Schiit Ragnarok vs McIntosh MHA100

(Decided to break this late edit out into a followup post)

Something for all readers to consider, is the mha100's output is only apples to apples to another solid state amp's output, if you use the speaker tap. It is unfortunate Mc doesn't ship the amp with dual banana plug to 4-pin XLR adapter. I made one. And use it often. I dare say people who were unimpressed by the hp output thru the autoformers may actually like the hp driven from the speaker tap.

 

Initially I was listening on the lowest impedance tap. That was sufficiently lackluster an experience that I tried the other settings ... which really didn't help matters.

Didn't try the bass emphasis feature, HDX wasn't enabled.

I did not try running the headphones via the speaker taps. The dealer is not set up for that sort of thing. And if that's what's required to get the MHA100 to sing, then I'd say McIntosh really screwed the product up from start to finish. It has a headline feature of impedance-selectable/matching auto-formers for headphone listening, but to get the best from it you have to ignore those?! Nice waste of parts cost there then!

Can't speak to how it sounds with the HE-1000, but my experiences with those headphones compared in a TOTL can shootout I was involved in recently, would make me think their presentation would be exactly what you didn't want with the, for me, too-laid-back sounding MHA100.

I had occasion to listen to the MHA100 again a couple of weeks ago when I was trying out the LCD-4. That nearly put me off a very nice sounding set of cans. Even the Audeze Deckard was more convincing in that scenario.

I am sure the MHA100 is right on the money for some people's listening, signature and headphone preferences. And I can appreciate the aesthetic and build quality of the piece, but for me, with the Audeze line of headphones at least, it was significantly outperformed by the much cheaper Oppo HA1, Ayre Codex and the cheaper-still Audeze Deckard. And the little Chord Mojo DAC was head and shoulders better than the built-in one.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I'd rather listen to the LCD-X directly out of the Mojo than through the MHA100. And, to be fair, the Yggdrasil/Raganrok combination is a hard act to follow, especially as its not saddled with dealer and distributor margins. If it was sold the way the McIntosh was, it'd be an $8K combo, not a $4K one.

As long as you're enjoying your setup, however, that's all that matters!

 

I touched on this in my prior post ... but ... that's quite a big engineering/product placement misstep on McIntosh's part then!

Why bother with the auto-formers and the relays and software needed to make them selectable if they're not the very best way to drive headphones available on that particular product? May as well have just done what Schiit did with the Ragnarok and make the speaker outputs the same as the headphone output ... and saved a ton of your parts budget into the process.

 

I will 1/2 agree. :]

Don't get me wong. As someone who had been solidly in the tube amp camp but only on the entry level as far as hp amps (I do have many speaker tube amps, including ARC Classic 150 mono block hulks) , and was making moves towards a totl tube hp amp (I was eyeing the eddie current balancing act), the appeal of the transformer coupled output but with solid state devices that were nowhere near stressed at the levels I sometimes like to listen to, was THE deciding factor for me to buy the amp. To me, it is the best of both worlds of ss and tube.

So my 1/2 agreement is I agree Mc should have put a way to completely disengage the autoformers and directly wire the speaker tap from the rear to the front; for those that prefer that. The diagram on the top of the autoformers makes it seem like it's disengaged using the 150-600 ohm setting. But my listening tests compared to the speaker taps say it's still in the picture.

My 1/2 disagreement is that I don't think it disengaged is always THE best way to drive the headphones. You do and I will not argue that is wrong for you and all that shared common opinions here. I appreciate both modes with and without for different material and different moods and different hp. If someone doesn't appreciate 'the autoformer/transformer sound' (which I'd think would be every tubeamp lover) , immediately forget about buying a MHA100 right away.

 

It's fine if the "fourth" option is to bypass the auto-formers ... just seems like a lot of rigmarole to have to wire directly into the speaker taps to do it. At the same time, I can easily believe that some headphones sound better one way or the other ... but it'd still be nice if it was all just switchable from the front panel.

Of course, if I'm talking of niceties ... a balanced output jack would have been nice too (even if it just as a convenience, with it being wired single-ended).

The competition at $4,000 is just too hot, in my opinion, for anyone that's not specifically a McIntosh fan to get anything close to reasonable value from the MHA100.

 

I must be at the far end of the bell shaped curve. Before this amp I used to call the company 'Crapntosh'. So I wouldn't exactly be what anyone would call a fan (fanboy).

Hey, how about the new Manley hp amp. Not sure if it's production. But, wow! I suspect it to play at the price range in question too.

 

I keep the banana plugs in the speaker taps 100% of the time, with some adapters and wires ending with a 4-pin XLR that sits securely but out of the way at the top of my equipment rack. So unplugging from the front of the Mc to the back is trivial to me.

Along the lines of balanced out, ya I wish it had that. But one really wants fully balanced front to back, right? Which this mha100 amp would never be. The Shiit MJOLNIR for 500 beans tho? Someone talk me out of it please. Because I'm really seriously considering it! Or talk me into it. Ya, I'd prefer that. Oops, maybe not; way off topic.

 

Put it this way ... I have both fully-balanced and single-ended rigs. Both of them have convenience jacks. The single-ended amp can drive my balanced headphones via a standard XLR jack wired with common grounds (both Woo and EC, among others, offer this setup). The balanced amp, while it has a single-ended, summed, output, definitely sounds its best when run balanced. So I have all my headphones terminated with XLR connections ... and the convenience jacks mean I don't have to keep swapping cables or using adapters.

Sonically there's no penalty in using a 1/4" TRS jack or an XLR jack wired with common grounds for single-ended output.

Can't comment on the Mjolnir specifically, as I've not heard one. My experiences with Schiit' gear have all been positive, however.