[J Ottawa]

I just added my review of Midgard for those interested:

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/sc...headphone-ampliier.26831/reviews#review-32405

I'm continue to compare my Midgard + Modius (E) to my RME ADI-2 DAC. This review emphasizes the importance of a good headphone amp and I'm a very keen Midgard user and this review further confirms it's a keeper.

 

[J Ottawa]

What's your Width/Crossfade value/s on the RME?

ThEvil0nE, here is a bit of an update with two changes tonight.
1. I am sending DSD with the same song to my RME and the sound has improved considerably and I'm getting more of that...stereo feel in this setting.
But there is more to the story...
2. My second attempt at using a second RME unit left me startled as I found the sound was not that initially good. I thought maybe my ears are tired tonight. Just to double check everything, I made sure their was a good connection to the headamp , and un-plugged and re-inserted the plug and making sure my 3.5 mm and 1/4 inch adapter were properly seated. And then, woah, the sound improved dramatically. So now I'm redoing the test.
But thing is, why am I noticing this on the RME and not the Schiit...coincidence? More testing to follow.

 

[J Ottawa]

ThEvil0nE, here is a bit of an update with two changes tonight.
1. I am sending DSD with the same song to my RME and the sound has improved considerably and I'm getting more of that...stereo feel in this setting.
But there is more to the story...
2. My second attempt at using a second RME unit left me startled as I found the sound was not that initially good. I thought maybe my ears are tired tonight. Just to double check everything, I made sure their was a good connection to the headamp , and un-plugged and re-inserted the plug and making sure my 3.5 mm and 1/4 inch adapter were properly seated. And then, woah, the sound improved dramatically. So now I'm redoing the test.
But thing is, why am I noticing this on the RME and not the Schiit...coincidence? More testing to follow.

Ok. Using my RME ADI-2 Pro FS, in both DSD and PCM modes, I finally got the stereo image to work. I will do more testing with the ADI-2 DAC FS ESS version tomorrow where the discrepancies were first reported.
I do note that the Midgard + Modius (E) presents a more forward image of certain details and this is not the first time I notice this characteristic difference between the RME and the Schiit stack.
The fact that I am comparing the RME to the Schiit stack is of significance for me to this day; noting that only a remote control for volume is inherently missing with the Midgard. A Kara + Modius would make an interesting comparison, with a +1 important point for Schiit: that it has multiple analog inputs. Touché!

I have more objective comments to make and those will come once I finally finish comparing the RME to the Schiit stack that I currently own.
Thanking you for your comments and patience.
PS: listening the my ADI-2 Pro FS (AKM 4493) and it is sounding mighty fine. Good times!

 

[ThEvil0nE]

ThEvil0nE, here is a bit of an update with two changes tonight.
1. I am sending DSD with the same song to my RME and the sound has improved considerably and I'm getting more of that...stereo feel in this setting.
But there is more to the story...
2. My second attempt at using a second RME unit left me startled as I found the sound was not that initially good. I thought maybe my ears are tired tonight. Just to double check everything, I made sure their was a good connection to the headamp , and un-plugged and re-inserted the plug and making sure my 3.5 mm and 1/4 inch adapter were properly seated. And then, woah, the sound improved dramatically. So now I'm redoing the test.
But thing is, why am I noticing this on the RME and not the Schiit...coincidence? More testing to follow.

Width and crossfeed in most DAC/amp are usually already baked in the sound. RME on the other hand being a pro-audio brand does it the pro-audio way (in which you are now the sound engineer so to speak lol). Out of the box the RME will give you the plain vanilla unadulterated sound and gives you control on how you set the width and crossfeed. Don't be afraid to play around with the width together with crossfeed. The wider you want to go with the width value the farther the away the driver feels from each other and the farther they are the more disjointed the sound will be, this is where you start to apply crossfeed to make your sound back into unison. With those two values together dialed in to you preference, the effect would be like listening to speakers with you sitting and listening at the most optimal position. Try to set your width at +1.0 and crossfeed +2 and see what happens, that's the sweet spot setting for my NDH 30. Of course values depend solely on your specific phone and how it responds to the values you set, FR is not affected and remain constant. Once you dialed that down, you can proceed with your testing.

 

[J Ottawa]

Width and crossfeed in most DAC/amp are usually already baked in the sound. RME on the other hand being a pro-audio brand does it the pro-audio way (in which you are now the sound engineer so to speak lol). Out of the box the RME will give you the plain vanilla unadulterated sound and gives you control on how you set the width and crossfeed. Don't be afraid to play around with the width together with crossfeed. The wider you want to go with the width value the farther the away the driver feels from each other and the farther they are the more disjointed the sound will be, this is where you start to apply crossfeed to make your sound back into unison. With those two values together dialed in to you preference, the effect would be like listening to speakers with you sitting and listening at the most optimal position. Try to set your width at +10 and crossfeed +2 and see what happens, that's the sweet spot setting for my NDH 30. Of course values depend solely on your specific phone and how it responds to the values you set, FR is not affected and remain constant. Once you dialed that down, you can proceed with your testing.

