Schiit Mjolnir 3 Impressions

What you found was synergy in concordance with your preferences, not specialist amp designed for X or Y or Z. The rest of it was marketing spiel. "power enough for the most demanding headphones" (implying "hard to drive" orthos). 8W! Stoke your dicks. Blah blah blah.

Except they don't state conditions of the 8W. What load. What THD? I bet it's 1W at 5%THD into a Susvara load. So much for powah. So much for the advertising spiel.

Now if it works, and I have no doubt it does, it's probably because it's just a good amp qualitatively (and also because it's a 300B amp). I'll bet you if I put steely Elrog 300Bs and an Apogee Pro DAC, the Susvaras will sound like shit. Goodness with Susvara has nothing to do with "hard-to-drive" powah requirements.

 

Too long ago. A1 is slightly warm. What are you using now? I think you should be good TBH.

 

The Feliks Envy and Susvara get a lot of attention together for good reason: high price, good qualitatively, public-agreed upon synergy. It's not because the Feliks has "the powah" to "drive the most demanding power hungry headphones" because it really doesn't have much power.

^ This. The Susvara isn't that inefficient. It isn't current hungry. It's nowhere as stupid inefficient as the OG HE-6.

• The question should be made as follows: How goes X amp sound with my favorite planar? What's the sonic synergy? Will this suit my tastes?
• It should not be framed: Is this amp approved for my hard-to-drive powah / current hungry planar that requires specialist powerful amps.

We have been way past CMOYs for a while now.

 

This is the thing that f'ing pisses me off. Someone noted: "oh Mjolnir 3 only 2W? Is that enough to powah the most powerful planars?" (To be clear I am not pointing fingers or calling anyone out. I'm pointing out the state of the industry, the state of lack of understanding on the part of consumers, the state of marketing).

This f'ing random wattage figure is now serving a a litmus test for high-end (usually less efficient) planar suitability? Give me a f'ing break.

Especially given that manufacturers and retailers love throwing f'ing random wattage numbers around (calling out Feliks and Egoista) without any context, no mention of load, no mention of how long that number can be sustained, etc. "This toob amp is powahful at 12W, and mine is 8W. Look how stronk our peepees are." (Toobs have no powah and higher Z out, which means even less effective powah).

And even worse, how audiophiles suck it up and take random numbers at face value.

OK, I get it. Maybe that USB powered iFi Gold BAR ain't gonna do every well with the Susvara, Abyss, HE6SE, but c'mon.

If the Mjolnir 3 sucks balls with X or Y four-figure planar, then it's because it sucks balls with them. Not because it's "only 2W".

 

The secondary part to this argument is the bullshit drivel about how specific powerful amps are a prerequisite for high-end planar headphones that supposedly require tons of power such as the Abyss or Susvara (which @atomicbob has demonstrated that they do not require a ton of power).

Let's take two example pairings that we hear about often: (Woo WA5 + Abyss) and (Feliks Envy + Susvara)

I quote the following from the Internets. Will not provide sources so as not to embarass anyone:

WA5-LE ...The 8W 4-pin XLR is one of the most handy outputs to have, as it is able to effortlessly drive the AKG K1000, and is one of the better choices for driving the HE-6 or Abyss headphones, which requires tons of power. Even the single-ended output has the same power and this makes it much more versatile than ever as it is one of the more powerful tube headphone amplifiers​

Feliks Audio Envy is a single-ended class-A headphone amp ... designed to handle planar magnetic or dynamic headphone with an impedance between 16 and 600 ohm... provides extra power for especially power-hungry planar magnetics ... for the Abyss 1266 and HifiMan Susvara.​

Both of these amps are 300B SET amps. They will get us maybe 8W into 8-ohms to 1% distortion on good day, and that's with the plate voltage cranked up. Now driving the 50-ohm Abyss and 60-ohm Susvara? Maybe 1-1.5W? Driving 32-ohm planars? Let's say 2W.

So let's summarize. These two planar speciality amps that "provides extra power", have "tons of power", for driving "power-hungry planar magnetics":

Load - Approx Power Output (of the above uber amps with da "Powah for Planars")
50-ohms - 1 to 1.5W RMS
32-ohms - 2W RMS (maybe a bit more on a good day?)​

So now we have established the what it takes to have the power of grayskull, He-Man, behind us to power these "hard to drive planars" (which really aren't that hard to drive). I now present this:



Doh!

If you want me to translate real fast, these so called "powerful high-end amps", supposedly among the few on this planet capable of powering the most power hungry planars, actually have less He-Man powah than the diminutive Magni+ (For the record, because I didn't want to sound like a Schiit shill, I tried to find power into load figures for other amps like the iFi Zen CAN, but I couldn't find them. Hey, not my fault it's so hard to find real power numbers).

Going Forward

Next time a manufacturer, reviewer, youboober, head-fi'er, fellow audiophile spouts power numbers, ask them this: Into what load? And at how much THD?

On Mjolnir 3

Now why da f**k does Mjolnir sound like it's "20W"? Heck do I know? There are numerous sayings. One is not all watts are created equal. Another is that one pure class A watt, that is bonafide class A, which means big heatsinks, and gear that will heat up your room and will burn your skin off, are worth ten class AB watts. Most of you guys are too young to have heard these sayings.

 

Exactly right. The topologies are different. They are going to sound different.

The Mjolnir 3 output stage is SE Class A (real Class A, not high-bias AB) with I what suspect would moderate distortion along with "low" power (already known and stated). The Mjolnir 3 will likely appeal to people who like the Eddie Current tube amps. It doesn't totally sound like an EC amp (nor do EC amps to each other), but there's a similarity. Or maybe think of the Mjolnir 3 has a cleaned-up Folkvangr. A Folkvangr without the dirt, fuzzy, and phat. This is probably what draws me to it. Unfortunately, like big SE DHT tube amps, it's also serves as space heater.

As @schiit said, this amp is a hammer. It achieves what it does by the most straightforward simple brute-force way possible. No microprocessor. No relay ladder volume control. No feedback (or a little). SE Class A (or PP), which like letting the shower run at max the entire time because it's simple. Only NPN parts in the output, none of the complementary NPN/PNP arrangements.

A warning on something that was touched on, but may be fully realized by most people. This amp gets hot. The following FLIR were taken in 75C / 24F ambient temperature about ten minutes after being turned on. This amp will get a little bit hotter than this after thirty minutes. It's sitting on top of the Yggdrasil+ (which is a bad idea, ideally the Mjolnir 3 should sit alone with nothing hot under it).

Heatsink 46.7C / 117F


Volume Knob 31.5C / 88.7F (this one will get much hotter over time)


Chassis 32.2C / 90.0F


Yes, the Mjolnir 3 gets hot (and hotter as the minutes go by) and people may not feel comfortable about this.

 

Update. Now this is more like it. Again, prospective buyers should consider if they really want this small reactor in their house. The chassis also purrs like a cat if you put your hand on it.

56.7C / 134F