Schiit Aegir Power Amp Impressions

I have the 260's as well as the 340's and IMHO the 260's have the better (not necessarily the loudest) bottom end in the Focus line (not counting the XD600/60) If you are wanting to upgrade the Contour 60's would be my recommendation, or even a pre-owned set of C4's (Signature or Platinum) if you don't mind a much larger tower...

 

Really appreciate the insight. I'll keep the Contour 60s on my radar. My room is pretty small so I'm really not sure I could "fit" C4s inside, or how they'd work in what is essentially a midfield arrangement. Thanks much, I really don't see many glaring weaknesses in the 260s but it would be nice to have a setup that for my tastes, didn't require subs and well, the 260's won't last forever, sadly.

 

How big is your room?

Yeah, the 260's are the star of the Focus line IMHO (you will find many Dyn fans that agree with this). The Contour 60's would need a bigger room as well. My room is 16' x 18', I wouldn't recommend them in anything smaller than that, however with the proper room treatments they could be made to work. If you have your subs integrated well with your F260's and are still looking for an upgrade path the Contour 30's are very similar in size and configuration, except they have been upgraded with Esotar2 tweeters and quite a bit of refining.

 

It's very small, 10.5 x 13.5. My wallet thanks your perspective! I am quite impressed by the 260s, so I'll just suppress my curiosity and continue to appreciate what I've got. Thanks again!

 

For shits and giggles I hooked up an old pair of Magneplanar MMGs to the Freya S/ Aegir. I’ve had these boxed up and out in the garage for about a decade and wasn’t even sure they were still intact. I wasn’t expecting much, but the Aegir worked pretty well on these as long as you keep the volume moderate.

Sonic Youth - Superstar: there was actually some decent bass on this track. Between the bass guitar and the low notes on piano, I was pretty surprised at how full the bottom end was.

Tori Amos - Yes Anastasia: just like the Sonic Youth track, the bass really filled in well with low piano chords and when the big orchestral parts kicked in.

I remember trying some Jolida tube integrated on my Maggie 2.5s when I had them. The Jolida was only 25 watts and sounded lush and sweet, but totally brick walled on output as soon as you even thought about turning it up. Not the case with the Freya S and Aegir. I could turn it up considerably more than I remember with the Jolida. In a perfect world you’d probably want an Aegir with double the output, but I think a standard, single Aegir would be just fine on small Maggie’s in a small room at normal volume levels. I’m going to leave these hooked up for a while.

 

Question: what's the volume difference between passive and 1x? I don't ask about sound quality, because I assume the difference is subtle and requires a lot of listening to separate. Just volume.

 

It's noticeable. I just got Freya S today, paired to a couple Aegirs. I'm listening to music, not pink noise so not scientific at all, but on my meter it shows about a 6 dB change from passive to 1x. And just based on very quick impressions, IMO 4x is best, just as @purrin suggested. Sounds seem to be cast against a darker background with 4x, floating in space a little more believably. Tough to tell after just a few hours of listening, but I'm pretty happy with this combo.

 

Yeah 1x vs. passive is a noticeable difference in volume. I haven’t played with 4x much.

I just got the Aegir to go into protection after about 1/2 hour of George Thorogood and then Scorpions at pretty substantial volume on the Maggies. For times like these I should switch over to the Heresys, but it was sounding really good. I have not been drinking....

 

I had some concerns going with two Aegirs on my Dyn Focus 260s with them being 4-ohm. I've got about 8 hours on them now, half of those with a decent amount of volume going on, at least 80 dB and I kinda got crazy with Hardwired... to Self Destruct and was hitting 100 dB peaks. Only for one song though, I ain't crazy.

Really happy with what I hear so far. Great detail, absolutely dead silent operation and zero noise - electrical, hum, or otherwise - out of the speakers. I'm comparing to the most upgraded Odyssey Stratos Extreme I can get. And I really like that amp. Very neutral if not a touch warm and gooey, good detail, plenty of slam and power reserve. Pretty even-keeled on most music I prefer and revealing enough to highlight differences in gear, both up and downstream.

I won't go and say the Aegirs are beyond superior. I do like quite a bit - imaging feels a little more natural, lower noise floor and maybe just the fact they're brand new and Stratos is 10+ years old, but I feel I'm getting a little more bite to strings and horns, but it's not forward. In fact I think Aegir throws a deeper soundstage. Aegir does feel a little, tiny bit less dynamic, less exciting, however, at volume - it handles dynamics better. And when I say "it" or "Aegir" I mean a mono pair. Anyway, the Odyssey tended to congeal a little bit - soundstage narrowed and flattened, and didn't seem to have the extra gear that Aegir has when dynamic music is played loudly. That's all good.

I don't feel like Aegir has tamped down any of the excitement I've heard coming out of the Convert 2 DAC, either. I think the pair work very well since Convert brings a nice edge to everything, Aegir refines it, and both seem to excel at detail and microdynamics so the image and soundscape just feels like it has extra dimensionality and space to it.

So far, so good. Main reasons for this "upgrade" is that my Stratos is getting up there in age, I don't have any sort of decent backup amp, and I really wanted to compare Schiit amps to an amp I was altogether happy with. Also, Stratos needs a checkup. I was getting a little hum out of both channels and the left channel has some faint staticky electrical noise thing going on. So now I can get it topped off and not lose any time listening.

