Schiit Magni Heresy channel imbalance

[shaney777]

No problem,

Most DACs put out 2V and have no isses driving any headphone amp.
When selecting a DAC that puts out max 1V (dongles and such) it will be fine with the IEMagni as well.

I believe I will get a multifunction or dedicated DAC, so hopefully I won't have to worry about the voltage? I don't plan to get a dongle, I mean. So regarding the IEMagni, how is the DC output protection better exactly? And Amir says of the IEMagni,
"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."
To me it doesn't sound like he is talking about running low impedance and inefficient headphones on the negative gain setting. Is he implying that for planar headphones, like my HE400i, the IEMagni is not as capable? I don't understand.

 

[solderdude]

I don't know if you followed some threads about the L30 blowing up headphones on rare occasions. You may have noticed the same complaints have been happening with both the Heresy and Magni's.
Electronics can go defective. When active electronics die they often either short or go open circuit with a grey area at that point in time.
This means DC can appear on the output of the amp. This will destroy most headphones in silence (well you might hear a loud 'tick' or noise).
DC protection prevents your headphone from being damaged by switching off the headphones after a short while.

So it is safer to use for your headphones. Yes the chance is very slim of the amps going belly up in this way but when you have a rare or expensive headphone you really like and is hard to replace I would go for the safer (for the headphone) option.

The IEMagni can supply 2.6W in 33 ohm so no... the IEMagni is not incapable at all for low impedance headphones. The Heresy can deliver 2.4W in the same load so if anything the IEMagni is 0.3dB louder than Heresy.

 

[shaney777]

I don't know if you followed some threads about the L30 blowing up headphones on rare occasions. You may have noticed the same complaints have been happening with both the Heresy and Magni's.
Electronics can go defective. When active electronics die they often either short or go open circuit with a grey area at that point in time.
This means DC can appear on the output of the amp. This will destroy most headphones in silence (well you might hear a loud 'tick' or noise).
DC protection prevents your headphone from being damaged by switching off the headphones after a short while.

So it is safer to use for your headphones. Yes the chance is very slim of the amps going belly up in this way but when you have a rare or expensive headphone you really like and is hard to replace I would go for the safer (for the headphone) option.

The IEMagni can supply 2.6W in 33 ohm so no... the IEMagni is not incapable at all for low impedance headphones. The Heresy can deliver 2.4W in the same load so if anything the IEMagni is 0.3dB louder than Heresy.

I thank you so much for your help, sir! <3 Very much appreciated

 

[shaney777]

I don't know if you followed some threads about the L30 blowing up headphones on rare occasions. You may have noticed the same complaints have been happening with both the Heresy and Magni's.
Electronics can go defective. When active electronics die they often either short or go open circuit with a grey area at that point in time.
This means DC can appear on the output of the amp. This will destroy most headphones in silence (well you might hear a loud 'tick' or noise).
DC protection prevents your headphone from being damaged by switching off the headphones after a short while.

So it is safer to use for your headphones. Yes the chance is very slim of the amps going belly up in this way but when you have a rare or expensive headphone you really like and is hard to replace I would go for the safer (for the headphone) option.

The IEMagni can supply 2.6W in 33 ohm so no... the IEMagni is not incapable at all for low impedance headphones. The Heresy can deliver 2.4W in the same load so if anything the IEMagni is 0.3dB louder than Heresy.

Oops, I have one more question. Other than no DC protection, would the Heresy and Topping D10s work well together? I am seriously considering these.

 

[solderdude]

Heresy and Topping D10s work well together?

Yes, but I would suggest the IEMagni instead of the Heresy

 

[shaney777]

Yes, but I would suggest the IEMagni instead of the Heresy

What do you think of the Topping L30? Too many quality issues vs. IEMagni?
I see volume knob and also frying headphones.

Also, I see you recommended Magnius. What is the difference with balanced?

 

[solderdude]

The current L30 does not fry headphones nor does the IEMagni.
IEMagni has a bit more gain in H-gain mode, which would only be needed in specific cases.
Otherwise the choice would come down to looks, price and availability.
Both are beyond 'transparent', can drive high and low imp. headphones and are similar in build quality.

If I recommended Magnius it will probably have been related to in- or out-puts being balanced.

 

[Raindog123]

For what it’s worth, I love my Heresy/Modi 3+ with my 400i’s….

 

[shaney777]

For what it’s worth, I love my Heresy/Modi 3+ with my 400i’s….

Great to hear! I assume the IEMagni is quite similar to the Heresy? solderdude recommended it because of the added DC protection.

 

[shaney777]

The current L30 does not fry headphones nor does the IEMagni.
IEMagni has a bit more gain in H-gain mode, which would only be needed in specific cases.
Otherwise the choice would come down to looks, price and availability.
Both are beyond 'transparent', can drive high and low imp. headphones and are similar in build quality.

If I recommended Magnius it will probably have been related to in- or out-puts being balanced.

Thank you! I quite like the Topping L30 in terms of looks and graphs. It's a tough decision between these two.

 

[tomchr]

A manufacturer buying in quantity can probably buy better-matched pots than a hobbyist if they pay for it.

Usually no, actually. Buying in bulk allows you to request custom options, such as D-shaped or splined shafts, detents, and resistances not commonly stocked by distributors. The Alps RK271 "Blue Velvet" pot is commonly available from 10 kΩ to 100 kΩ, for example. But if you buy a minimum of 500 of them you can get them with 5 kΩ resistance, which is handy if you're trying to reduce noise. All of this is mentioned in the data sheet for the pot, by the way.

That's not to say that you can't commission Alps to make a completely custom pot for you. Maybe with better specs, though I doubt that. I would be very surprised if Alps (or any other manufacturer) would be able to improve significantly (and economically) on a specific pot. And you'd probably have to be Sony and order 100,000 pots at a time.

