Solid State Power Amp Reviews

Schiit Audio Tyr monoblock power amplifier Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Analog source: Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B cartridge, Channel D Seta L phono preamplifier.
Digital source: Roon Nucleus+ server with HDPlex linear power supply; MBL Noble Line N31 CD player/DAC, Ayre Acoustics QA-9 A/D converter; NetGear Nighthawk router.
Power amplifiers: Benchmark AHB2, Parasound Halo JC 1+ monoblocks.
Loudspeakers: GoldenEar BRX, KEF LS50, MoFi SourcePoint 10.
Cables: Digital: AudioQuest Vodka (Ethernet), AudioQuest Coffee (USB), DH Labs (1m, AES3). Interconnect: AudioQuest Wild Blue (balanced). Speaker: AudioQuest Robin Hood. AC: AudioQuest Dragon Source & High Current, manufacturers' own.
Accessories: Sanus 29" loudspeaker stands with GoldenEar and KEF speakers, 24" Celestion stands with MoFi speakers; Target TT-5 equipment racks; Ayre Acoustics Myrtle Blocks; ASC Tube Traps, RPG Abffusor panels; AudioQuest Niagara 5000 Low-Z Power/Noise-Dissipation System and AudioQuest Niagara 1000 Low-Z Power/Noise-Dissipation System (source components). AudioQuest Fog Lifter cable supports. AC power comes from two dedicated 20A circuits, each just 6' from breaker box.
Room: 20' (left side), 25' (right side) × 16' × 8'.—John Atkinson

COMPANY INFO
Schiit Audio
24900 Anza Dr., Unit A
Valencia, CA 91355
(323) 230-0079
schiit.com
ARTICLE CONTENTS

COMMENTS
georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 23, 2022 - 4:37pm

Good to see an amp measured these days producing a proper looking 10khz square wave. Without the need of special camouflaging bench testing filters.

Unlike the even lower frequency/low power test with almost unrecognizable 1khz square waves that Class-D is shown to do in tests, even when using the camouflaging Audio Precision's AUX-0025 output filter. Which also hides the real truth of what coming out the speaker terminals.
https://www.head-fi.org/attachments/604316/
This "can" be fixed with moving the "switching frequency" from Class-D's 400-500kHz to what Technics did with their (rare as rocking horse ****) flagship amp the SE-R1 to 1.5mHz! switching frequency, but! you need output devices that can do this. Technics did it with the newish GaN output devices which can take such a high switching frequency

Cheers George

windansea's picture
Submitted by windansea on December 24, 2022 - 10:35am

While the 10khz square wave test seems theoretically to be an objective standard for evaluating amplifier performance, music is nothing like square waves. Some highly euphonic amps don't do well with square waves, but that's not truly "high fidelity." At the end of the day, how important is the square wave test?

John Atkinson's picture
Submitted by John Atkinson on December 24, 2022 - 12:12pm
windansea wrote:
At the end of the day, how important is the square wave test?

The presence of overshoot and ringing reveals inherent instability, which competent design would have eliminated.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

John Atkinson's picture
Submitted by John Atkinson on December 26, 2022 - 3:53pm
John Atkinson wrote:
The presence of overshoot and ringing reveals inherent instability, which competent design would have eliminated.

Meant to add that this is the case with solid-state amplifiers biased into class-A, class-AB, or class-B. Tube amplifiers often have overshoot and ringing due to an ultrasonic resonance in the output transformer secondary. Class D amplifiers can also have an ultrasonic resonance due to the necessary low-pass filter on the output that reduces the level of ultrasonic switching noise.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

windansea's picture
Submitted by windansea on December 27, 2022 - 11:35pm

I suspect the tube amp overshoot might be euphonic. As for ultrasonic resonance, is it then inaudible?