And just to clarify - any perceived strengths or weaknesses are really at a very nitpicky level. Nothing glaringly better or worse between the two. And for that, I applaud Schiit for what they're able to do at this price point and in this form factor. Pretty freakin' awesome.

 

So it turns out the Iso Acoustics Sub platforms work perfectly under the Aegir amps. I had them on the subs and had the amps on the floor, which was only temporary. Well, I'm sad to say that I cranked it just a little too hard on PF - Money and got the left amp to go into protection (#nailedit). So I moved the platforms off the subs and under the amps to give them a little more airflow. Not sure it will help, but I wanted to raise them up anyway.

And the amp platform works well for Freya. So there's that.

Before


After


Edit - and no, I haven't done much cable management yet. Going to custom make XLR leads from Freya to Aegirs with some Mogami 2549 I have sitting around, just need the connectors to come in.

 

Well I will say this has been an adventure today.

I tripped the protection circuit a second time and then it started to get into my head. "Gotta watch how hard I drive these" and "Not sure I want to be jolted out of sonic bliss by a cooldown lap"

So I lugged the Odyssey back into the room.

When you hear these back to back on the same song, trying as best you can to level match - there's honestly no contest.

I'm using a sort of suspect recording but it's one I've listened to a ton - Hans Zimmer Live in Prague. Not the most pure production, but it has a TON of shit going on. Full orchestra, electric guitars, synths, piano, bass guitars, strings, vocals, piped in noise.

And the Aegirs make sense of much more of it than the Odyssey. Lines are distinct, transparency is obvious, detail is believable.

Now I wouldn't be lying if I said "Hey, it's close enough, I'll eat the restock fee and ship 'em back. Don't want to deal with 'watching my speed' so to say." But the difference is big enough that I'm going to stick with the original plan. Run the Aegirs, enjoy them, get the Odyssey serviced, then maybe see if the gap tightens at all.

Because right now, the Aegirs are sort of making a mockery of an amp I really like.

And for clarity, I've been at this for like 5 hours, and have swapped amps no less than four times. In the name of science.

 

Interesting, thanks for your impressions, all it does it make me want a pair of Aegir even more...

Do you know if you were hitting thermal protection or over-current? I'm not sure about Aegir (I imagine it's the same), Jason stated that the thermal shutdown on Vidar is 85° C and I was never able to hit that (highest I've seen is 75° C on the sides of the heatsinks after a couple hours while trying to get them to go thermal when I first got them) , however I have hit over-current quite a few times which just requires a "reboot" to be up and running again.

 

I'll dig into the manual to see but when it happened, the left amp attenuated briefly (10 seconds maybe?) and the front LED flashed slowly for that duration. Then it comes back up to normal volume and all is well.

@elmoe had a good thought to see if I can hit it again, see if it happens again only on the left, and then swap amps and try again, see if it stays with that speaker, or if it's one amp that may be a bit more sensitive than the other. I also have a wild-eyed theory about the power cables I'm using, so may introduce that as a test as well. Doubt it'll go anywhere but hey, why not. I will say they warm my room much moreso than my Stratos does. The Stratos stays relatively cool throughout, where the top of Aegir can get hot. Not necessarily burning hot, but uncomfortable for sure.

The Aegirs are yet another example of not knowing what you don't know, from my perspective. Even hooking the Stratos back up, it's not vastly inferior or anything but the Aegirs are just objectively, and obviously, better. Damnit, lol.

 

Sounds like temperature, as @yonson said above I've had the same experience with my Vidar, overcurrent will lock you out until a power cycle, but it never got so hot that the protection kicked in for me, even keeping it inside a closed TV stand and using it for 5+ hours

 

I "believe" I read that Jason updated or reconfigured the protection on Aegir, so it might not require a reboot after going into over-current like Vidar does. I would imagine if you tripped thermal protection that it would take longer than 10 seconds for it to cool down enough to carry on at normal volume, whereas over-current wouldn't be an issue. However that's just speculation...

 

Silly question I'm sure but when the amp goes into current protection, is this damaging the amp at all? I'm trying to think long-term if this amp could handle 4-ohm speakers reliably.

 

That temperature is measured internally on the Vidar so the temperature on the heatsinks is always going to be lower. I expect the spread between internal and external temps is dependent on the particulars of the system and the environment and is going to be different for everyone. I've never seen 70 degrees on the heat sinks, and would be rather mortified if I did. That's very hot.

 

Most likely not. Schitt states it's using a "sophisticated microprocessor oversight system" so it's basically there to protect the amp from doing anything damaging.

I don't have Aegir yet, I have however been running a pair (3 if you count my center channel) of Vidar at 4 ohm mono for over 2 years now. I have yet to hit thermal protection, and the only time I've ever hit over-current was on the center channel while watching action movies (Dunkirk and Blade Runner 2049 for example) at higher than reference levels during intense battle sequences, explosions etc...

 

Correct, I have only seen those temperatures during my initial testing to verify that the would hold up to extended periods of high volumes in a 4 ohm mono application. That reading was after ~2 hours of EDM at 105 - 110dB at listening position (I was not in the room for the majority of the testing)...

The highest I've seen since is in the low to mid 60's.