Ragnarok Versus Speaker Amps

Do post your comparisons for these if you have experience. There don't seem to be many comparisons on these. I have a feeling im not the only interested one.

Backstory for those interested,
My current speaker setup is a Franco Serblin Accordo (86db) (If you're not familiar, think Sonus Faber Guarneri, except clearer) with a Modwright KWA100SE.

I've been looking for an amp that can power my speakers as well as a headphone, however, the amp has to be able to play it as well as my modwright. This point is quite crucial for me as speakers are my primary mode of enjoyment. Due to money concerns, i would probably need to sell the modwright if the ragnarok proves able.

I wont be able to try it out as i am based in south east asia, so it will need to be a blind purchase.

PS: One thing im curious about the raggy is, what kind of tradeoff's needed to happen in order for the Rag to be able to play nice with iems to speakers (both via balanced). I mean, you cant have you cake and eat it, right?

 

That's a fair set of questions. Regrettably, it's consistent with your habit of parroting arguments from HC. Seems you just want stir up shit.

 

Best way to know for sure is to try it out.
It has low gain for your iems and high for speakers.

 

My experience is that Ragnarok sounds best at medium gain regardless of the headphones you attach to it. I've tried with LCD3F, HD650, HD280, UERM and RE600 and they ALL sound best at medium gain. It's not even a gain thing but rather the way it does transient attack and decay. Low gain is a bit limp dick, high gain is too aggressive and medium gain is just right.

I don't know if the above applies to powering speakers (I have studio monitors hooked up to the pre/XLR out) but I suspect the answer is yes.

 

My 2c: As far as headphone use is concerned I basically agree with Tyll's review of the Rag on his Big Sound 2015 wrap-up. If you tend to agree with Tyll's reviews then I'd give that a read.

As a speaker amp it sounded fine, but I didn't get to demo the same speakers with multiple amps so I'm afraid my impressions aren't worth much.

For what its worth I I've increasingly heard from people whose opinions I respect that it isn't a good idea to have the same amp for both headphones and speakers.

 

Huh, for some reason I haven't messed with this. I'm going to give it a shot at medium just to see. The high gain is too aggressive for me.

Though my UERMs sound marvelous out of the Rag.

 

I am biased, of course, but this is 100% incorrect without any kind of technical details to back up these opinions.

In my opinion: making an amp work for both headphones and speakers improves the breed for both. Making it work for headphones means low noise across the board, which will pay dividends on speakers--efficient speakers especially. Making it work for speakers means huge output capability, which will pay dividends on all headphones.

It is a helluva design challenge to make an amp work for both headphones and speakers, so I understand why most don't want to take it on. Ragnarok's unique microprocessor management and relay-switched volume just makes it even more complex. I covered the design in detail in the Schiit Happened book chapters, if anyone is interested in technical detail and rationale from our side:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/701900/sch...s-most-improbable-start-up/2205#post_10812955

 

Part of my Top Shelf Solid State review included a Ragnarok comparison to a TOTL vintage Pioneer amp.

http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1876.0.html

 

I believe kevin gilmore would like a word with you

I own a Rag and I am quite pleased with it. That being said it was pretty unanimous at the bigsound 2015 that basically everyone thought there were better amps. Rag was one of the cheapest there for sure so, it can definitely hold its own with the best of the best, plus it is the most versatile. Just maybe not THE best.

 

Considering my previous post, i can see where you are coming from. And yes, i have read that piece by spritzer before, which made me think a little deeply into this.

However, in this case, i am genuinely curious as i've been spending an inordinate amount of time reading up on the rag.

 

To be clear, I never said that Ragnarok was going to sound the best in every system on the planet, nor did I say that it would produce sound to suit all individual preferences, nor did I say it was the best amplifier on the planet. That's just silly (though I'm glad you--and Maxvla--like yours...in the end, that's all that really matters, as only you can choose your own personal best, no matter what anyone else says.)

What I said was this:

As far as I know, there is no technical reason that a great amp can't be a great amp for both speakers and headphones.

I provided a couple of technical reasons as to why a do-all amp could improve the experience on both speakers and headphones. I am still waiting to hear the technical reasons as to why it would be compromised in either application.

 

Im wondering if medium would have enough power for speakers. Is there any information on the power output for medium gain settings?

Thanks for that review man, i must have read it at least 5 times while researching this amp.

 

When I asked Donald North about whether his amps would ever have speaker taps, he replied:

"The Stratus' output transformers are optimized for driving headphones only. The output impedance is 8 ohms when using the standard high gain setting. This is reasonable for most headphones but not ideal for loudspeakers. In comparison, a typical 2A3 speaker amp has 2-3 ohm output impedance due to the greater step down ratio of the output transformers. This comes at the expense of the output voltage swing capability needed for lower sensitivity headphones like the K1000 and 600 ohm high impedance headphones."

Not exactly sure if this is a legitimate technical reason, or a if it's still a "too hard" reason, but thought I'd share. Could also just be specific to tube transformer coupled amps, but I'm out of my expertise so I'll defer to someone else to comment...

 

The difference is that tube amps tend to have non-trivial zOut. Most well-designed solid-state amps have very low zOut, <.5 ohm, so driving even 4 ohm speaker loads would get you an acceptable damping factor (4/.5=8). I've yet to hear a reason why a sufficiently well-designed headphone and speaker amp couldn't be interchangeable. (Given low noise, adequate power, etc.) Of course, Rag's for speaker's with decent sensitivity. I wouldn't try to use one with my Maggies

 

Is there a danger to try Rag with Maggies, or would it just not be loud enough?

 

I wired my Ehha to some Mirage bookshelf monitors, it outperformed bunch of old receivers save for power. Much more refined and complete sound. It's output current is limited to 1A due to shunt psu-s. So from that my exp is that hp amp just needs enough power for speakers to work well.

 

Yep, that's specific to transformer coupled amps. Not applicable to Ragnarok or other DC-coupled, low-output-impedance designs (like most other solid-state speaker amps on the planet.)

The real challenge with a solid-state amp, or hybrid running a solid-state output stage, when you're talking headphone/speaker compatibility, is making a powerful amp that is also quiet. If you can do both (as with Ragnarok), then I see only upside on both headphones and speakers.

 

No danger, but it will run into its overcurrent protection at higher volumes. We use 500W amps with our Maggies.

 

http://www.head-fi.org/t/731221/schiit-ragnarok-amplifier/120#post_11020107

I saw this post by Darin on the Rag Driving a pair of monstrous looking speakers.

Just in case anyone is on the same journey as me.

 

I'd be curious to try it just for the hell of it. My VU meters tell me I'm often not using more than a few watts per channel when listening at low levels. (I run them on a 300 wpc amp.) It might even work, if not all that well.