Schiit Vidar 2 Stereo Amplifier Review

[Doodski]

This specific amp is 50W at idle. They provided that information to me when I asked.

One may contact many many contacts and from that receive specs for many things but that does not mean they should trust all specs otherwise ASR would just be a spec gathering website.

 

[dzerig]

One may contact many many contacts and from that receive specs for many things but that does not mean they should trust all specs otherwise ASR would just be a spec gathering website.

What else is ASR claiming to be, some kind of authority on how gear sounds?

 

[Doodski]

What else is ASR claiming to be, some kind of authority on how gear sounds?

ASR is a test review website. It makes it's own measurements to create ones that do not exist or to confirm a manufacturers claimed specs.

 

[Cogito]

Each side of the Schiit Vidar II is composed of a deeply finned heat sink measuring about 13" x 3.75". That is a pretty good clue that it's designed to dissipate a lot of heat.

Big fins look cool, just like big cables... Not necessarily for function.

 

[Miss_Sissy]

Your example is utterly ridiculous and you know it.

Hyperbole isn't an "example" and I think you know that.

Go actually measure some Class Ds for idle consumption and report back.

See:

Several of us submitted actual measures of power consumption, and your premise is not universally or even generally true. We get it, you don't like chip amps. I'll take an energy efficient, powerful, better performing chip amp at the same cost or less over your AB designs. If it blows up in 10 or more years I'll buy another and still be better off.

Many SMPSs disipate considerable power doing nothing. A typical single Hypex supply has ~10W idle losses (heat) with no load. By your reasoning, they are also 0% efficient...

All amps are 0% efficient at idle. It's simple math: Amplifier_Efficiency = (Output_Watts / Input_Watts) * 100. I'll see your and raise you a .

The Vidar is a properly designed and well made power amplifier.

I have no quarrels with the quality of the design, materials, or construction of the Vidar II. It's much neater inside than any of my Adcom GFA-5x5 and GFA-5x00 series amps.

It is not an application note chip amp in a cheap box. There is no comparison in my book.

Buy whatever amp makes you happy based on whatever criteria matters to you.

 

[Miss_Sissy]

Big fins look cool, just like big cables... Not necessarily for function.

Do they not look cool on class D amps?

 

[Great Sun Jester]

Big fins look cool, just like big cables... Not necessarily for function.

Wait until you touch them.

 

[Doodski]

Wait until you touch them.

Yes, if a amp has been on soak for a extended time then they can actually fry the skin in it's own oils etc. It hurts a lot.

 

[Count Dacula]

My Vidar went into thermal shutdown so often I thought something was wrong with it. I put a PC fan on it for a while, but it made a dusty mess. Again, the Adcom never went into shutdown, nevar.

 

[mhardy6647]

Go actually measure some Class Ds for idle consumption and report back. Many SMPSs disipate considerable power doing nothing. A typical single Hypex supply has ~10W idle losses (heat) with no load. By your reasoning, they are also 0% efficient...

More to the point (I'd posit) -- run a Class A/B and a Class D amplifier under the same listening conditions (music, SPL, and - of course - time) for, say, a week and measure the energy consumption (kW-hr) of each (if only, e.g., with a Kill-a-Watt). Apples to apples comparison of real-world electrical efficiency of the two components*.

I honestly don't know how the two data points will compare, but it would be awfully interesting to evaluate.
_______________
* Obviously, even this simple test doesn't directly compare the amplifier (and/or power supply) topologies' efficiencies -- but it's probably close enough for government work to explore the real-world impact of Class D efficiency (if any).

 

[mhardy6647]

Big fins look cool, just like big cables... Not necessarily for function.

Eldorado Biarritz by Paul Malon, on Flickr

1959 Cadillac Fleetwood by sHuTtEr nUt, on Flickr

 

[Count Dacula]

Now we're way off-topic. I guess we would say, "Fins are Cool!"

 

[Trudius]

All we need now is to make everyone wealthy enough to afford expensive audio gear and convince them that it's in their best interest to buy an $800 Schiit power amp that does not sound any better to them than a $150 Fosi amp.

I do not have any statistics on the average lifespan of Topping/Fosi/SMSL/etc. audio gear, but I would be shocked it was not far in excess of two years.

The usual market incentives are why we have this situation. While there is an upscale market for amps like the Vidar II, most consumers are more likely to buy something for $150 and then blow the $650 savings on things like food, rent/mortgage payments, clothes for the kids, and toilet paper.

I hope that you are right, because class D amps can reach 90% efficiency, making them four times less wasteful than 60% efficient class AB amps (10% waste vs. 40% waste). Class AB amps that act as space heaters doing battle with home air conditioners isn't ideal from an environmental standpoint (though it's a big step up over class A amps).

