Schiit Aegir Power Amp Impressions

That's exactly what I plan to do. A couple 120mm Noctua fans should solve it and run quietly enough to not disturb anything.

 

Did some research and I think this is a winning option:

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01LVUWOBX/ref=emc_b_5_t

21 db operation with thermal modes and fan speed by temperature. With how I laid out the amps, I just need to situate the inner fins under one fan, and the outer fins should get airflow from each outside 120mm fan. And I don't have to build something.

Won't have it before I head off to vacation for a few days, but I would bet this will solve any issues I have. And I am not at all upset about having to add something like this - I know I'm operating the amps in an edge case scenario. So if I need to do a little extra to protect them, no problem. No such thing as a free lunch, and so forth.

I will try to get some before/after temps using the same material and warmup times. I have an IR thermometer I use in the kitchen from time to time, so that should work.

 

When I was running a single Vidar, I found some added active cooling helped a lot. I picked up simple consumer AV cooling device on Amazon. It seemed well suited to the task, as when the amp was relatively cool the fans were slow and quiet. Granted when the music was loud they were pretty noisy, but you only really noticed it between tracks.

 

This is really nice, the de-biasing button-- I suspect more than just a standby as it's still slightly warm while engaged-- then ready to go quickly ~10mins for it's best.

 

Best review video I’ve seen on the Aegir so far! Bravo! Take that Guttenberg!

 

This has been such a bittersweet journey, lol. I can't overstate this - the combo of Convert 2 + mono Aegirs + Dynaudio Focus 260 has been an absolute blast to play with. Every recording I've tried has taken on almost new life. Whether it's better jump factor (realism), better delineation of parts within complex passages than I've personally ever heard in my room, or just plain, sheer joy of music - I am having so much fun.

But I'm learning that I just can't have my cake and eat it too, likely without spending a LOT more money. The Aegirs are staying here, but I do have to watch the volume, especially with grand, large-scale orchestra stuff like the Zimmer album. I can bring both amps to their knees with the huge crescendo in the Pirates medley. It is huge, busy, tons of lines and instruments, it's glorious. And don't get me wrong - I can get it loud, safely, but like any true sports car, one has to hear it full-tilt every once in awhile.

But that's the fine line with this setup. I have not encountered a volume level where it loses control or collapses or seems to compress on itself. It just keeps growing in enthusiasm and boldness, never steps on its own feet, never congeals into noise with each press of the Volume Up button. Until it just cuts out completely, lol.

Last night I didn't have the amps on long but went through all of Wish You Were Here at a brisk volume (85 dB). Then I went straight for the Pirates medley. I found where I can keep everything happy. Then I went up two steps. It was loud, no doubt. But both amps eventually temped out, one slightly faster than the other (I swapped them for this and the one that cut out on the left is in fact the first to cut out)

Oddly? If I measure the sinks, I'm only seeing about 48* C as the hottest temps I've measured. I do know the amps would be far hotter internally.

I then placed a small fan behind them but honestly it didn't make much difference, they still cut out at the same, elevated volume level. We'll see if the additional cooling capacity of the thing I bought yesterday will change any of that. As it stands, I was only blowing air toward the inside fins of each amp. Not sure if that matters, but I'll find out. I also only had the fan on them for 5-ish minutes, so not sure it would adequately cool them down in that stretch, but it should have had an impact.

Lastly, this is not me bitching about the amps, not in the least. These little porkers are some seriously kick-ass pieces of gear. They will play at "loud" but not "insane" levels for hours, no issues. And they sound absolutely wonderful to my ears. I've come up with the term "enthusiastic clarity" for them. They, along with the Convert, deliver tons of microdetail, spatial cues, pluck artifacts, realistic note decay, but never get analytical or cold or lean or boring. The two are a great pairing, IMO. However, I would be remiss if I didn't say that I truly wish they had just a little more room before thermal overload occurred. And at this point, I believe that's what's going on since I never have to reset the amps, they just come back up after a very short pause. So if Schiit were to ever release a revision? I'll buy it, I can almost guarantee it, if they protect a little further against thermal overload but lose no SQ in the process.