Bonsai's picture
Submitted by Bonsai on December 25, 2022 - 9:46am

CFA amps excel at reproducing square waves. I have a design reproducing a very credible 70 V pk to pk square wave. Google nx-Amplifier Hifisonix

Apollo's picture
Submitted by Apollo on December 23, 2022 - 7:22pm

JA1, thank you for a great review and comparison with the Parasound and Benchmark amps. I am interested in your perspective on how the Bel Canto REF600M would compare. Thank you in advance.

s10sondek's picture
Submitted by s10sondek on December 23, 2022 - 10:05pm

Hi JA1,

Thanks for a great review, especially vis-a-vis your summary comment about the convergence of state-of-the-art solid state amplifier sound over the last decade or so. Such a comment would have been unthinkable 30 years ago in these pages (the shrill Stereo Review "all amplifiers sound the same" stance notwithstanding). It was valuable to me also to have you put into a broader perspective the magnitude of the differences between the amplifiers under comparison.

Also, I am not sure I have read in these pages many amplifier comparisons wherein loudness levels were at least attempted to be controlled and called out when differences were unavoidable. So thank you for doing that in the comparisons you made here in this review. Super helpful to see one crucial variable being controlled in the listening comments!

One question about the measurements: for monoblock amplifiers, I notice that Stereophile typically omits channel separation measurements. Presumably that is because there is thought to be very little cross-channel coupling with the use of separate chassis, power suppliers, etc. However, in practice I wonder how much coupling and bleed there actually may be. Have you ever tried to measure monoblock channel separation to test the underlying hypothesis that they would inherently outperform even the best designed stereo (shared channel chassis) types?

windansea's picture
Submitted by windansea on December 24, 2022 - 10:42am

Excellent review and I also appreciated Mr. Atkinson noting the imperfection in level matching. Easier said than done! I suppose perfect level matching would require a high quality potentiometer at the speaker terminals? And resistors may reduce the signal imperfectly.

Axiom05's picture
Submitted by Axiom05 on December 24, 2022 - 6:37am

"However, in practice I wonder how much coupling and bleed there actually may be."

Just where is the coupling & bleed come from? Channel separation in the amps themselves is infinite, any limitation will be in upstream components, not the amps.

hemingway's picture
Submitted by hemingway on December 24, 2022 - 9:52am

Hello John and all,

I agree with the previous commenter s10Sondek, I also appreciate your willingness to describe something that audiophiles sometimes do not want to hear: after a certain point, solid state amplifier performance converges, and that the distinction between the sounds was minimal. This is the point of the design after all, which is to provide amplification without distortion.

I do want to point out that the Benchmark's weren't put in a fair fight, since a single ABH2 was used in stereo, whereas the other amplifiers were used in monoblock pairs. I wonder how the ABH2 would fare in a monoblock arrangement as against the Parasounds (i.e. use two of them). And given that how colossal and expensive the Parasound monos are in comparison to the diminutive Benchmark, that the single Benchmark is within striking distance, even as a stereo amp, is a huge credit to the Benchmark.*

Your comments about amplifier performance converging reminds me of one that you wrote about a vinyl ripping software and a/d interface, where you concluded that it was difficult or not possible to distinguish between the "live" turntable playing against a hi-res, digitized copy of the same LP played via a high quality DAC.

To me this confirms what we all seem to know but not everyone wants to admit... though Art Dudley did if I remember. Audiophile preference is picking a flavor of distortion. Records can and do often sound better than digital, but I have to admit that it is probably the distortions of the medium or playback mechanisms that make it so. The "perfect" digital copy can capture those distortions and reproduce them. Similarly, certain amplifier topologies, or tube amplifiers, can and do sound great. But it seems that it has to be because of the distortions they introduce that we enjoy. And there is nothing wrong with that. Its all for fun, after all.

Thanks for the great article.

*p.s. about the Benchmark amps, I wonder further that if they were used in an all Benchmark system (dac at full output, L4A, and monoblocks at lowest gain setting), one could realize further benefit because of proper gain structuring taking advantage of the low noise floor of the amplifiers.

