Personal Loaner: Piety²

Just got home and saw that the package was delivered. Haven't oepend or tested yet, will test tomorrow.

Whoever is next, please PM me your info sometime between now and next week.

Thanks again for the personal loaner @Ksorota

edit - opened this morning, plugged everything in, sound came out. detailed listening later.
also, just to be 100% sure, i assume a simple L/R test to check L/R connection is enough given the reverse wiring here? Did a simple L/R tone test and a brief L/R test track, but something with the L/R doesn't sound quite right out of my very familiar gear right now - may totally be cold amp or something subjective though...

 

Ready to ship to the next person. Thanks again to everyone for letting me have a few extra days to accommodate my schedule. Based on the list it should be @roshambo123.

I can do it as soon as tomorrow but if it's safer shipping wise I can wait until Tuesday (after Labor Day) as well.

 

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No rush on it everyone. Might as well hold it through the holiday.

 

Shipped to @roshambo123 today. ETA tomorrow.

Will post better impressions later when I have more time to write something more cohesive.

But the short version is it only sounded like a "small piety" about half way and in other ways, I could tell it was a similar amp but it gave a different sound that just "didn't sound like a small amp anymore". Overall, if this piety^2 was "just" sticking two piety boards together, I think this amp was greater than the sum of it's parts.

 

I am now in town this week and can probably mess with the amp and get it out next Monday before traveling

 

I bet the volume pot upgrade has a lot to do with it.

 

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/hacking-schiit.11261/page-11#post-414716

The mod sticks two pietys' together, adds toroids for power, swaps out some of the power capacitors for Muse and then has a big old RK27. All together it makes a big improvement in sound.

I am glad to see people enjoying the amp for what it is...fun project that turned out really nice.

 

Loaner is with me now, arrived

 

First, a question, if it can be answered. If not, I understand. @CEE TEE - how similar (or not) is the Pietus Maximus to this project? Whether it be in terms of the circuit, the components, or in a more subjective way such as the sound / impressions?

Anyways, I will edit this post later today (hopefully) with impressions.

EDIT - Impressions and info:

TLDR: 80% of my thoughts are summed up by my above summary. 50% like a bigger Piety and 50% like something else. If you like the Piety, then something like this (and I imagine the Pietus as well, hence the above question) should definitely be on the radar. It's definitely more than "just a Piety with more power" in terms of the sound.

Used with ZMF Autuer and Focal Utopia. Couldn't find my balanced HD600 series cable for use with JAR600 and HD6xx. Oops. Settled on the Yggdrasil instead of the Spring 2 for this but both were enjoyable. Should also say that I didn't notice a huge difference between 5-10 minutes on and leaving it on for 1 day.

So I wanted to get on this loaner as I generally prefer tube amps but find a lot of value in the Piety as a good but inexpensive SS amp for when I don't want to burn / use tubes and don't want to use speakers. Piety is great and I like the sound, but end of the day, it does have (inherent) small amp limitations. So a "mid size / level" version of the Piety has always seemed like it would be a great idea... and then this thing showed up.

As a baseline reference, I've always thought of the Piety as a more romantic sounding AND slightly better performing magni. So thoughts below are comparative.

Lows - Doesn't have the deep extension of some other SS amps, but it did run a little deeper than some tube amps and the bass it did have had a full romantic roundness to it without being warmpoo or too soft. Didn't quite have the texture I want in bass (part of why I like the A2) but it may have actually been more cohesive without it.
Mids - Same rich magical mids as the Piety - which a lot of SS amps lack to me - but imagine at the "next level up" of amp. Not much else to say here.
Highs - On some songs the highs lacked texture and sounded disjointed for brief moments. Haven't had this happen with an amp before.

Details and Resolution - Something odd happened - Sometimes details are missing and would cut out. I thought it may have been my gear or maybe a power issue or some other intermittent behavior at first, but when I would play over the same section in the same song, the same amount of detail would cut out. Like the song still sounds correct, but finer level details just disappear for a second or two. It doesn't happen with my other amps. Overall resolution is about on par with other SS amps of a similar price / level.

Staging - Good for price / size / relative to competition. Also, out of curiosity, I played games for about 20 minutes with this just to see how well it handles positioning - good. If this was something I cared about, it was enough of an improvement over the Vali2+ or Piety to justify the expense over one of those.

Fullness - Where this shines over the regular Piety. There is more fullness to the sound, more so than just "going to the next level of amp".
Other technicalities not mentioned - Nothing bad, about on par with most other stuff in this approximate price range.

