Thinking of gear as competing in a "pushup contest" is funny. I replaced a serious dual mono balanced preamp that sounds fabulous and listed originally for a couple of grand with a Freya. The Freya doesn't "blow the other amp out of the water" or sound like a 30 grand ARC Reference 10 (I've heard one of these...seemed to work OK), but it seems to not have a sound particularly...it doesn't hum or thump or add or subtract anything in my rig...it just allows music to get to my ears. The largest change in my gear pile is the addition of Gold Lion KT77s to my Dennis Had SEP amp...great tubes making my already coherent rig sound better...I can only say that the Freya is fun to use and you can forget it's there.
Schiit not that Good?
Schiit was at AXPONA again this year. They were showing a Salk music server streaming into a Gungnir Multibit (?) feeding a Freya and two Vidars. Speakers were the Salk Song 3As.
So what happened?
Esoteric was just next door. This allowed attendees to move immediately from one room to another. Esoteric was showing a full stack of thier latest separates plus a VPI Avenger for analog. Speakers were a pair of Cantons I didn’t get the model of.
The Schiit room, while not bad, was completely destroyed by the Esoteric room. Esoteric played one SACD that unfurled a massive soundstage that I could sense even not being in the best seat. The sound of the Esoteric system, both via SACD and vinyl was dynamic, resolving, extremely musical, collected, vibrant, both large and delicately structured. It was a system that got all the minor details right. Such a good setup. The Schiit setup, while unoffensive, clean, and musical in its own right, simply couldn’t face the Esoteric in inner detail, soundstage, reality and low-level dynamics.
Why did the Schiit system fail so hard vs the Esoteric? Part of the reason might have been the junk cabling used by Schiit. Peaking behind the system I was Blue Jeans speaker cables and mess of power bricks, basic cabling, etc. I don’t know how much of the Schiit’s performance was compromised by inferior cabling, but I’m curious how close it would have come to the Esoteric had Schiit paid some basic attention to that area.
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- 99 posts total
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- 99 posts total