Schiit Jotunheim

[spritzer]

In our ongoing quest to buy random shit to try out, Kevin bought a Jotunheim as he was interested in the circuitry.  He thought they might have done something novel... but it is utterly mediocre as one has come to expect these days.  One interesting bit is the horrible assembly quality (hello hand soldering at minimum wage) and dubious parts such as no name switches... which arrived broken.  Now this is a budget piece so corners have to be cut but not cleaning off the flux is just sloppy. 

sj.pdf

For me the biggest letdown with all of this is the major disservice Schiit and others are doing to the community.  They are toting these frankly "shit" amps as power houses (well they are) as if this power mattered at all.  2.5W or what ever is of no use in a headphone amp unless it is some really clean Class A power.  25mA bias at +/-12V isn't that so they have the noobs and experienced users alike again focusing on the power output when it is a meaningless figure. 

[kevin gilmore]

 

piviot point?   where ?  more like 3 db of differential gain when you use single ended input and balanced output (high gain mode) worse in low gain mode. there is a way to do this correctly, and you only need a couple of super cheap extra parts. hint: a real differential input, like say the one on the kgss

 

power switch as all the other switches are cheap parts, and the power switch failed shorting one side to ground blowing the house circuit breakers. also for places where the thing is wired for 220v, only one side of the mains is switched. fake on left, real thing on right

 

other side of the switch is used to dump the output relays on turnoff, and there is no protection circuit from dc, just a 1 minute delay timer

even the magni 2 uber is better than this piece of shit. at least its a balanced vas stage.

 

here is the updated final schematic

http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/sj.pdf

and yeah the 4 diodes around the opamps are missing from the schematic, i'm lazy

 

 

Edited April 17, 2017 by kevin gilmore

[wink]

So, they should rename this

"Epic mistakast"

[purk]

Although it had a lot of power on tap but the sound was not transparent when I heard it.  Still, can we get anything better commercially at that same price bracket?  

[kevin gilmore]

audio-gd nfb-1 amp is $485 plus $50 for remote

and then any of the dsd dac's on ebay like the douk super pro for $90

audio-gd is infinitely better for little more, way better built, way better sound etc, and a se to balanced conversion that actually works right

correctly balanced, differential complementary, zero feedback...

Edited April 18, 2017 by kevin gilmore

[wink]

But.....    but,        they don't have a Norse legend derived miniker.....  

So, Jotunheim, in modern day parlance should be called:-

Icelandic, it's "ódýr rusl"

Norwegian, it's "billig søppel"

Finnish, it's "halpa roskaa"

Swedish, it's "billigt skräp"

and, Swahili, it's, "takataka nafuu"    Swahili is such a descriptive language......

 

 

[spritzer]

It's actually ódýrt rusl but close enough...   

[dcpoor]

9 hours ago, kevin gilmore said:

audio-gd nfb-1 amp is $485 plus $50 for remote

Curious, would the Audio-GD NFB-1 AMP be an upgrade coming from a old Dynalo/Gilmore Lite? or same tier?

 

Quote

and then any of the dsd dac's on ebay like the douk super pro for $90

http://www.ebay.com/itm/272135504355 That one?

Does this other one look decent? http://www.ebay.com/itm/262292908029

Thanks

[kevin gilmore]

its balanced so a fair bit more power

the first ebay link is the one I use at work. really sounds great, although getting the drivers out of them is fun because they send you to a link that wants your cell phone number. the drivers are available on the web anyway.

[dcpoor]

Thanks, sounds good, I'll give that DAC a try.

I think the Dynalo sufficiently powers the dynamics I use most often (Senn 600/650/800), so I guess no real need to spend more in the amp department.

[kevin gilmore]

was about to sell this piece of shit, final test and the dac board is no longer recognized.

first $150 gets it. condition: guaranteed to be fucked to the schiit

 

[Craig Sawyers]

Jotunheim in Norse mythology is also known as Utgard, meaning "beyond the fence", a place which is "chaotic, anarchic, and wild" So my friend Google tells me.

But it seems about right for the POS above.

[spritzer]

Jötunheimar is the "world of the Jötuns" aka the gods. 

