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First impression of the Schiit Freya
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Posted on January 9, 2017 at 10:23:57 | ||
Posts: 1665
Location: Los Angeles Joined: August 5, 2005 |
Old Preamp: Older Django passive TVC Preamp from DIY Hifi Supply Amp: W4S ST 500 Speakers: Magnepan 1.6s with a heavily modified crossover DAC: Schiit Gungnir Multibit Interconnects: Neotech NEI-3004 Balanced Deep Cryo Speaker Cable: Solid Silver Homebuilt Power Conditioner: PS Audio UPC-200 (does not improve sound) Music: Classical with lots of choral music Player: foobar Listening position: Nearfield Volume: The softer side of moderate Going from a stock (non-multibit) Schiit Bifrost to the multibit Gungnir made a big difference in sound, having more detail and clarity. This doubled my listening pleasure! Now for the Freya: The volume control makes a clicking or buzzing sound in the preamp, not in the speakers, but this is really no big deal. What is a bigger deal is that the passive and active JFET buffer outputs cannot be used with balanced interconnects (edit: this is not true. All three modes can be used with balanced cables). Moreover, the tubs are active (lit up) in all the output modes. I could not make comparisons between the three output modes because when I removed single-ended interconnects from Wired 4 Sound amp, the RCA cap broke off. This is the second time this has happened, and I believe this is a problem with these amps, although the manufacturer claims otherwise. In listening to classical music, the Freya was impressive in that the tube output had a sweetness, a greatly reduced digital sound, and improved vocals that increased my listening pleasure by about 20-30%!!! I also listened to a few non-classical tracts. Led Zeppelin's "Achilles Last Stand" was a bit of a disappointment, but it was a very early recording that was never re-mastered. I also listened to Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" and loved the detail. I was never privileged enough to use high-end stuff, but I would be willing to bet that the Freya performance is excellent in comparison to its cost!!! |
RE: First impression of the Schiit Freya, posted on January 10, 2017 at 03:25:05 | |
Posts: 170
Joined: March 12, 2001 |
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