Schiit not that Good?

I've been somewhat of a "Jerry Fan" since they did a couple of shows in Honolulu in 1970 (I recently found my original $3 ticket in some stuff from my late mother's house). To me, and most musicians around at that time, you could not imagine that band would be around as long as they were (and are in some form), but I never again saw them live as I'm not so much a festival attendee. I did frame the ticket, and there has been a recording of the Honolulu Civic shows from 1970 released recently…I should get that recording...

They established the "jam band" concept so there's that, and were a zero downbeat cruise feel…some great musicianship though, and the 2 studio albums "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty" were fabulous.

Judgmentday, I feel your pain...I have an amazing sounding dual mono balanced Kavent S-33/Vincent (rebadged for reasons I don't understand) preamp that I have actually dragged to friend's houses to see if it sounded any better than other things, and it does. After owning a Freya for 6 months or so I recently stuck the Kavent back in the system and it still sounds great, but the Freya sounds better. Tubes…NOS Sylvanias, etc., and note that the Freya is so inexpensive relative to its features and sound quality that there actually is no current competition for it in the marketplace, except for maybe the Schiit Saga which gets good reviews and is simpler. OK Judgmentday, you can stop reading now. Also, regarding great sound back in the day, many other bands that cared about sound used piles of Altec A7s, including a Bob Dylan and the Hawks show I saw in Hawaii in 1966 or something…loud and life changing.

Thinking of gear as competing in a "pushup contest" is funny. I replaced a serious dual mono balanced preamp that sounds fabulous and listed originally for a couple of grand with a Freya. The Freya doesn't "blow the other amp out of the water" or sound like a 30 grand ARC Reference 10 (I've heard one of these...seemed to work OK), but it seems to not have a sound particularly...it doesn't hum or thump or add or subtract anything in my rig...it just allows music to get to my ears. The largest change in my gear pile is the addition of Gold Lion KT77s to my Dennis Had SEP amp...great tubes making my already coherent rig sound better...I can only say that the Freya is fun to use and you can forget it's there. 

If you have any confidence in your own ears, anybody providing less than positive comments on gear you own really shouldn’t matter, unless maybe it’s seen as a fire hazard. I’ve heard very well regarded gear at high end hifi "salons" or friend’s homes that sounded "meh," but since it’s not in my house being listened to carefully over time it will merely provide a moment’s entertainment, and for me it usually points out how much I like my personally sorted rig. Sorted over years of sorting...Commenting on how much one likes a piece of gear they own isn’t necessarily "pushing" it as personally I don’t care what other people buy, but in the case of the Schiit products I own, a Freya and a Loki EQ, I am guilty of pointing out my experience with these specific things as sounding world class in my rig. If they’re not "giant killers," they’re at least "giant embarrassers" if based only on the quality of construction and the price. Something that works really well and sounds great at a fraction of the cost of its competition (or based on design, cost, and performance seemingly having no competition) is fairly rare around here, and that factor alone will fuel some positive commentary, and so what? Audio stuff often has arbitrary pricing based less on manufacturing costs than simple greed…not disclosing inexpensive Chinese manufacturing, relying on the reputation of "being expensive" to be expensive…that’s the retail high end world. I own a Dennis Had hand made tube amp that has premium parts and sounds astonishingly good…why is it less expensive than a Shindo or Audio Note amp? Who knows, but its being WAY less expensive should be noted as at least an interesting fact. WOOF!

There's barely any reason to turn off the tubes as preamp tubes generally last a fairly long time anyway, and if you are switching from one of the other modes you don't want to wait a minute for the tubes to warm up…if the passive or FET mode is where you want to stay, I think you can remove the tubes, although I found with rolling some NOS Sylvanias in there the tube mode seems to sound better than the other 2, and I need the gain anyway with my single ended little amp.

My name has zero to do with Jerry Garcia as I borrowed the last names of 2 friends (Dave Wolf and Tom Garcia) for a one off open mike gig, and I liked the results so I kept the name for music related things including mixing and playing shows. Using that name for over 20 years...