JHL's picture
Submitted by JHL on December 24, 2022 - 2:57pm

Specifically:

Quote:

Audiophile preference is picking a flavor of distortion.

This cliche stands out from among a handful of supporting audio fallacies and circularities, most notably because by now while such boilerplate is so commonplace among audio midwits as to be predictably tedious, this one is so underdeveloped. It just stands there, hoping.

The 'objective' hifi enthusiast's predictable subjectivity is telling. Having missed the point of it all and having not appreciated the sound of that point, s/he's effectively reduced to talking about denying both without the practiced authority to carry any of it through. Typically at the world's expense, hopes the worst of our persistent class of projecting, rude, and evidently unmoved subjectivist remoras. No? Well, does convergence really infer perfection or just a common ceiling? Do Benchmark and Parasound somehow represent the most authentic playback mechanisms?

And so on, yet the conclusion to all of these had been preordained and wrongly so.

That is the inevitable conclusion, after all: Not caring to pursue the goal abbreviated to declaring it can't exist because.

Glotz's picture
Submitted by Glotz on December 27, 2022 - 10:54am

From the king of logic, he is correct, imo.

To draw conclusions from JA's article in that fashion is guesswork looking for a conclusion.

The Tinkerer's picture
Submitted by The Tinkerer on December 24, 2022 - 4:10pm

They actually sounded better with one amplifier, in stereo, than bridged in mono. Mono, they took on a much cooler and even tighter personality that editorialized over a single AHB2 + LA4. Same trend with double AHB2vs single compared with LA4 feeding a Parasound JC5, Anthem STR, and NAD M33.

This, with Revel F228be's.

So, my findings mirror JA1's.

georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 24, 2022 - 11:28am

"Merry Xmas to all, it's 6am Xmas morning here in Aus, waiting for the rabble to wake up." (some AC/DC should get them up)

"euphonic" is the operative word there.

If they aren't faithful to reproducing the exact signal that goes into them. It's called "coloration" a more distasteful term, "distortion".

Most competent designers all use square wave testing as well as a barrage of others during the development of their product.
99.9% of them would LOVE to have the perfect square wave, but some just can't get there, and no they don't purposely design their amps for so so average or unrecognizable looking square waves.

Cheers George

JHL's picture
Submitted by JHL on December 24, 2022 - 3:09pm

Specifically:

Quote:

reproducing the exact signal that goes into them.

Ah, no. That's pure rhetoric. Nothing rebuilds a mirrored but larger output, George, nothing. You know this, I know this, and we know this.

What matters, then, is what things sound like.

Quote:

It's called "coloration" a more distasteful term, "distortion".

That's circular and even less technically rigorous.

What matters is still what things sound like relative to real live music. Talking about it online as if it's either known or foreordained is not that thing. There's another word for what that thing is.

So "euphonic" is not in fact the operative word here, at least not when it's assumed simply in order to be projected.

georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 24, 2022 - 11:30am

The others (Parasound, and this Schiit Tye) are "true" monoblocks

The ABH2 would be "bridged" stereo amps, "pseudo" monoblocks, sure that gives them a **** load more watts but it degrades them to have a couple of drawbacks, in particular low impedance drive, which they don't have when in stereo form.

Cheers George

Glotz's picture
Submitted by Glotz on December 27, 2022 - 10:58am

I have read reviews here and there where that is the case. The amp does struggle with low impedance drive output. Thinness or lightness is the result. For my needs, that's a non-starter, though I do love the HPA-4 for a pre.

David Harper's picture
Submitted by David Harper on December 24, 2022 - 11:08am

"which I suppose is what you should expect for nearly 6X as much cash". nonsense. This quote perfectly illustrates the fallacy of "high end" audio. Price determines sound quality.

MatthewT's picture
Submitted by MatthewT on December 24, 2022 - 11:59am

Over at ASR.

