Schiit Vidar Amplifier Review

[Doodski]

But only by comparing at much different thd....so not all that "linear"....more an ideal.

An ideal what? Ideal in your mind situation so you create argument. I'm so bored of your persistent rubbish that I can't even remember what it is you are pushing and I'm too lazy to go back and re-read it. Something about Denon junk and class D amps or some such stuff.

 

[Ilkless]

That surprises me. I didn't know about that amp when I was looking a couple years ago. I did look at Emotiva, since they've been moving their production more domestically. I ended up going with the vidar due to size and flexibility to be run either stereo or mono. And the only time I had a problem with a piece of their gear (Jotunheim with a bad ground, as has been observed in this forum), they serviced it quickly under warranty, and it's been rock solid since then.

Yes, the Monoprice Monolith series is known to be OEM'd by ATI in Montebello, California. ATI are also OEMs for Outlaw Audio's US-made power amps. ATI has been doing what Schiit recently started doing - muscly, affordable, US-made power amps - for a long time without the small issues that plague Schiit from time to time.

 

[Bear123]

In full context the denon did not measure great but I like denon amps. Would be nice to see a review of a denon 2 channel pma integrated, like the pma 800, inexpensive and probably very good.

People will buy the vidar for different reasons than the avr so it's an apples to oranges comparison anyway. If I am buying a denon avr I am buying for room correction with multi channel. If I am buying the vidar it's for a small 2 channel setup in a nice room. If I am buying a crown amp I am hiding it in a closet.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/denon-avr-x3500h-avr-review.10053/

I agree the Denon didn't measure *great*, but it did measure well enough to be sonically transparent. My point is that even in a 2 channel setup the Denon might be a better choice as it provides better measured performance and does not require a lot of additional components.

So I'm thinking to myself: ok, I want a music only system. For optimal sound quality, I need good speakers, bass management, and a good sub or two along with audibly transparent electronics. The entire electronics side is covered for under $600 with a Denon X3500H...amp, pre-amp, DAC, room and subwoofer eq, bass management, all in one package. Or I could spend $700 for the Schiit bare bones 2 channel amp, then have to spend who knows how much more money for a pre, DAC, bass management, and room and subwoofer eq.

Also more flexibility if I ever want to upgrade to multi channel.

Of course, everyone is free to buy whatever they want. If this had gobs of power, or SOTA measured performance, or more channels.....something to make it superior in some way. I can see that this would likely be an item that should last decades if the build quality is good. I doubt any modern day AVR will be good past 5-10 years max. Or maybe someone already has all the other components and just needs power. So I'm sure it has its place.

 

[Chrispy]

An ideal what? Ideal in your mind situation so you create argument. I'm so bored of your persistent rubbish that I can't even remember what it is you are pushing and I'm too lazy to go back and re-read it. Something about Denon junk and class D amps or some such stuff.

It's an ideal for amps rather than reality. I'm tired of your crappy taste in music, so what?

 

[twofires]

I guess I was starting from scratch at the time I picked this (replacing a 20 year old JVC AVR). Trying to build something up, using as local as possible, without breaking the bank. That's why I picked the Magnepan speakers to start with. Made a few miles from my house, and was able to listen to them first. I drew the line at picking up any Audio Research stuff, since that would break the bank, even if it's also made a few miles away in the other direction. So I looked at the Vidar and the Red Dragon. I did also have interest in the Benchmark, but that also came close to breaking the bank, especially if I was to get two of them for monoblocks.
Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on domestic produced stuff, but it's my money, and I'd like some small piece of manufacturing, even electronics to stay domestic.

Definitely wasn't criticising, more noting that I'd be happy with it if it were mine, but I'm not in a rush to drop the stuff I have either.

 

[koro]

I agree the Denon didn't measure *great*, but it did measure well enough to be sonically transparent. My point is that even in a 2 channel setup the Denon might be a better choice as it provides better measured performance and does not require a lot of additional components.

So I'm thinking to myself: ok, I want a music only system. For optimal sound quality, I need good speakers, bass management, and a good sub or two along with audibly transparent electronics. The entire electronics side is covered for under $600 with a Denon X3500H...amp, pre-amp, DAC, room and subwoofer eq, bass management, all in one package. Or I could spend $700 for the Schiit bare bones 2 channel amp, then have to spend who knows how much more money for a pre, DAC, bass management, and room and subwoofer eq.

Also more flexibility if I ever want to upgrade to multi channel.

Of course, everyone is free to buy whatever they want. If this had gobs of power, or SOTA measured performance, or more channels.....something to make it superior in some way. I can see that this would likely be an item that should last decades if the build quality is good. I doubt any modern day AVR will be good past 5-10 years max. Or maybe someone already has all the other components and just needs power. So I'm sure it has its place.