Have a look at the RK501-series if you're curious about what a quality pot can be: https://tech.alpsalpine.com/prod/e/html/potentiometer/rotarypotentiometers/rk501/rk501_list.html
They're around $400-500/each.

I'm pretty sure all modern AVRs use electronic/digital volume control from a pot or rotary encoder.

Possibly. But then you lose the feel of the volume pot. You then also need a micro controller and firmware to make the encoder talk to the volume control chip. The digital volume controls do have advantages, though. They have stellar channel-to-channel matching, often support balance control, and though some are a bit noisy (PGA2320, I'm looking at you!) there are some quite good ones out there. They also make it trivial to add remote control.

There is a third option. Some - including Schiit - use an ADC to read the position of a volume pot and then use the resulting code to set the volume on the digital volume control (or relay-based attenuator). That gives you a nice volume pot feel, but it can get a bit messy if you then add remote control as the front-panel pot gets out of sync with the actual volume setting.

Tom

 

[shaney777]

May depend on where you live, what DAC functionality you need, what size and looks.
About $150 on amp and $ 150-. on DAC can get you anything between crap and excellent.
Schiit, JDS Labs makes sense for the US.. when you like the look maybe Geshelli ?

IEMagni, Magnius, JDS labs Atom
Topping E30, Modi 3+, Atom DAC.

Could you give me some amp/DAC recommendations in this price range for Senn HD 600?
I hear that Topping L30 is amazing, but I am worried about them frying my headphones. I tried Atom and may have gotten a defective unit, not sure if it was the amp or headphones. I tried IEMagni and didn't like the bass response (extremely weak) at all vs. Atom. I am open to Geshelli but not sure it has the proper amount of power for HD 600. Then another issue is that some people swear by OTL tube amps for HD 600, and others say to avoid tubes and get SS.

 

[solderdude]

L30's do not fry headphones.

Geshelli has enough power for HD600 and is equally amazing as L30, IEMagni, Heresy, Atom. These will all have the exact same sound signature (in other words they do not have a sound signature and technically cannot change the sound of a HD600)

No idea why bass response of IEMagni would ever drop off compared to Atom because technically they don't and are comparable in frequency response.

I would recommend to EQ the lows in the HD600. This way you can increase lows. An OTL tube amp (those with a very high output R of over 100 ohm) would only boost midbass and turn the sound more into a HD650.

 

[shaney777]

L30's do not fry headphones.

Geshelli has enough power for HD600 and is equally amazing as L30, IEMagni, Heresy, Atom. These will all have the exact same sound signature (in other words they do not have a sound signature and technically cannot change the sound of a HD600)

No idea why bass response of IEMagni would ever drop off compared to Atom because technically they don't and are comparable in frequency response.

I would recommend to EQ the lows in the HD600. This way you can increase lows. An OTL tube amp (those with a very high output R of over 100 ohm) would only boost midbass and turn the sound more into a HD650.

Thank you for responding and the information!! Regarding L30, I have seen at least a few mentions of them blowing up headphones. Even if the company fixed the issue, it says a lot about their general QC or designing, in my mind. This must go back to the necessity of having a protection circuit as the IEMagni has.

 

[solderdude]

The L30 already had a protection.
The IEMagni was the first cheaper Schiit amp that got DC protection the ones before it didn't and were known to blow up headphones.
The Heresy and 3+ do not have this protection though and are less 'safe' than L30.

regarding Topping L30.
These amps were tested and passed 8kV ESD tests. Unfortunately they should also have tested at 16kV then the problem could have been shown to exist.
The DC protection on the L30 did work but alas failed when the ESD issue occurred and thus on some very rare occasions (where ESD pulses > 10kV) destroyed an opamp.

This has been fixed and corrected a year ago. Every amp you buy new won't have this issue that under some specific circumstances could kill headphones.

As long as you do not buy any second hand L30's with serial numbers starting with anything below 2012 your headphones are safe.

 

[charleski]

Note that the IEMagni was recently dropped from the product line. It just wasn’t selling enough to justify all the supply chain hassles.

 

[solderdude]

I suspect that the DC protection in that amp will be implemented in newer designs. They would be silly to not do this as the most expensive part is the relay and that is in there already for the start-up delay and switch off thump suppression.

 

[shaney777]

The L30 already had a protection.
The IEMagni was the first cheaper Schiit amp that got DC protection the ones before it didn't and were known to blow up headphones.
The Heresy and 3+ do not have this protection though and are less 'safe' than L30.

regarding Topping L30.
These amps were tested and passed 8kV ESD tests. Unfortunately they should also have tested at 16kV then the problem could have been shown to exist.
The DC protection on the L30 did work but alas failed when the ESD issue occurred and thus on some very rare occasions (where ESD pulses > 10kV) destroyed an opamp.

This has been fixed and corrected a year ago. Every amp you buy new won't have this issue that under some specific circumstances could kill headphones.

As long as you do not buy any second hand L30's with serial numbers starting with anything below 2012 your headphones are safe.

Thank you as always!! One more question while I have you here. In your mind, which closed headphones under $150 comes closest to the Harman curve? I am going to buy this for a Christmas present.

 

[solderdude]

AKG K371 , JBL TUNE 710 BT and Audio Technica ATH-M50X
The Tune 710 is a cheap BT device that can be used wired but the pads are kind of small for bigger ears.

 

[shaney777]

AKG K371 , JBL TUNE 710 BT and Audio Technica ATH-M50X
The Tune 710 is a cheap BT device that can be used wired but the pads are kind of small for bigger ears.

Thank you! <3