JHL's picture
Submitted by JHL on December 24, 2022 - 2:59pm

...is a known site pest. Given that ASR has distilled fine sound down to a tiny, sighted sliver of all phenomenon with almost no bearing on musical fidelity, his mission is to then look dumb over here.

Glotz's picture
Submitted by Glotz on December 27, 2022 - 10:59am

So true.

cafe67's picture
Submitted by cafe67 on December 25, 2022 - 5:12am

Let me guess , you’re here “to say important things that need to be said “lol

hiendmmoe's picture
Submitted by hiendmmoe on December 24, 2022 - 11:42am

Sounds like a great amp within its price range. Let’s get real, these are $3200. Pr mono amps and as good as they’re, they will never out perform upper echelon power amps that are well built. Part tolerance and quality along with more power supply regulation is what you pay for when you pay more. Anybody who disagrees is only hiding behind their inability to afford and hear such differences!

Glotz's picture
Submitted by Glotz on December 27, 2022 - 11:00am

Better parts quality and resultant design work that goes into raises component and retail costs. Period. You pay, you get.

georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 24, 2022 - 1:11pm

"they will never out perform upper echelon power amps that are well built."

But they will be the equal of if not outperform ones with extremely "glitzy" chassis of well known hi-end brands that are trying to sell for many x and more price, but yet on the inside are just $120 Chinese subwoofer Class-D amp modules.
https://www.stereonet.com/forums/topic/564280-continuum-s2-or-diablo-300...

Cheers George

georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 24, 2022 - 6:41pm

@John Atkinson
Did you try some 2ohm load testing with these to see if they "were up to it" without turning off or blowing, for some of the nastier speaker loads out there, I know you showed the FR graph, but it's under music conditions power loading I'd like to know. IE: wattage increase from 4 to 2ohm

Cheers George

hemingway's picture
Submitted by hemingway on December 24, 2022 - 7:26pm

@JHL, I am not quite sure I follow what you wrote there but, I think if you read the body of work by Art Dudley and John's article, the idea that audiophiles prefer different distortion profiles is the consensus of thinking. I recall that Art literally wrote that in one article. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. That is what makes it a hobby, and not a science project, and what makes it fun. If things didn't sound different, we wouldnt all be here and there wouldnt be an industry full of gear and audiophiles buying and buying. You might also like to read some Nelson Pass writings. He is a rich man (i bet) because he deliberately designs amplifiers with different distortion profiles.*

Having compared the Benchmarks and a Class A solid state amp that is likely more colored or euphonic than the benchmark, I cant really say that I preferred one or the other. They are just different, and I have to acknowledge that the benchmark is literally the benchmark for performance (JA says its the best amp hes measured).. but that doesnt mean its my favorite or i want to use it.

I hope Santa brings you some perspective, or at least something to cheer you up. Take it easy.

@georgehifi, that is an interesting comment about the bridged versus "true" monoblocks. Can you please write a bit about how it affects impedance/performance?

*or did I get it backwards; he is a rich man and now he designs amps with different distortion profiles...

JHL's picture
Submitted by JHL on December 26, 2022 - 4:44am

I'm afraid that your remarks included a few familiar and usual conceits, hemingway. One could take their intent and imprecision as a strawman against successful and renown audiophile practices, and ultimately such against the thoughts and perceptions of users of those methods.

Such predictable tedium may be similarly deconstructed.

First, distortion is not the word you want. In audio it has a particular definition but you used it in a general shorthand, robbing technologies of merit beforehand and presumably diminishing their users. Second, context and complexity of distortion and its wide spectrum of manifestations also demands clarity. You can't throw "distortion" out there like you have.

Context matters but either you cited writers without that context or if you hadn't, you failed to establish the above, in which light they were wrong. Either way it doesn't wash.

