I Am Not an Audio Snob


Over the course of my 15+ years in the Forums, I have been called an "audio snob" a few times. Perhaps it was my attitude with the equipment being discussed, but I really am not sure. Which brings me to discuss my most recent purchase, a Schiit Lokius 6 band EQ. I ordered it last Friday afternoon (9-15-23) and received it on the following Monday! When I ordered it, the shipping time was 1-3 days and I received it in only 3 days.

My office system is 50% McIntosh, perhaps that is where audio snob came from, although Mac is no better or worse than other comparatively priced equipment. I am running the new JBL L100 Classic on their dedicated stands and supplement the bass with a single SVS PB2000 Pro sub. The room is extremely difficult, being on the second floor of my house and it is a big room. It has 3 dormers and slanted ceilings and the height of the ceiling is 18 feet. I have wall hangings on the slanted wall behind my speakers and various other wall hangings and some GIK room tuning treatments.

I was using a Bellari 4 band EQ in this system prior to my new purchase. First off, the Lokius is very nice, well built, high level of fit and finish for its price. It is dead quiet, and the controls are set up so you can’t screw up the sound too much. A few twists of the knobs here and there, and I am very happy. This was all in all, a very pleasant experience dealing with Schiit Audio. While I have no plans to make any further purchases, one never knows. I hope this puts the Audio snob to rest.

128x128stereo5

Showing 3 responses by helomech

@stereo5 

 

LMAO! Apparently your ENT isn’t worth his/her salt. Time for hearing aids bro. 

Whoever claims the Lokius is dead quiet either has other noisy gear in the chain or should seriously consider going to their local ENT for an audiogram. It is indeed dead quiet when in “bypass” mode, but is quite noisy and high in distortion otherwise. I tried one in conjunction with the Benchmark LA4 and AHB2. Once you flip the Lokius out of bypass it immediately becomes a noisy bottleneck. And before you ask, yes, the Lokius was located well away from any transformers or other sources of noise.

Maybe this qualifies me as a noise snob, so be it. Noise is the enemy of true resolution.

It wasn’t a lemon. The vast majority of reasonably priced audio gear is unacceptably high in noise, even by the standards of 30 years ago. It’s simply the result of lazy engineering and/or low quality parts. 
 

There’s no point in owning a 20 bit resolution source/DAC when there’s a bottleneck in the chain with an idle noise floor of -85dB. But most people are living with multiple components of similar noise floors. I suppose if the person in question spent their younger years attending insanely loud concerts then it probably doesn’t matter. 
 

In the case of the Lokius, I expected some audible noise, but it was far too much in an otherwise truly “dead-quiet” system.