Schiit Vidar Impression Thread - UPDATED WITH REVIEW (CHECK FIRST POST)

The HCA 1000 is a very different beast from the HCA 1500. The 1500 became the A23 I believe whereas the HCA 1000 and others became their more budget friendly line.

I'm really hoping someone can compare this with a Crown XLS amplifier which is a fraction of the price and Class D, but really so good that I'm not sure it makes much sense to spend more.

 

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that history regarding those Parasound amps, thanks.

A fraction of the price of Vidar, and Class D to boot...

**shudder**

 

I somewhat understand this. If say a veteran reviewer got his hands on Vidar and he has ONLY $20K cables, he'll obviously use them. Of course that's an overkill, but in certain situation I can imagine this happening.

 

Over on The Computer Audiophile, the site founder has several speaker cables that are causing the Vidar to go into protection shutdown mode. Very strange behavior. It seems 1 set of speaker cables is working for him. His list is below. I have no opinion as to why this is or is not factual, just sharing what I read.

Didn't work with Vidar and TAD CR1

• Wire World Platinum Eclipse 7 (8 feet)
• Kimber Monocle X (8 feet)
• AudioQuest Redwood (bi-wire) (8 feet)

Worked with TAD CR1

• Monster Cable Z2 (Z Series) (15 feet)

 

Those TAD CR1 speakers are only $40,000 per pair with the speaker stands.

 

I've had no problem using supra ply 3.4 or kimber 4tc in 2.5 meter runs. Those 2 companies publish specs. Audioquest and wire world don't, but kimber Monocle has higher inductance, and capacitance than 4tc, resistance is almost the same. Maybe Vidars intelligent control function shuns expensive garden hose cable lol.

 

Maybe that's the case indeed

 

Of course you are right but would you say that to his face like that?

Noobs ask noob questions. So to him it's not a dumb question

 

Whatever on 20K$ speaker cables, but those TAD-CR1's are 4 ohm nominal impedance (nominal, so going to vary depending on the frequency), and 86db for the sensitivity spec I didn't have patience to wade through the CA thread, but given the cost of those speakers, guessing he is using them as monoblocks too, pushing the limits of the amp. Schiit's website warns about this combo. If the longer cable works, probably just because it adds just enough impedance to avoid the limit.

 

No hard feeling. I commit that I had a little whining-attitude behind my early question - what am I going to do with my Dynaco ST-70 if Vidar beat it? I guess that Zerodeefex sensed it. Let's focus back on more Schitt stuff, LOL. Thanks for the support @gbeast. You have cured my broken heart

 

He said he tried them in both monoblock and single stereo amp

He did say he tried a single amp, with no input (RCA or XLR) and had the same issue. Presumably isolating the problem to the speaker cables/amp interaction.

 

Will confirm. @zerodeefex kinda only comes in one flavor, which is nice. (Fighting very hard to not to list a bunch of insulting Ben & Jerry's flavors at the moment).

 

FYI, Chris at CA was shipped 2 new amps - he has no issues now. Jason at Schiit was away but plans to investigate further what happenned with the "bad amps".

 

@rlow - Curious if we ever hear why. Looks like the amp takes banana plugs, so that would be my second guess, some banana plugs are just long enough to cause a short. We will see.

 

Multiple pairs though? And now the new amps work fine? I can't see it. My bet is a flaw in a particular part that went into a few amps...or some flaw in the protection circuit software for a certain batch of amps (that seems unlikely though). The other possibility is damage in shipping I suppose that affected both amps. We'll see I guess. I can't see Jason letting that one hang out there on that site without an explanation, or at least an attempt at one...

 

Chunky Monkey.

Got my Vidar connected to my LS50s. Coming from the Mackie MR8mk2s, it sounds a little thin but a lot clearer. Going to have to see how the bass feels to me after a few weeks. I'm still sort of interested in swapping out the speakers for some full towers with 8+" woofers. If not that, maybe a sub. Maybe not.

I was using an emotiva passive preamp, but just added Freya last night. The emotiva knob with wires seemed to be a lot louder at 50% than Freya does at 12 o'clock, even in tube mode. Not sure what the specifics are there.

I know I'm changing too many things at once for this to be a Vidar impression... so I'll just comment on the aesthetics. I like the silver. The black fins look nice too, but they're a little sharp. Power switch location blows. I have it connected to a wemo, though, so I can just tell Alexa to turn it on and off... until some song triggers the mediocre voice recognition and kills it for me.

 

Unless you were using separates before Vidar, I think many people will end up evaluating Vidar with a new preamp (likely Saga or Freya) - this is my situation as well (with Saga however) as I've only ever owned integrated amps.

 

Hello Friends,
How would you rate Magnepan .7's with one Vidar, and Saga? Would having two Vidar's be too much gain??

 

You can never have too much amplifier power! However, unless you listen at very high levels, one Vidar will likely be plenty. Apparently they had this combo at the L.A. Audio Show and it sounded great (Google people's impressions of it).

Also, since the Maggies are a 4ohm speaker, two Vidars may be somwwhat moot if you want really high volumes anyhow because in monoblock config, you're really showing them 2ohms (or less), and are more likely to trip the protection circuit (hence why they are not rated powerwise into 4ohms in monoblock).