One more example. In this thread we read that a 10kHz square wave is the product of an optimized amplifier. That claim is not unreasonable but if conventional shorthand about it is wrongly applied, as you did to disclaim whole classes of devices known for recreating very believable musical images, then it too is incorrect in its context, precision, and understanding.

I doubt our writers would make that mistake. You shouldn't either.

I'm aware that you included a favorable, perhaps disclaiming nod to vinyl playback, although you went on to make the usual anti-vinyl blunder so common these days, which is to conflate superior musical fidelity with, as you put it, pleasant distortion.

That outright contradiction is another common audio conceit, but it serves to illustrate the dichotomy some leap to, oddly, in order to discount a tech not by its sound, but out of a foregoing bias against its method!

It's telling that out of a false sense of virtuous, technological merit we should flagellate the ear to serve a bias. It's similar to how the eye is an acceptable agent to those who fear their own sighted bias.

Remarkably, as the organ for what this is all for, the ear has become reviled.

If we asserted less and did audio more, turning to the expert ear's reporting on music playback, we'd all be better off. Instead we seem to be afflicted by a class of audiophile that in places can't constrain its baser instincts and always descends on the superior experience, the better tech, and the more qualified reportage to smear it.

I'm glad you didn't. Others haven't nearly your degree of decorum and by now they at least, they may be called out while we still have vivid, colorful, and audacious means, methods, and actors.

georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 24, 2022 - 7:04pm

"Can you please write a bit about how it affects"

1: Distortion goes up,
2: Output impedance is higher (damping factor lower), which means bass is not as controlled.
3: The ability to drive below low impedance’s takes a hit.
4: The amp becomes more unstable..

It's known that damping factor is not as good (output impedance increases) which means less cone control (damping) over the bass driver even though you have far more wattage.
Also low impedances 2ohm of many speakers "could" be harmful to the amp/s or make them turn off or blow, because they are less stable bridged.
Also you will probably get more HF hiss from the tweeters that wasn't there in when in stereo mode.

Cheers George

Bonsai's picture
Submitted by Bonsai on December 25, 2022 - 8:21am

Nice to see a current feedback amplifier design getting a good review like this - the topology is under represented in the audio world in my view despite the fact that it offers many good points.

The mains noise is a little disappointing and points to more work being needed on layout etc.

s10sondek's picture
Submitted by s10sondek on December 25, 2022 - 12:04pm

Guys, what's great about this review and the follow-on comment thread, is the debate it is sparking about deeply-held and entrenched ideas in Hi-Fi. I'd personally like to see more of that in an intelligent, civilized format in Stereophile. Where people are asking questions of one another, not rhetorically, but in a good faith in a dialog that seeks to develop understanding amidst the multi-variable confusion and problem that is sound reproduction.

Vanity, offensive dismissals, defensive posturing, and know-it-all smugness have places in many voyages, but not in a voyage of discovery and understanding. The debate we see in these comment sections speaks to the collective yearning amongst Stereophile readers for searching, good-intentioned dialog about such notions as "artifact vs accuracy," "what use are measurements when it's our ears that ultimately decide," and "what is the value of negative reviews."

It's honestly up to Stereophile's editorial team to set the tone, invite, and spur this debate, much in the spirit that Robert E Greene, Robert Harley, and Jonathan Valin have done in the past year or so in Absolute Sound. Maybe JA2 could invite Amir at ASR to guest-write a viewpoint and have a discussion with JA1, KR and HR about measurements and subjective correlations. Maybe Amir would respond in kind on his site. In a cordial way, to try to stop speaking over and across and against one another an instead to each other. We should really speak to one another instead of just launching blasts across the bow.

Anyway. Thank you, all of you, for sticking your neck out and debating here and in other forums. Here's to a 2023 where we continue to do so productively and respectfully, and learn from one another as to how to get the best sound in our homes and studios. Honestly, we all need all the help we can get. The problem is wicked hard.

