This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit Vali 2+. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. It came with a stock Canadian 6BZ7 tube and costs US $149.
I must say, this is a cute little thing:
I don't know why it says "2" instead of 2+. Are they using old stock boxes from the last revision? That aside, this is a (dual triode) tube front-end followed by solid state output stage.
Back panel shows what you expect including the typical Schiit rear switches for everything:
Sure would have bee nice to at least have the gain switch in the front.
As you see, power is provided by a dual AC voltage transformer (6 and 24 volts).
Schiit Vali 2+ Measurements
Before testing the unit fully, I decided to measure its distortion+noise as it warmed up:
Performance improves for a while and then there is a glitch around 7 minutes. Then keeps getting better until about 17 minutes where I got bored waiting and it reached an asymptote. The vertical scale is highly zoomed. Net improvement is just 1.5 dB which is not going to be audible unless it is reduction in noise floor.
Once there, I started my testing as usual with our 1 kHz dashboard with gain set to low and output adjusted to get 2 volts out from 2 volts in:
Looking at the FFT spectrum, there is a ton of power supply noise (60 Hz and harmonics). To rule out grounding issues I tried many combinations of grounding but it made almost no difference. So it is poor filtering or isolation from the power supply or both. Next to that, we naturally have a lot of distortion although dominated by the second harmonic. Overall SINAD rating lands it right next to two other Schiit tube products:
The high power supply noise penalizes the unit heavily in our signal to noise ratio:
At 50 mv output, performance once again lands at the bottom of the pile and right next to another Schiit amp:
To keep us from getting too depressed, the Vali 2+ delivers impressively flat and wide frequency response:
Multitone test runs at lower max levels so it too shows the device in better light:
Most important measurement in headphone amp is THD+N versus power level so let's get into that:
Performance is dominated by the distortion created in the tube buffer stage. Output stage is innocent and is helping produce lots of power to the tune of 300+ milliwatts. This is of course unfair to solid state amps which deliver their max power with least amount of noise and distortion but let's play along.
The situation gets worse at 32 ohm as now both the buffer and output stages distort:
Channel matching is good as far as my limit of 0.5 dB but there is early deviation in volume range which I like to not see:
Schiit Vali 2+ Listening Tests
I started testing in low gain and found it totally inadequate with any of the headphones I tested. Sound was anemic and poor even at max volume. So I switched to high gain and perform AB tests against the output of my RME ADI-2 DAC V2 which is also the source for the Vali 2+. I started first with Drop Ether CX headphone. The sound was universally distorted and the more you pushed the amp, the worse it got. There was also clear lack of detail that was so evident as I would switch back and forth with RME headphone output.
I switched then to Sennheiser HD-650. Here I was pleased to see there was plenty of power to drive them hard. Alas, subjectively I thought the highs were grungy and dirty with nothing else positively added to the signal.
Above was with dynamic content. When listening to softer music, the flaws took a back seat and the sound was less objectionable. But again, nothing positive either.
I imagine if you come from a low power headphone amp or no headphone amp you find the Vali 2+ quite an improvement. But if you already have a high performance headphone amplifier, then the power factor gets eliminated and you are left with distortion if you are sensitive to it.
Conclusions
While I have seen worse performing tube amplifiers, I fail to see any reason for Vali 2+ to exist. Both objectively and subjectively it underperforms wide range of fully solid state amplifiers. While they bring the detail and wonderful dynamics, the Vali 2 smears all that and add audible distortion that I don't find pleasing at all although at best it could be benign. Get yourself a proper headphone and please don't waste your money on misguided products like this.
Before posting this review, I watched a number of videos where these people rambled about this and that nebulous thing that is good about this amp. I suggest they take some training in hearing distortion first before judging future products. Start with a low impedance headphone where distortion is far more apparent so you can learn to hear it. Then switch to higher impedance headphones. Get yourself trained please before you cause people to waste their money on non-performant products like this.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Schiit Vali 2+. It is a good effort in looks and checking audiophile boxes but it simply doesn't deliver the goods.