Have you seen the latest Denon AV review? It measures a whole lot better

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/denon-avr-x3600h-av-receiver-review.12676/

 

[amirm]

@amirm how about it’s mono block mode tests? (Bridged operation using the xlr input)?

I just shipped it back to its owner. Schiit has AP measurements. Look there to see if it has that measurement.

 

[birkbott]

86dB - not Maggies perhaps? I tried the Crown with my old Maggie 1.6s and it sounded very truncated up top, like it rolled off quite early. Bass was quite good. When I engaged the high pass filter to integrate with subs, it became noisy and lost what little transparency it had.

87db, I just double checked, they are DIY X-LS Encores from GR Research. Excellent speakers.

 

[Inkey31]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit Vidar stereo amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. The Vidar costs US $699 and nicely comes with a five (5) year warranty. With amplifiers being one of the most susceptible audio products to failure, long warranty is a real value.

The Vidar sports the usual design style of Schiit which in this form factor is attractive:

View attachment 58902​

Despite its narrow width, the Vidar is quite heavy as it uses a linear power supply and class AB amplification topology.

Back panel connectors are fine but I always miss balanced inputs in audio products:

View attachment 58903​

During power testing and such, the Vidar got fairly warm but not too hot and typical of the category. It only shut down once when I ran a sweep causing it to clip at 20 kHz.

I only tested the unit in stereo mode and not bridged.

Amplifier Audio Measurements
As usual we start with our 1 kHz tone delivering 5 watts into 4 ohm load:

View attachment 58904

We see the typical power supply noise spikes to the left and right of our tone. SINAD (measure of noise and distortion) is dominated by second harmonic distortion though which rises to -80 dB or so in the worse channel. As it is, performance is a few notches above average of some 85 amplifiers tested to date:

View attachment 58905

Signal to noise ratio and crosstalk follow the same ranking:

View attachment 58906
View attachment 58907

Frequency response is excellent though:
View attachment 58908

Amplifier Power Measurements
Most important aspect of an amplifier is amount of power it can deliver cleanly. Let's start with 4 ohm load:

View attachment 58909

We are getting 183 watts which is a bit shy of the 200 watt specification. But that is at higher distortion. If we allow that, we get there as well:

View attachment 58910

Unlike class D amplifiers with regulated power supplies, class AB amps like Vidar have much higher peak performance for short duration as you see above right.

Using 8 ohm load we actually beat the company spec:
View attachment 58911

Finally, the difficult test of power versus distortion versus frequency:

View attachment 58912

Nice to see these lines without any strange curves and overlap. This indicates there are no hidden dragons in the design of Vidar, just a standard degradation with frequency.

Conclusions
Seems that Schiit set up to design a straightforward Class AB amplifier with lots of powers and no design flaws. In that regard, it succeeds. You have an attractive amplifier with long warranty and lots of power into 4 ohm load. At US $699, it is priced well.

Overall, I am happy to recommend the Schiit Vidar.

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Let's agree that no one does a better job of begging for money than I do. So please open your paypal account and donate using : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Dude, I am happy Schitt started taking notice of these reviews. I really think its the progression as a company that allowed for better product. They had to go through some trial and error, maybe? IDK, they seem like nice people in their interviews. They have excellent customer support and service. I had got a bad headphone amp from them, without hesitation they sent me a new right away before I mailed back the old one. To be far, I did talk to them for some time over email, so they got to know me.

 

[birkbott]

Dude, I am happy Schitt started taking notice of these reviews. I really think its the progression as a company that allowed for better product. They had to go through some trial and error, maybe? IDK, they seem like nice people in their interviews. They have excellent customer support and service. I had got a bad headphone amp from them, without hesitation they sent me a new right away before I mailed back the old one. To be far, I did talk to them for some time over email, so they got to know me.

The remote for my Saga stopped working and replacing the battery didn’t fix it. They sent me a new one no questions asked. I’ve only had good experiences with them.

 

[RammisFrammis]

Why does this simple, basic power amplifier have what appears to be a microprocessor in it? What is there to microprocess?


View attachment 58961

I work at a different high end amplifier company where I design and program microprocessor control systems for power amplifiers - this very application. Going from the description on their website, the processor monitors sensors which are looking at overcurrent, high frequency stresses beyond what the amplifier could handle, DC offset and temperature. The advantage of using a microprocessor (in reality a microcontroller) is that the readings from the various sensors can be rather elaborately "number crunched" to yield a protection profile which is very efficient in protecting the amplifier. My designs usually control the AC power system too. Doing all this in the analog domain would take a LOT more components and would be far less flexible. A simple re-coding of the software can change how the protection functions. However, I must say I don't see why they need a micorcontroller with so many ports (pins), since in my experience, a 20 pin (or less) microcontroller has all the power and I/O capability needed for something like a power amplifier. Maybe they got a good deal on these and bought them by the thousands, and most of the pins go unused?