JHL's picture
Submitted by JHL on December 26, 2022 - 4:50am

...how those most guilty of "vanity, offensive dismissals, defensive posturing, and know-it-all smugness" and far more, by leaps and bounds, will be brought to the table, earless as they plainly are with their meters, charts, and litanies of damnations, to further the pursuits and practices involved in the finest music playback.

johnnythunder1's picture
Submitted by johnnythunder1 on December 30, 2022 - 3:18pm

"as Julian Vereker of Naim was quoted to say in response to a customer asking what the signal to noise ratio of his amplifier was, “Why? Is it bothering you?”
"I gave up on "accurate" sound a long time ago. All I care about now is an enjoyable listening session."

So I for one, would not care for the ASR crowd to have a voice in Stereophile. I think the blend of JA measurements and technical explanation along w the subjective listening by the reviewers is perfect for me (and many others here.) The ASR crowd are smug know it alls, skeptical, negative, cheap/Consumer Reports types. They have no appreciation for industrial design or aesthetics. They mostly listen with equipment not with their hearts. They NEVER talk about the emotional component of music. They are the music Taliban.

rpali's picture
Submitted by rpali on January 6, 2023 - 10:14am

"They are the music Taliban."

See, this is why we can't have a reasoned discussion. It's not a matter disagreement...it's complete dismissal...and it's from the fringe of both sides.

JHL's picture
Submitted by JHL on January 7, 2023 - 4:55am

Where's the audio "fringe" that wants reciprocity for meter-readers wanting to tear down the high end?

johnnythunder1's picture
Submitted by johnnythunder1 on January 7, 2023 - 2:14pm

inflexible and dogmatic to the extreme. I'm not dismissive of measurements being important. I certainly don't want to buy an electronically flawed product. But I will buy things based on how they sound and I will tend to buy things advocated by audio journalists that seem to have the same taste as me. It is not a dismissal of a Stereophile-esque appreciation that marries both the scientific and the subective and does not judge your choices. The entire function of ASR is to dismiss without finding any joy in the music. It is entirely this: this $10 speaker does the same thing as the $1000 speaker wire. Aren't those that buy into audiophile cables foolish ? They don't listen with their hearts and minds. They measure. They compare second harmonic specs etc.

Glotz's picture
Submitted by Glotz on December 27, 2022 - 11:07am

and I think it is wonderful. JHL's writing is more objective rather than defensive, as I see it. I love his writing and his logic. He would be nigh-indestructible in any debate.

I wish all of us blessings and kindness as well as fortune and melodious music for 2023!

georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 27, 2022 - 3:47pm

Na sorry, ya got that arse about face, he's more subjective than objective.
https://bit.ly/3FY5GVd

Cheers George

Glotz's picture
Submitted by Glotz on December 28, 2022 - 10:32am

or just talk smack without reference?

Throwing out the word 'distortion' without a reference point is complete garbage- it's too broad to have any meaning unless you qualify it.

And what's worse is you immediately imply (in a related post) that this $3200 set is just more Chinese crap disguised as a quality amp set.

There are several $3000 amplifiers and monos on the market at this price point and JA1's findings not only provide 'superb' measurements but also laudable sound quality.

You frequently interact with JA1 about his measurement sets and yet it appears you don't trust his ears.

georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 28, 2022 - 2:55pm

From your tirade of a post it's hard to tell who it's directed at. But here goes anyway.

Really, you need to read and absorb others posts a little better, for one I did nothing but praise JA's tests and review on these Schiit's (1st post).Except for one omitted test I would have liked to see into 2ohms.

As for your above Chinese remark if it was directed at me. I was referring to the $10k+ Rowland Contiuum in that post WITH A LINK!!!!, get it right please before unleashing on others here.

https://www.stereonet.com/forums/topic/564280-continuum-s2-or-diablo-300...