-----------
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/
I must say, this is a cute little thing:
I don't know why it says "2" instead of 2+. Are they using old stock boxes from the last revision? That aside, this is a (dual triode) tube front-end followed by solid state output stage.
Back panel shows what you expect including the typical Schiit rear switches for everything:
Sure would have bee nice to at least have the gain switch in the front.
As you see, power is provided by a dual AC voltage transformer (6 and 24 volts).
Schiit Vali 2+ Measurements
Before testing the unit fully, I decided to measure its distortion+noise as it warmed up:
Performance improves for a while and then there is a glitch around 7 minutes. Then keeps getting better until about 17 minutes where I got bored waiting and it reached an asymptote. The vertical scale is highly zoomed. Net improvement is just 1.5 dB which is not going to be audible unless it is reduction in noise floor.
Once there, I started my testing as usual with our 1 kHz dashboard with gain set to low and output adjusted to get 2 volts out from 2 volts in:
Looking at the FFT spectrum, there is a ton of power supply noise (60 Hz and harmonics). To rule out grounding issues I tried many combinations of grounding but it made almost no difference. So it is poor filtering or isolation from the power supply or both. Next to that, we naturally have a lot of distortion although dominated by the second harmonic. Overall SINAD rating lands it right next to two other Schiit tube products:
The high power supply noise penalizes the unit heavily in our signal to noise ratio:
At 50 mv output, performance once again lands at the bottom of the pile and right next to another Schiit amp:
To keep us from getting too depressed, the Vali 2+ delivers impressively flat and wide frequency response:
Multitone test runs at lower max levels so it too shows the device in better light:
Most important measurement in headphone amp is THD+N versus power level so let's get into that:
Performance is dominated by the distortion created in the tube buffer stage. Output stage is innocent and is helping produce lots of power to the tune of 300+ milliwatts. This is of course unfair to solid state amps which deliver their max power with least amount of noise and distortion but let's play along.
The situation gets worse at 32 ohm as now both the buffer and output stages distort:
Channel matching is good as far as my limit of 0.5 dB but there is early deviation in volume range which I like to not see:
Schiit Vali 2+ Listening Tests
I started testing in low gain and found it totally inadequate with any of the headphones I tested. Sound was anemic and poor even at max volume. So I switched to high gain and perform AB tests against the output of my RME ADI-2 DAC V2 which is also the source for the Vali 2+. I started first with Drop Ether CX headphone. The sound was universally distorted and the more you pushed the amp, the worse it got. There was also clear lack of detail that was so evident as I would switch back and forth with RME headphone output.
I switched then to Sennheiser HD-650. Here I was pleased to see there was plenty of power to drive them hard. Alas, subjectively I thought the highs were grungy and dirty with nothing else positively added to the signal.
Above was with dynamic content. When listening to softer music, the flaws took a back seat and the sound was less objectionable. But again, nothing positive either.
I imagine if you come from a low power headphone amp or no headphone amp you find the Vali 2+ quite an improvement. But if you already have a high performance headphone amplifier, then the power factor gets eliminated and you are left with distortion if you are sensitive to it.
Conclusions
While I have seen worse performing tube amplifiers, I fail to see any reason for Vali 2+ to exist. Both objectively and subjectively it underperforms wide range of fully solid state amplifiers. While they bring the detail and wonderful dynamics, the Vali 2 smears all that and add audible distortion that I don't find pleasing at all although at best it could be benign. Get yourself a proper headphone and please don't waste your money on misguided products like this.
Before posting this review, I watched a number of videos where these people rambled about this and that nebulous thing that is good about this amp. I suggest they take some training in hearing distortion first before judging future products. Start with a low impedance headphone where distortion is far more apparent so you can learn to hear it. Then switch to higher impedance headphones. Get yourself trained please before you cause people to waste their money on non-performant products like this.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Schiit Vali 2+. It is a good effort in looks and checking audiophile boxes but it simply doesn't deliver the goods.
-----------
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/