 

[raindance]

87db, I just double checked, they are DIY X-LS Encores from GR Research. Excellent speakers.

I've had a pair of those through my system, the original Mark Schifter version. They were decent value for money but ultimately too laid back on the high treble for me. I don't know if the DIY version improves on the treble quality.

 

[birkbott]

I've had a pair of those through my system, the original Mark Schifter version. They were decent value for money but ultimately too laid back on the high treble for me. I don't know if the DIY version improves on the treble quality.

I bought the kits with all the upgrades and they just sound really great in every sense. The treble sparkles but isn’t harsh. They do have measurements on the website:
http://gr-research.com/x-lsencorekit.aspx

Edit: I will say that in my room the bass was overblown because they are rear ported and close to the wall. I plugged the ports and now they roll off fairly high and integrate very well with my (also GR research) DIY sealed subs.

 

[Dana reed]

I just shipped it back to its owner. Schiit has AP measurements. Look there to see if it has that measurement.

They do have it for monoblock into 8 Ohms. Also has the voltage into the load vs THD+N. Just have to convert the voltage into Watts.
I wish they had the graph for monoblock into 4 Ohms which is how I run it. would be interesting to see how far it gets before clipping, shutdown.

 

[levimax]

They do have it for monoblock into 8 Ohms. Also has the voltage into the load vs THD+N. Just have to convert the voltage into Watts.
I wish they had the graph for monoblock into 4 Ohms which is how I run it. would be interesting to see how far it gets before clipping, shutdown.

Usually bridged mode is not recommended for 4 ohms.... It looks like 2 ohms to a bridged amp... If manual is online I would check what they recomemd

 

[Dana reed]

Usually bridged mode is not recommended for 4 ohms.... It looks like 2 ohms to a bridged amp... If manual is online I would check what they recomemd

Their website, and many forum posts from the designer state that it's stable into a 4 Ohm load. It's just that it is possible to over-current or overheat the amp under these circumstances.
For me, using some louder rock songs, that means about 3 o'clock on the pot is where I stop at normal gain setting to avoid one of the amps shutting down. It's over 100 dB 10 feet away from the speakers at that point, so loud enough, unless I want to feel like I'm at a concert and lose some more hearing

 

[direstraitsfan98]

Hi Dana, what speakers? Other room dimensions? 100dB peaks or continuous/short term SPL? Did you measure this with an accurate SPL meter? Sorry for the many questions, just genuinely curious about your system. It is discussion about real world scenarios of amps and relation to the speakers that I find most interesting, not arm chair assessments on how it might perform based on measurements out of an AP machine: speakers are complex instruments and are not purely flat resistive loads like a textbook test bench exercise might make us believe. So it's really good to hear about real world case of owners of the gear.

 

[Dana reed]

Hi Dana, what speakers? Other room dimensions? 100dB peaks or continuous/short term SPL? Did you measure this with an accurate SPL meter? Sorry for the many questions, just genuinely curious about your system. It is discussion about real world scenarios of amps and relation to the speakers that I find most interesting, not arm chair assessments on how it might perform based on measurements out of an AP machine: speakers are complex instruments and are not purely flat resistive loads like a textbook test bench exercise might make us believe. So it's really good to hear about real world case of owners of the gear.

They are magnepan 1.7i, the room is ~15' w x 25' l x 8' h
This was using several different iPhone sound meter apps, not a calibrated sound meter, so that 100 dB is an estimate. But it's pretty darn loud

 

[snip3r77]

can anyone help me understand how does one gauge the performance of a amp?
It seems like the 80ish db for THD+N ratio is not as important.

I know that that the ruler flat up to 20khz is important.

Regarding the Power Versus Distortion is quite flat but Benchmark has a delte of about 20db. Is this significant or it's like Vidar at this figure is good enough, anything more is an overkill?

Anything else that one should read from the charts? Thanks

 

[levimax]

Their website, and many forum posts from the designer state that it's stable into a 4 Ohm load. It's just that it is possible to over-current or overheat the amp under these circumstances.
For me, using some louder rock songs, that means about 3 o'clock on the pot is where I stop at normal gain setting to avoid one of the amps shutting down. It's over 100 dB 10 feet away from the speakers at that point, so loud enough, unless I want to feel like I'm at a concert and lose some more hearing

Hopefully the computer controlled protection works .... I am old school and if I was going to the trouble and expense of running mono blocks into 4 ohms I would get an dedicaded mono block rather than a bridged stereo amp. In any case sounds like you are having fun... Enjoy