Also who is JA1 and JA2??
If it's John Atkinson call him JA

Cheers George

Glotz's picture
Submitted by Glotz on December 31, 2022 - 2:50am

The link content is of a dubious nature in more than one way. You somehow felt this was a great place to disparage Rowland, because it related to the Schiit in some way? How can we verify the veracity of your claims from a photo on another website? I won't bother.

What exactly are you saying here? Just some random bile about all of the snake oil audio companies out there? Not sure there's a need for that, given this isn't a Rowland review, and this review was very positive.

I know you trust John's measurements, though trust has nothing to do with it. I doubt your faith in the subjective review, at least that's what you imply by your posts. You generally omit positive feedback. I take issue with that, as well as a simple attack on JHL without backing what you're saying about him being subjective. He is rarely subjective and his arguments pretty airtight 99% of the time. Using a link to explain your insult is equally weak. And uncool.

georgehifi's picture
Submitted by georgehifi on December 31, 2022 - 3:15pm

Your the one loosing his cool.

And this from you: "How can we verify the veracity of your claims from a photo on another website? I won't bother."
https://www.stereonet.com/forums/topic/564280-continuum-s2-or-diablo-300...

If you were even the lowliest of technicians, you could see these are the same Class-D module from the same Chinese Class-D subwoofer amp manufacturer SANWAY!!! It takes nothing to verify it also.
Take a chill pill for the new year.

ejlif's picture
Submitted by ejlif on January 2, 2023 - 7:20am

They were having a black friday sale and I made an impulse buy. I'm glad I did. I have had many amps in my system in the last year. Pass 30.8, First Watt J2 and F6, Benchmark AHB2, Theta Prometheus Luxman 20 watt class A integrated, Naim Nova and some tubes. Cary 805 AE, Decware super zen triode and Feliks Audio 300B. I have pretty much used the Klipsch La Scalas as my speakers with a few times trying the Maggie LRS. I like the tubes as well but the Tyrs are for sure my favorite of the solid state line up and they offer a lot more energy with the music than any of the tubes. You lose just a little bit of the tube magic but not much. If I had to choose I would keep the Decware amp and the Tyrs and just switch back and forth as my mood and the music played dictates. You can drive speakers like the LRS as well with the Tyr. I hear the same thing JA says with the difference in sound between the AHB2 and the Tyr.

The La Scala is a very easy to drive speaker so it might not be so useful info to most but the Tyr runs very cool for me, barely warm to the touch. I was concerned about a heat radiator but I am pleasantly surprised.

The Freya + preamp is also a very impressive product (with some upgraded tubes) I am very impressed with the sound you can get for such a low amount of money for the Freya + and Tyr combo.

Any of these other solid state amps I had on hand sound good but always had a little something about them I just could not get past and the Tyrs are continually impressing me, especially for the money. I would not be complaining about the sound if these cost 20K.

JPD-WA's picture
Submitted by JPD-WA on January 19, 2023 - 6:06am

Dear JA or anyone: Schiit describes this amp as a "current feedback amplifier". Is that something other than zero negative feedback? I have been interested in zero negative feedback amps for my Vandersteens, mainly because Richard Vandersteen likes and recommends that. AYRE is one example of a brand I have considered, which Richard has used personally in the past.

That said, some claim that the concerns over zero feedback, vs some feedback, are exaggerated. So I have no idea how this would compare, and if the difference due to current feedback is audible vs zero negative feedback, or better/worse.

Can someone help me sort this out? I'm not this tech savvy, though I have googled this and read technical explanations. Another amp (monos) I'm also interested in the the new Van Alstine monos, which have gotten some rave reviews, but when I spoke to Mr. Van Alstine about "zero negative feedback" and if his amps use that, he launched into a detailed technical explanation (without answering yes or no!) that totally bewildered me.

These amps seem a good value, and JA likes them! At 50 lbs each...heavy X 2 (the Van Alstine monos are only about 17 lbs apiece, iirc). My Odyssey Audio Khartago stereo amp (which I love) is about 50 lbs.

Thanks

X