Overall, great amp. Thank you again @Ksorota for the loaner.

 

I had to send back the Piety Squared for repairs, I think I am now last on the tour…but interested to compare myself!

But that is dual mono small Piety and Pietus Maximus uses different (much larger) transistors which will sound different. With community feedback we were able to keep the sound a bit tighter/more refined with PM but still add a little warmth.

Pietus Maximus is still only one gain stage with parallelled transistors and Jason’s unique “programmable output stage”. Not sure where power stands on Piety Squared for comparison.

 

Yggdrasil A2 (BAL) > Piety² (High Gain) > HD800 SDR / HD6XX
Modius AKM (BAL) > Piety² (High Gain) > HD800 SDR / HD6XX

TLDR;
Piety² is an energetic and more than technically competent mid-fi amp with an extremely confident sonic presentation that goes a long way to covering up the flaws, which do exist.

Piety² has a youthful exuberance that contrasts strongly with a mature and refined sound like MJ3 or a cohesive focused amp like Jot 2. I had some flashbacks to MJ2's wild character where elements can fly in and out of focus; Piety² is fun and loves every part of every song but sometimes seems a little ADD. It doesn't do subtle, and MJ3 feels like something one dreamt while Piety² is something happening now, with upfront urgency.

Piety² does extraordinarily well with mids and vocals. I might prefer the vocals presentation on Piety² to MJ3 despite the bigger amp's vastly superior imaging. Electronic music and pop where subtlety isn't as important are where Piety² shines, and perhaps is exceptional among solid state amps for liveliness.

@rhythmdevils hypothesis "blacker background comes at the cost of resolution" gains supporting evidence here. MJ3 is greyer sounding but resolves better. Piety² images aren't as dimensional and real sounding but this is possibly the blackest blackground I've heard on a solid state amp.

Compared to MJ3's imaging, Piety² is flatter, while layering is bizarrely excellent, although perhaps exaggerated. You can point at every instrument but something is lacking and you still feel like you're listening to reproduced sound, where MJ3 sounds more like David Bowie might be right next to you. What Piety² wants you to see is in flashing marquee and the rest is sometimes weirdly amiss.

Macrodynamics are sometimes uncontrolled, with volume changes not portrayed with the same precision as MJ3. Moments that should surprise don't, while the total energy of the party never flags.

Compared to MJ3 and Jot 2, Piety² is tonally the thinnest, by a significant margin.

Cohesion is a weak point. MJ3 and Jot 2 have a lot more mid bass which is missing on Piety² which also has some dips and crevices and treble is sometimes too splashy.

Piety² doesn't immediately come off as overly colored, but it is, and with a bit of comparison the V-shaped or perhaps W-shaped characteristics really stick out. But it's good at convincing you that those omissions aren't that serious.

Piety² stage isn't sprawling, nor is it intimate. Blackground affords great separation without any real stage width or relative placement.

I don't love how guitars sound on it and there's the potential for fatiguing treble unless you turn down the volume. This is not my preferred amp for rock, given the technicals for metal sometimes run counter to the needs of other genres that benefit from upper frequency zest.

The HD800's didn't pair well at all given the doubling down on treble energy and dryness (although I think the HD800 decay is actually a bit liquid), and even on the 6XX's I didn't care for the treble sometimes, although those are the headphones you want to use with this amp. I suspect the traditionally darker Irish 650's would be even better, and they'd benefit from the extra clarity against their veil.

The DAC obviously matters a lot. Modius AKM + Piety² is a dreadful pairing, producing something so dry I needed to reach for chapstick, but then came the bloated bass. Piety² + Modius inky blackgrounds do not combine to create a black hole and consume all light, it's just boring and uninvolving.

Yggdrasil A2 seems to work really well with the amp, it needs some earthiness and a slightly darker DAC, or perhaps liquidity and thickness. I didn't try A1/GS because incisive seems like the last thing Piety² needs.

This is an exceptionally unique mid-fi amp. I wouldn't fault anyone who preferred Piety² over MJ3 and I'd put it above Jot 2 but the lack of dimensionality, staging, and refinement keep it relegated to mid-fi in my opinion. Still, that it invites so many comparisons to smol big boi MJ3 says it certainly is an upper mid-fi amp.

Note: I have not heard Piety or Pietus Maximus (aka Big Peepee)


Before anyone yells at me for dogpiling on MJ3 please notice the 12" fan. Everything chill brah

 

Amp on way to @CEE TEE