Aklegal

By the way, was the Hestia a new unit?

It is brand new. I just put some very brief remarks up. I am going to give this some time though since it is brand new and so far only has about 4-5 hours on it.

Yep, good idea. I found Freya+ also changed a fair bit (luckily for the better), although some of that is likely the tubes as well. Of course some break in is actually “between the ears” too ;-)

Sounds like it may be too much gain. In X4 mode, Freya S adds 12 dB of gain to your chain. If your stereo amp has high gain, and/or you have sensitive speakers, this can easily result in loud audible hiss. For example, when I run Freya S in X4 mode into Vali 2 on high gain, I get the kind of hiss you describe. Flip Vali 2 into low gain, no hiss. Just a heads up in case your replacement unit doesn't fix it.

No, it wasn't gain. Nexus 4X is 12 db gain and so is tube mode on the Freya+. The Freya+ is extremely quiet in my system. My headphone amp has 14db gain in preamp mode and again I have to put my ear to the tweeter to hear hiss. What the defective S put out was more like broadband white noise. Clearly audible through even my midrange drivers.

Tried a quick search for the diff between Freya S and +, was taken here:
https://www.freyalingerie.com/row/

Seem nice for a set and forget option, what was your experience ?

I have had it for about a week. Unfortunately my unit has some issue with the Nexus stage - lots and lots of noisey hiss. Schiit has agreed to replace it so I am awaiting instructions...

Since the Nexus stage is a no go at the moment I have spent a ton of time with the passive mode. It is outstanding. I have 97db speakers and my amp's input sentivity isn't quite 2V so the balanced out from my Yggdrasil is more than enough to drive two of the Freya's RCA out pairs - one to my main amp and the other to stereo subwoofer amps.