Schiit Magnius Balanced Headphone Amp Review

[gino1961]

Hi thanks a lot for the very interesting review on a very intriguing product.
I am very interested to it both as a HP amp and as a balanced line preamp
I surfed the thread but could not find an answer to some of my questions.
1) have the balanced pre outs been tested as well for noise and THD ?
2) has anyone tried the unit as a balanced preamp in a revealing (i.e. quality) system ?
3) is it possible to connect, with some sort of adapter, an unbalanced headphone to the balanced HP out ? (as i understand this is the better one)
Thank you very much again for this excellent review on an excellent product.
Kind regards, gino

 

[Helicopter]

Hi thanks a lot for the very interesting review on a very intriguing product.
I am very interested to it both as a HP amp and as a balanced line preamp
I surfed the thread but could not find an answer to some of my questions.
1) have the balanced pre outs been tested as well for noise and THD ?
2) has anyone tried the unit as a balanced preamp in a revealing (i.e. quality) system ?
3) is it possible to connect, with some sort of adapter, an unbalanced headphone to the balanced HP out ? (as i understand this is the better one)
Thank you very much again for this excellent review on an excellent product.
Kind regards, gino

1) They should be similar to the headphone output. I am not sure if they were tested.
2) Yes. It does not change the sound in any way I can hear, and that is what I expected due to the high performance.
3) Yes it is possible, but doing so will not give you better performance than the 1/4" headphone jack. That is how the headphone jack works, and it is a more direct path with headphone level amplification.

 

[gino1961]

1) They should be similar to the headphone output. I am not sure if they were tested.
2) Yes. It does not change the sound in any way I can hear, and that is what I expected due to the high performance.
3) Yes it is possible, but doing so will not give you better performance than the 1/4" headphone jack. That is how the headphone jack works, and it is a more direct path with headphone level amplification.

Hi ! thank you very much indeed for you kind and helpful advice. All questions answered.
A very impressive unit indeed and i was looking for a xlr line preamp as well.
Kind regards, gino

 

[EB1000]

Hi

Can I connected it between my preamp/DAC and amp via the balanced XLR but use a single ended headphones? Also, does the amp mutes the XLR output when I connect a 1/4 headphone plug?

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 22273]

see user manual. a switch let`s you choose xlr or rca

 

[EB1000]

see user manual. a switch let`s you choose xlr or rca

Thanks. So just to be clear, when I select XLR, then it will be converted into single ended and output trough the 1/4 output? And the XLR output on the mutes when headphons are plugged in?

 

[Deleted member 22273]

guess so. i dont`t has this unit self. isin`t magni or asgard a better option if you go single ended?

 

[Artaois]

guess so. i dont`t has this unit self. isin`t magni or asgard a better option if you go single ended?

Grab the Heresy for $99

 

[Deleted member 22273]

considering asgard 2/3 or valhalla 2. but my old magni 3 is really good.

 

[RHO]

Not saying I agree nor disagree with this reviewer. Just interested in an honest response to his critiques.
Is there a difference between an amps behavior when testing with 32 sinewaves or music? What about IMD measurements on amps?
I'm also interested in the results of his nulling-test. Mainly the procedure/protocol he's going to follow. (and the results)
I'm not an expert whatsoever. Just want to learn and know how to judge reviews.

 

[Doodski]

Not saying I agree nor disagree with this reviewer. Just interested in an honest response to his critiques.
Is there a difference between an amps behavior when testing with 32 sinewaves or music? What about IMD measurements on amps?
I'm also interested in the results of his nulling-test. Mainly the procedure/protocol he's going to follow. (and the results)
I'm not an expert whatsoever. Just want to learn and know how to judge reviews.

He sounds like a quack. He's describing sounds in terms that other people will have no idea what he means and he's making up most of it. Maybe he really believes his rubbish. At the level that the Magnius is at the differences in sound would be so tiny that all of those amps will all sound the same to the human ear.

 

[RHO]

He sounds like a quack. He's describing sounds in terms that other people will have no idea what he means and he's making up most of it. Maybe he really believes his rubbish. At the level that the Magnius is at the differences in sound would be so tiny that all of those amps will all sound the same to the human ear.

That's actually what I was telling my girlfriend when watching this review when he was describing the sound. "He's imagining things. It's all placebo because of the price compared to his other equipment."
But he made a little more sense when he mentioned IMD. But I would be surprised if the IMD would be high enough to be clearly noticeable.
And he did compare it to amps in the same price-range later in the video. So maybe it's not because of the price of the Magnius.

Still interested in his nulling-test.

 

[Doodski]

That's actually what I was telling my girlfriend when watching this review when he was describing the sound. "He's imagining things. It's all placebo because of the price compared to his other equipment."
But he made a little more sense when he mentioned IMD. But I would be surprised if the IMD would be high enough to be clearly noticeable.
And he did compare it to amps in the same price-range later in the video. So maybe it's not because of the price of the Magnius.

Still interested in his nulling-test.

