brief listening tests.
Overall, I am going to put the Schiit Jotunheim 2 on my recommended list. It is a practical, western produce unit that delivers competent performance. I would leave the DAC option behind if you wanted the best performance and use one of Schiit's (newer) excellent DACs.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Edit: as it has happened in the past, I misspelled Jotunheim with a Y. I fixed the test but the graphs are still wrong.
I tend to like the serious, look of the black edition although the silver volume control stands out a bit much:
You can select between the DAC, balanced and unbalanced inputs. Adjust the gain between low and high. And enable or disable the rear pre-amp output. For headphone out, you have a choice of 1/4 HP out and XLR balanced.
I was a bit disappointed that like a number of other Schiit units I have tested, they arrive with the volume control knob pushed in too far, causing it to rub against the chassis and feel rough. Pulling it out slightly solves that problem and the control feels nice then.
Rear controls are as you expect:
The inclusion of mains power supply gives the unit substantial heft which should keep it from walking if you tug on the headphone cord.
Schiit Jotunheim 2 DAC Measurement
Let's get the bad news out of the way first with respect to the performance of this old, DAC design:
I didn't see a reason to continue testing this subsystem.
Schiit Jotunheim 2 Headphone Amplifier Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard of 1 kHz driven by XLR in and measured with XLR headphone out:
Distortion is below -120 dB which is utterly inaudible. Performance is competent but doesn't play in the race to the top of the chart:
Signal to noise ratio is good enough at 4 volt but average with just 50 mv:
To win these races, they need to add a very low gain mode to reduce noise further.
Frequency response is dead flat in audible band:
This is a strong amplifier when it comes to delivering power into 300 ohm using balanced output:
There is some rise in distortion which gets worse with 50 ohm load:
Sweeping with progressively reducing load shows that the amplifier is more at east in higher impedances than low:
Running the same using unbalanced mode, distortion sets in earlier:
Finally, channel balance:
Schiit Jotunheim 2 Listening Tests
I started with my low impedance Drop Ether CX headphone. I could get the Yotunheim 2 to get distorted but that was well beyond reasonable level of listening.
Using unbalanced out with my Sennheiser HD-650 showed plenty of clean power with satisfying performance. Yes, I could get the amp to distort again but it was at super elevated volume.
So subjectively, experience is fine.
Conclusions
The headphone amplifier part of the Jotunheim 2 is competently designed, able to provide tons of power with low noise and distortion. Best performance is with balanced output and high impedance headphones however (from measurement point of view at least). The DAC is an older design and is simply not competitive from numerical point of view. Subjectively it was fine in my brief listening tests.
Overall, I am going to put the Schiit Jotunheim 2 on my recommended list. It is a practical, western produce unit that delivers competent performance. I would leave the DAC option behind if you wanted the best performance and use one of Schiit's (newer) excellent DACs.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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