Sure the extra money can be spent on other items, but once the kids are out of the house and the obligatory spending on groceries goes down, the same consumers would be looking at replacing the cheap audio gear with something with more advance engineering (maybe a Wiim amp) or a class A or class A/B amp. You can already see quite a few of the Topping dac offerings going with pennies on the dollar on eBay, perhaps too many sellers are addicted to the cheap hobby.

As for efficiency, I have a 50 year old NAD class A/B amp that produces enough heat to warm the chassis up to ~42oC, but my vintage HK Dolby Pro Logic, also class A/B, barely gets warm, not significantly different than the Aiyima A08, which was based on the TPA3255 chip.

I used to wonder about the strategy that companies from China are using in releasing a new Amp model every 6-9 months. I used to think it was about meeting the markets in different countries, but that seems inefficient since a lot of gear sold poorly (the A08 is an example) and might have to be sent back. I am now in the camp that the marketing is coming from above.

 

[Trudius]

I reviewed a Sony AVR which died under stress. It was brand new so under warranty. It cost $199. For me, it was not worth the drive to Sony repair center to get it fixed. The value of my time and cost of gas didn't justify fixing something that cheap. This is something that was "repairable" but in practice, not. I personally rather have a class D amp where the company just sends me a replacement module than sitting there troubleshooting a class AB amp or going through the hassle of sending it in for repair.

But the entry level Sony was never designed for professional testing "under stress". I am not saying that testing it here was a bad decision, we want to know how good is a product that a major electronics firm can produce with cheap components, it tells us what the limits of the $199 AVR proposition can be. But this is not what the average user would do with the damaged AVR. For the consumer at that point the main concern is the policy on warranty that Sony versus the same from the newer Chinese firm of cheap class D amps have to offer. It would take decades for a consumer to repair either type of product.

 

[mhardy6647]

Now we're way off-topic. I guess we would say, "Fins are Cool!"

You don't know how close I came to looking for a good photo of a finned Mercedes!

Finns are cool, too... but... even given the Nordic bent of Schiit's nomenclature proclivities, that might be construed as be veering off-topic.

 

[Miss_Sissy]

Sure the extra money can be spent on other items, but once the kids are out of the house and the obligatory spending on groceries goes down, the same consumers would be looking at replacing the cheap audio gear with something with more advance engineering (maybe a Wiim amp) or a class A or class A/B amp.

Most consumers will never spend a dime on high-end audio amps. They are satisfied with inexpensive amps that sound "perfect" (to them) and will find other ways to spend money as/if they accrue it over the years. We're in a bubble and we have to remember that most regular consumers just don't care nearly as much about audio quality as we do.

Advanced engineering in audio gear is only worthwhile if it results in a measurably better product -- by whatever criteria you value (noise, distortion, longevity, MTBF, linearity, etc.). If a $280 pair of Fosi V3 mono amps outperforms an $800+ class A/B amp, what's the motivation to "upgrade"?

You can already see quite a few of the Topping dac offerings going with pennies on the dollar on eBay, perhaps too many sellers are addicted to the cheap hobby.

That's the beauty of cheap stuff. I have DACs from Emotiva, Audioengine, Audioquest, M-Audio, Topping, SMSL, JDS Labs, and probably some more that I can't remember. It's been a lot of fun and most have been problem-free. Features and performance varied, with the older units performing significantly worse. I had $99 'invested' in a Topping D10 and I bought the newer Topping E30II Lite for $99 which blows it away in performance and features. Had I been playing in the Chord/Linn/etc. price class, I'd likely be using something much older and much more expensive that performs much worse than the E30II Lite.

I used to wonder about the strategy that companies from China are using in releasing a new Amp model every 6-9 months. I used to think it was about meeting the markets in different countries, but that seems inefficient since a lot of gear sold poorly (the A08 is an example) and might have to be sent back. I am now in the camp that the marketing is coming from above.

I am convinced that it's all about profits -- even when I don't understand how they make profits.

 

[Count Dacula]

You don't know how close I came to looking for a good photo of a finned Mercedes!

Finns are cool, too... but... even given the Nordic bent of Schiit's nomenclature proclivities, that might be construed as be veering off-topic.

My W111s Far from obsolete.

 

[375HP2482]

Eldorado Biarritz by Paul Malon, on Flickr

1959 Cadillac Fleetwood by sHuTtEr nUt, on Flickr

Yes, those fins on the Caddy are something. What takes them over the top, though, are the bullet tail lights.

 

[Ein]

Note that the 5 year warranty is limited to US sales only.

Sad

 

[DSS]

Thanks, I stand corrected. But as far as I know the first NCore Amplifier was the Audio Alchemy DPA-1M monoblock from Hypex Electronics back in 2016. Class A/B is far more established, going back ~50 years.

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The first Class-D amplifier was invented by British scientist Alec Reeves in the 1950s and was first called by that name in 1955. The first commercial product was a kit module called the X-10 released by Sinclair Radionics in 1964