To properly and empirically compare the headphone amps he would need a oscilloscope and sine wave to match the output levels into the same headphones so that he is not playing one amp louder than the other. He is simply unplugging and then plugging into each amp, changing the volume levels to whatever and making false claims. Then he has this mentality of, "Because of this then that means that." (Post hoc ergo propter hoc - "Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X.") That approach is not empirical and it is quackery. Then he introduces the politics of audio equipment and then from that he determines that this is the reason they sound different. They sound different because either he is politically motivated or he is a quack or he really believes he hears stuff.

 

[companyja]

I was going to respond to that video on Reddit but I didn't feel like getting into a debate cause the youtuber was in the comments, not that it would get toxic but I was pretty tired. If they're reading this, it might be interesting to get the input on a few things:

1) I've heard some people say that testing with sine waves is inconclusive because sine waves "aren't music". This might be my limited understanding of audio, but isn't literally everything a DAC outputs literally sine waves? Isn't the point of Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem that we can sample a sine wave with perfect accuracy using two samples per frequency, thus creating 1:1 exact waveforms between analog and digital, provided we use a low pass filter which just segments all music into discrete sine waves?
2) Isn't the multitone test equivalent to testing with music? Is there a difference?
3) Isn't IMD a function of non-linearity? As long as the linearity is nailed, shouldn't IMD be inaudible to that corresponding bit-depth?

 

[Doodski]

I was going to respond to that video on Reddit but I didn't feel like getting into a debate cause the youtuber was in the comments, not that it would get toxic but I was pretty tired. If they're reading this, it might be interesting to get the input on a few things:

It would be nice to see him do a double blind test and then get back to the general public with the proper results instead of being a quack and imagining or creating politics like he is obviously doing.

 

[companyja]

I'd also like to know why he believes a nested feedback system is similar to an ANC system. ANC is not a closed system and is dealing with having to transfer microphone input into audio output, it makes sense that the conversion wouldn't be perfect because they can't literally perfectly capture all external audio omnidirectionally when the microphone is stuck onto headphones/IEMs. It also makes sense that it would do best with steady sounds that permeate the whole room such as airplane noise, which doesn't really capture differently on a microphone depending on how you're turning your head, for example. In a nested feedback amplifier system, all opamps are fed the exact same signal and have the exact same topology and capabilities - shouldn't the end-result be absolutely identical no matter what input you feed into the architecture?

 

[RHO]

It would be nice to see him do a double blind test and then get back to the general public with the proper results instead of being a quack and imagining or creating politics like he is obviously doing.

I hope that what you see in the video is not the way he actually auditions amps. It's jus a way to visualize what he experiences. (I hope)

 

[RHO]

I'd also like to know why he believes a nested feedback system is similar to an ANC system. ANC is not a closed system and is dealing with having to transfer microphone input into audio output, it makes sense that the conversion wouldn't be perfect because they can't literally perfectly capture all external audio omnidirectionally when the microphone is stuck onto headphones/IEMs. It also makes sense that it would do best with steady sounds that permeate the whole room such as airplane noise, which doesn't really capture differently on a microphone depending on how you're turning your head, for example. In a nested feedback amplifier system, all opamps are fed the exact same signal and have the exact same topology and capabilities - shouldn't the end-result be absolutely identical no matter what input you feed into the architecture?

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. Why he makes that comparison?

 

[KTN46]

Not saying I agree nor disagree with this reviewer. Just interested in an honest response to his critiques.
Is there a difference between an amps behavior when testing with 32 sinewaves or music? What about IMD measurements on amps?
I'm also interested in the results of his nulling-test. Mainly the procedure/protocol he's going to follow. (and the results)
I'm not an expert whatsoever. Just want to learn and know how to judge reviews.

I'm hearing a lot of assertions thrown out without any hard evidence to back it up, zero double blind testing, and many MANY adjectives with subjective meaning and little clarification. If the person here was trying to be intellectually honest and present a narrative that ASR's measurements are insufficient, it would be expected that they would link to evidence or resources corroborating their viewpoint. Instead we are supposed to take it as fact.

Amir has also responded to quite a few of his criticims in his forum interactions and explanations of measurements, so it's odd that the the video creator here engages with the narrative that ASR is this unflinching, uncompromising measurement entity.

"If you're getting a $200 amp for $6000 headphones you should re-evaluating your chain."

This is just a random quip but I found it particularly interesting, the implication that more money implies better gear, and that budget gear cannot sound audibly transparent because it's cheap. I'm getting a lot of audiofoolery vibes.

EDIT:
I just rewatched and I realised that he claims to have his own measurements, coupled with null testing. I wonder how you would perform (accurate, statistically valid) null testing with amplifiers, but more importantly why didn't he lead with his own measurements and testing? Why present 20 minutes of subjective review and then say "wait if you subscribe and wait I'll put up another 20 minute video of me proving my opinions". Why not lead with the proof and have an informed discussion on measurements and methodology?

 

[KTN46]

3) Isn't IMD a function of non-linearity? As long as the linearity is nailed, shouldn't IMD be inaudible to that corresponding bit-depth?

Isn't linearity a DAC-thing? As in, isn't linearity how well a digital signal is converted to analog? I'm unsure how that would be discussed in the context of an amp.

For what its worth here are Schiit's own IMD measurements for their amp at 300ohms balanced. The research I've read on IMD audibility is a bit inconclusive, so I leave it to my fellow forum members to help me interpret this.