 

Thanks for the impressions @toddrhodes ! I do have to wonder what the absolute minimum impedance of your speakers are. Sensitivity seems like much less of an issue.

It's unfortunate us Canucks can't buy n' try the same way our pals from the South can. I mean it's about the only thing I'm jealous of the US for, but still

 

I tried to find that unsuccessfully last night. Dyn started listing min impedance on their newer models, all of which seem to be around 3.7 ohm @ 70-ish Hz. No idea if that's true for mine, though.

Nevertheless, I'm viewing this "issue" pragmatically. In the grand scheme of things, it registers as an annoyance, nothing more. It bothered me more when it first happened but I'll adapt. And if the cooling fan thing I bought helps? Great! They are, to me, special enough that I'm willing to deal with having to limit white-knuckle volume controlling Hell, depending how I look at it, it's honestly not that bad a thing to have with respect to not punishing my ears too much.

Just got done listening to Elton - Honky Chateau MFSL and whoo boy, this setup just delivers, for my tastes.

 

Maybe it's current overload (Amperes), rather than temperature over limit (degrees). It could be a particular frequency driving very hard into a specific low impedance point on the speaker's curve. A bad phase angle on the impedance at that point would make it worse. Is it always at the same point in the music each time?

 

I noticed this exact behavior also. With most amps you know when you’re pushing it into clipping or it sounds strained before some sort of protection kicks in. The Aegir just plays along happy and fine until.....click.....

 

It does tend to happen at the same point. Not coincidentally, that point in the music grows to a rather large volume swell with synths, horns, and quite a bit of bass, all playing together. It's not an easy piece of music to play very loudly (which is why I like it and test with it so much, to me it's very moving even if imperfectly produced and engineered) so it's not necessarily a specific frequency, it's just a very complex, big, crescendo that sustains for... 30 seconds or so.

 

I have a cabinet-mounted unit made by AC Infinity. It's very convenient, but the fans are not the quietest. They are almost inaudible at low speed (about 8 feet away, facing away from me) and clearly audible at medium. The fans are easy to replace with better ones though, standard 120mm PC case fans.

 

If you are only seeing 48 C at the heatsink I'm thinking you are hitting the over-current protection vs. thermal, unless Aegir has a lower thermal threshold than Vidar. Honestly, I would e-mail Schiit and see what they have to say.

 

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking as well.

Here's the impedance curve for the F260.

 

Thanks @yonson and I agree with you. I wanted to try one more silly, but maybe interesting test wrt overcurrent. I've wondered about that myself considering the heatsink readings. And yes, I'm going to use the stock power cables instead of the ones I have one them now. Silly, but at least it's easy!

Thanks for the impedance curve. You outsleuthed me

 

So I guess I should have read the head-fi thread. I can almost guarantee it's overcurrent, though it's strange I don't have to power cycle anything. Maybe that's not necessary on Aegir like it is with Vidar since Aegir has the standby function, it flips over to that, then comes back when everything checks out fine again.

And most likely I'll get to save a little money by shipping back the fan module, so that's cool (no pun intended). And that also means that I'll almost inevitably figure out relative volume and very specific songs where it happens, and avoid playing them at very high levels. Really not a big deal at that point. I was more concerned that if it were thermal, would it just "sneak up" out of nowhere. Being overcurrent (or at least based on others' descriptions of it), it should basically be repeatable and consistent. I will verify with Schiit but thanks for the enlightenment all!

Also not going to bother with the power cord experiment, was a silly hunch anyway.

 

Curious, what Pirates song was this?

 

It's track 6 off disc 1, Hans Zimmer Live in Prague. It's multiple snippets of that score arranged together. The section in question is the last bit, "He's a Pirate."

Last night I got the more sensitive one to trip during a dynamic part of Crime of the Century. Sadly it really wasn't loud that time. I emailed Schiit just to see what they think.