Wow, that was quite the explanation. Much appreciate the time you are taking with this "ThEvil0nE". I did note that I could set the width from -1 to +1, but did not intuitively see that I could increase it to 10. I will revisit those settings and their impacts. With my Pro RME AKM 4493 unit I can hear the soundstage better now and there is lots of detail on offer. Quite an interesting unit the RME ADI series; they pack so much in there! And the Schiit stack is certainly different with less settings, but with great sound as well. More testing to follow.

 

[J Ottawa]

Wow, that was quite the explanation. Much appreciate the time you are taking with this "ThEvil0nE". I did note that I could set the width from -1 to +1, but did not intuitively see that I could increase it to 10. I will revisit those settings and their impacts. With my Pro RME AKM 4493 unit I can hear the soundstage better now and there is lots of detail on offer. Quite an interesting unit the RME ADI series; they pack so much in there! And the Schiit stack is certainly different with less settings, but with great sound as well. More testing to follow.

This is going to be an embarrassing post as I had to redo all my testing with my RME ADI-2 DAC FS (ESS) as I discovered the DAC was set in "mono"! No wonder the soundstage was amiss.
After double checking everything and coming off last night's RME AKM based unit's test, I went through the Schiit vs RME tests again this morning. To further the quest, with one of my test tracks in question (Yosi Horikawa's Letters), I additionally made use of the Crossfeed feature set to 3: this further cleaned up the soundstage image.
This was important as the Midgard is a powerful headlamp and I also used the RME through the Midgard to do more testing.
Using Crossfeed was indeed a night and day difference through a more powerful amplifier.
Putting the Modius back in, everything is perfect and I don't have to change any settings, although I would expect some material could use some tweaking (hypothesis).

Ok, so my bad. I apologize but the journey has been worth it for me. I'll double check everything going forward (I don't know how I missed it, the Mono setting).

I've got two great units here. One with many options (the RME, they got you covered) and one with a powerful headlamp (Schiit); and that Modius (E) dac, still.very.good.com on it's own with little to fiddle with. Magic both ways.

And I discovered the "Crossfeed" feature and found it very useful with my test track. Again, Thank you "ThEvil0nE", with your help, I figured it out.

 

[ThEvil0nE]

This is going to be an embarrassing post as I had to redo all my testing with my RME ADI-2 DAC FS (ESS) as I discovered the DAC was set in "mono"! No wonder the soundstage was amiss.
After double checking everything and coming off last night's RME AKM based unit's test, I went through the Schiit vs RME tests again this morning. To further the quest, with one of my test tracks in question (Yosi Horikawa's Letters), I additionally made use of the Crossfeed feature set to 3: this further cleaned up the soundstage image.
This was important as the Midgard is a powerful headlamp and I also used the RME through the Midgard to do more testing.
Using Crossfeed was indeed a night and day difference through a more powerful amplifier.
Putting the Modius back in, everything is perfect and I don't have to change any settings, although I would expect some material could use some tweaking (hypothesis).

Ok, so my bad. I apologize but the journey has been worth it for me. I'll double check everything going forward (I don't know how I missed it, the Mono setting).

I've got two great units here. One with many options (the RME, they got you covered) and one with a powerful headlamp (Schiit); and that Modius (E) dac, still.very.good.com on it's own with little to fiddle with. Magic both ways.

And I discovered the "Crossfeed" feature and found it very useful with my test track. Again, Thank you "ThEvil0nE", with your help, I figured it out.

Dayum bro mono?
I also have the 2DACfs AKM and am looking at the Midgard.so I’m looking forward on your test results.

 

[J Ottawa]

Dayum bro mono?
I also have the 2DACfs AKM and am looking at the Midgard.so I’m looking forward on your test results.

Well, both very good units. The RME will give you all the settings you want including Crossfeed.
Running through the Midgard, I got more drive, bass and volume! Sometimes it's like TV on Honeymoon: not necessary.
At a high level, that is what I hear through my NDH-30 headphones.
I haven't tried Halo, so that will happen in the New Year sometime once I receive a balanced cable.
Quite honestly, I like both offerings and since I have multiple stereo systems, the Schiit stack will be my office space system.
That said I do plan to evaluate it in my main rig to see how the soundstage compares to the RME.

 

[J Ottawa]

Well, both very good units. The RME will give you all the settings you want including Crossfeed.
Running through the Midgard, I got more drive, bass and volume! Sometimes it's like TV on Honeymoon: not necessary.
At a high level, that is what I hear through my NDH-30 headphones.
I haven't tried Halo, so that will happen in the New Year sometime once I receive a balanced cable.
Quite honestly, I like both offerings and since I have multiple stereo systems, the Schiit stack will be my office space system.
That said I do plan to evaluate it in my main rig to see how the soundstage compares to the RME.