[ManBeard]

Thanks for doing this and posting about it. The hype train is strong with Schiit and its hard to get factual information in regards to the design / quality of their products. What's the overall consensus on their other products like the Yggy and Ragnorak? I see Kevin mentions the magni 2 uber as being 'better' but that doesn't sound like much of a compliment compared to the Jotunheim...

[mypasswordis]

To put things into a bit of perspective: these are the same people that found it a good idea to start a company whose name and products are based on having a giggle about feces and ass guards, then made the brand of the company into some weird cult with multiple threads across the internet on the narcissistic ramblings of lunatics, as their followers lie prostrate at their log cutting balloon knots preaching about the One True Sound. 

[Mario_Fpolis]

You´ll have to admit, tho, that the man is very good at marketing, maybe way better than in others areas of expertise. Hence the cult (of personality). That said, I did liked my Magni for the brief time I had it, ´cause it was so cheap and good, as good as SS may be. Had it go for a friend without an amp.

[kevin gilmore]

I have extensive listening experience with many of the schiit products with the exception of the yggy.

They all have pretty miserable performance. Others on computeraudio have tested the yggy in comparison to other products, and you can probably go and read for yourself.

the soon to be released complete soekris product is going to be significantly better in every possible way, and in addition it does dsd. and its about half the price of the yggy. Since 25% of my music library is dsd, the yggy was never an option regardless of price.

I expected never to see another product with burn marks on the circuit board ala singlepower. Then the liquid carbon and the jotunheim showed up. left the jotunheim on for a solid week and well the thing overheats.

I'm convinced that I could do a better amplifier for the same price, designed in America and assembled perfectly in china. In fact audio-gd has already done so a bunch of times.

The particularly horrible unbalanced to balanced conversion of this amp combined with the BS associated with pivotpoint shows that Jason is an excellent salesman, and is just recycling designs from 40 years ago. sounded like shit then, sound like schiit now

[gepardcv]

2 hours ago, kevin gilmore said:

Since 25% of my music library is dsd, the yggy was never an option regardless of price.

That's unusual. Did you buy a ton of content from sellers like HDTracks and NativeDSD? Ripped your own from SACDs?

[kevin gilmore]

Ripped 2300+ sacd's over a 3 month period last year 2 at a time.

me unusual?  No never

[JimL]

4 hours ago, kevin gilmore said:

I have extensive listening experience with many of the schiit products with the exception of the yggy.

They all have pretty miserable performance. Others on computeraudio have tested the yggy in comparison to other products, and you can probably go and read for yourself.

Does that listening experience include the DACs or just the amps?

 

Tried goggling computeraudio and all that pops up is computer audiophile, which I assume is a completely different website.  Is there a link you could post?

[kevin gilmore]

computer audiophile, there were links somewhere in there to a person in Russia that did extensive testing with the appropriate equipment. also did the holo, denafrips etc

I have listened to 2 of the cheaper schiit dacs. for the price, you would expect them to be hard to touch except for the fact that there are plenty of things on ebay that do a better job for cheaper.

[JimL]

Thanks.

8 minutes ago, JimL said:

 

 

38 minutes ago, kevin gilmore said:

I have listened to 2 of the cheaper schiit dacs. for the price, you would expect them to be hard to touch except for the fact that there are plenty of things on ebay that do a better job for cheaper.

Any in particular?  I'm looking to upgrade over a Schiit Modi that I got as part of a deal - mostly to get a Stax LNS.

Edited May 11, 2017 by JimL

[3x0]

Eh, I'd be a bit skeptical on the cheapo DAC front especially when you're buying something from China on eBay or taobao or what have you.

 

IIRC the Holo Spring and AudioGD Singularity 19 were hypothesized to be potentially excellent for the money, but I think they're garbage even if they were half of what they actually do cost. Might be a good idea approach the Soekris with skepticism too -- it could be great or it could also sound shitty like the others.

Edited May 12, 2017 by 3x0

[JimL]

Yeah, that was my concern too, not to mention if it blows a gasket you have to send it back.

[mypasswordis]

Most cheap DACs including Schiit and stuff from China are almost identical these days, as a lot of DAC chips can handle almost everything internally, like i/v conversion and filters and PLLs. And they are internally already differential as well.That's why I scratch my head whenever I read about a "house sound". I guess there is a house sound, which comes from whatever the DAC chip is.