You’re welcome! I’d note that the LCD2F with its ~97 dB sensitivity shouldn’t be too hard to drive and the Vali 2 should be able to handle; I’m not able to confirm this from personal experience though. Assuming it can, yes the Vali 2 might be a better match especially where stage is an important sonic element.
The Vali 2+, which has more power, might be a safer pick compared to the Vali 2.
For those of you who have had the Asgard 3 and upgraded to another solid state amp - Did you find anything in the $500 range that was a meaningful upgrade?
I have budget for a bit more than Asgard 3 (just amp, no dac needed) but I don’t want to get into Phonitor territory.
Thanks!
I would not recommend anything in the $500 range thats a solid upgrade from the Asgard 3 in terms of Solid State.
If you go into tubes, there are a couple things in that range, such as Tuba, Lyr 3, Echo. But if you wanna stick SS, I think you need to wait until maybe $1k upward for something thats really worthwhile over the Asgard 3. Unless you are just chasing a different sound signature and presentation.
I poked around a bit and it seemed like there was a big gap to the next level up.
Thanks for saying you see it the same way.
I currently have Drop CTH and just wanted solid state so I don’t have to plan around tube warm-up or keep the amp running all day.
I’ve posted a couple of times that I’m giving my son an A3 Multibit for Christmas, and I’ve been playing with it myself over the last few weeks, connected to my Bifrost 2.
The Schiit internal DAC cards don’t have the best rep, but since he’s going to college next year, I wanted him to have a single box and no extra cables, and I assumed that he wouldn’t be “sophisticated” enough to know that his DAC could be better.
This morning, I unplugged all my equipment and started listening to music with the exact setup that he will have: PC > Schitt Psyt USB > Asgard 3 Multibit > 6XX
I’ve been A-Bing various pieces of equipment a lot over the last couple of weeks, and I’m a little fed up with the constant plugging and unplugging of cables, so I just wanted to see what it sounded like before I put it back in the box and wrap it up, and not have to compare it against anything.
It sounds wonderful, across multiple genres:
Rhythm is important to me, and it passed with flying colors on a variety of songs, including Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”, James Brown’s “Say It Loud”, the Bee Gees’ “Jive Talking”, Bowie’s “Golden Years” and Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer”.
It excels with rock music. Guitars in Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak”, Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood” all sounded full bodied, with lots of bite. The drum intro on Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” showed that the A3 can track all the individual pieces and still present a cohesive image.
80’s synth music sounded great, presenting a wall of synths on Visage’s “Fade To Grey” and Gary Numan’s “Are Friends Electric”.
Female vocals sounded beautiful, no matter the genre, e.g. Alison Krause’s “Down To The River To Pray”, Clannad’s “Theme From Harry’s Game” and Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”.
The only time I stopped listening and thought “maybe that could have been better” was when I was listening to classical, as the combination of the A3 and 6XX didn’t have enough bite in the violins, but even then, once I stopped thinking about that, I spent the next half hour listening to some Beethoven chamber music.
But you might ask me “Does it sound as good as your BF2-Pendant with Verite Open headphones?”. Or even “But surely the A3 sounded better with the BF2?”. And I would respond with “Those are the wrong questions. The right question is: did you enjoy yourself?”. And the answer would be yes. A lot.
I think the A3 Multibit and 6XX is is an absolute bargain for anyone on a small budget who wants a very musical one box solution. Depending on how obsessed they are with falling down the upgrade rabbit hole, they could pair the amp with a different DAC in the future, and eventually replace the amp itself, but I can also see a lot of people being satisfied with keeping the one box solution.
This perfectly sums up the A3. It’s a great amp. In A/B comparisons this past weekend at The Schiitr alongside the rest of the lineup including the A2, the technical performance of the A3 can be underrated and underappreciated, including by me, because at its core it’s just so damn enjoyable to listen to.
I hope your son is grateful.
As an epilogue to my Christmas tale, I set up the Asgard 3 on my son’s desk while he glared at me with his “I never asked you for an amp” eyes. A couple of hours later, I was walking by and he took his 6XX off and said to me “This sounds better than what I had before”. Bear in mind that that’s more than he normally says in a whole week, so I think in teenager language, he actually said “Dad, I can’t believe what a wonderful present you gave me. I never expected that a new amp could make such a difference, but you were right. Thanks so much.” 
As a father with a 17 year old son this constitutes a whole conversation. Mine usually converses in grunts. Lol.
Be ashamed, you are addicting children!
He’ll never get rid of that stuff from now on 
.
I can really only shake my head for such recklessness 
, I still remember how this addiction started with me. 
I was repeating myself “Don’t buy a Schiit, don’t buy a Schiit” 
(Ok, I was actually repeating myself “Grab it man!”). I’ve read from many users great things, I’ve read @antdroid positive notes and you the last made me pull the trigger. Jokes apart thank you for sharing such a detailed review, it helped me a lot understanding a product that living in Europe I don’t have the opportunity to listen before buying. I love this community (wife I guess a little less…).
Asgard 3 for $189 B-Stock at the Schiit deals website page…
Alex
Has anyone compared the Asgard 3 to the Jotunheim 2 in terms of sound quality/depth/staging/tonality? I am torn between the two. Thanks.
What questions about the two do you have? Aiming for a certain kind of sound?
I like warm, analog and detailed and no harshness with wide open and deep soundstage with great imaging with a detailed midrange. The Asgard 2 I always felt was “glarey” on the vocals. I don’t mind brighter amps (such as the Phonitor XE) as long as they’re not glarey or harsh sounding. I like vocals to be finessed and to be in front of the rest of the mix as long as it’s natural sounding.
That pretty well describes Jot2. Asgard has more quantity in the treble, and I would suggest it for darker headphones, but with the brighter stuff Jot has a huge amount of synergy.
It took me a while to get used to Asgard 3, and I got an Asgard 2 after that to see what the old amp was like. A2 I never got along with. A3 grew on me, and I found a little bit of synergy with some of my headphones like the Emu Teak.
Jot2 however was an immediate OMG WTF Awesomesauce moment with Verite Closed. It played to the strengths of the headphone - speed, impact and slam, dynamics, head stage - while taming some of (what I think) are it’s shortcomings, like a bit too much treble with some pads and a slightly understated parts of the bass and midrange.
I can imagine it doing very well with some HFM and Audeze planars too, but haven’t been able to confirm.
I have a variety of headphones. Senn 600/800, LCD 2.2 and 3 (both pre-fazor), Nighthawk, HE-400 (heavily modded), So you think Jot 2 would work better. I’d (probably) be running the amp with the Vali 2 (not Plus version)
I have the THX SP200 right now and specifically bought the Vali 2 as a pre-amp to warm up and sand off the edges and it’s sounding real good right now. However, I am really interested in another solid state amp from Schiit right now to get some “better” sound characteristics.
edit: I may also pair either amp I get with a Bifrost 2 at some point…
or maybe I’d be better off going Lyr 3. ? Too many choices…
Given your variety of headphones, I recommend the Jot 2. Between the single ended and XLR outputs and low and high gain settings, you should be able to drive and dial in each for your headphones. And it pairs well with the Bifrost 2. Good luck.
Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, Maybe, depends on what it sounds like modded?
Modded HE-400 sounds fairly similar to the Senn 600, but more organic (warmer) and intricate with details. But it sounds like a natural evolution to the 600 sound signature.
That’s quite a bit of modding then, because the original he400 had a really wonky treble, IIRC. Cool stuff.
Yeah, probably would be fine.