But I would like to try Mjolnir 3 since I'm getting into headphone listening now.

 

[ColdsnapBry]

This guy in the review talks SO MUCH nonsense.

I would take anything this guy says with a lump of charcoal to filter all the crap he spews

Yea, agreed. This guy legit doesn't know what he's talking about. He's just got a lot of gear and says really random things.

 

[OhmsClaw]

In the "no Chi-Fi" category, I just finished doing an additional A-B test between my RME-ADI-2 FS (ESS, made in Germany) and the Modius E + Midgard (Made in the U.S.A.). I also purchased some XLR cables locally made in the Great White North.

Please note the following changes from my first A-B test posted earlier on this thread.

1. RME filter is set to NOS with PEQ high frequency compensation.
2. New XLR cables between the Modius and Midgard: Take Five Audio Mogami 2549 (I like local buying as much as possible for all my gear. "Take Five Audio" are local here in Ottawa, Canada - killer value and they export to the USA. Exchange rates favour American buyers).
3. Please note that perceptively I assume the RME is better than my current Schiit gear because I was an early adopter of RME (Babyface Pro, AKM 4490 ADI) and I love RME. I've been living with the RME for years now and I do not feel like I'm missing much, so I'd be happy to continue with the ADI-2 DAC.
The remote is a good feature.
The cost is more, but you get more features as well as a one box solution.
Alternatively, I like how Schiit stacks up.
4. Test carried out with Newmann NDH-30 headphones. No Halo test, yet! A balanced cable will be ordered in the New Year.

With that out of the way, I listened to music from Alain Toussaint, Yosi Horikawa, along with some Radiohead (The National Anthem) and Anne Sophie-Mutter (The Four Seasons). I've been listening to the Schiit stack for a little over a week now.

I started with the RME, moving to the Modius + Midgard (M&M), back and forth we went.
RME gave me lots of detail and clear lower bass delineation. I discovered this was at the cost of soundstage, both deep and wide, and this after comparing it with M&M.

The Newmann headphones were better at deciphering the sound spectrum and let me peer deeper into the representation of each device; M&M being more bass emphasized but resolved much better with the Neumann headphones.

Bottom line: from a pure musical perspective, I much prefer the M&M stack over the RME.

After this time in the continuum, I am shocked. The soundstage also carries over to my active speakers, the Yamaha HS7s giving me PRAT in my smaller room.

I can warm up the sound with the RME with some PEQ tricks, but one test and subsequent result is telling: the song "Letter" from Yosi Horikawa, at the 4 minute 10 second mark, you can clearly hear the pen scribbling across the paper, panning. * This important detail is missing with the RME (it may be a setting thing, I don't know).
This is not the first time I notice more detailed presentations of the soundstage, both deep and wide with the Modius + Midgard combo.

Which brings me to this intersection: will investing in more expensive Schiit audio equipment further improve my lot, like with a Kara or Freya and Yggdrasil?
Or, is the M&M combo just a magical sweet spot, a value leader both from a pricing and sonic point of view?

Fun times for hi-end affordable gear.

I fired up my RME, it's definitely there.
SLOW PEQ Comp (same EQ settings for roll off from RME's forums we all pre saved for 44.1/48 SLOW/NOS ). Loudness -20 ref, output -15dB. Tidal Exclusive ASIO bridged. B/T 0/0 dB. Amp out 4.4 to 3.5mm and XLR to SA-1 4.4 and Bal for VC below.

Double checked with Verite +6dB bass same settings as above.

Had me we worried for a sec

 

[OhmsClaw]

The halo isn't a balanced signal, its not even internally balanced amp.

DACs does not "outstrip" any amp unless it's faulty it just had to begin with, it's not a digital scenario where you have defined limits to the sound quality just because it's cheaper than the DAC.

the se out can't just flat out suck as the halo is just an se signal via the halo topology which by schiit standards may be a subtle upgrade to the sound, it can't magically introduce sounds not already present in the se output.

I had about 12 bullet points of nonsense he threw in the review, some are technical and some are just showing a very low understanding of sound reproduction, I didn't write them down because I didn't plan to throw shade at this guy, but all he seems to be is an audio enthusiast without a very limited technical and theoretical understanding of the hobby and quite importantly the problem of placebo effect. He puts a linear increase of sound quality to the items price tag

So on and so forth.

Yeah. Him and Valour have wild takes that make you look at the sponsors and foundational knowledge. Shout out to the Topping A90 being S tier and SA-1 D tier. Nevermind that "blind A/B" A90 vs A90d test. Funny thing is Apos sells both.

 

[OhmsClaw]

Thanks!

Agreed with these. He should've done his research on the product thoroughly especially about the Halo having the same power and volume output as the SE.

Skipping to my personal experience with SE against Halo, I agree with him about 50%, but that's because I have tried the Midgard with a lot of headphones that he has used (and from Schiitr) and there are some headphones out there such as the HD650/6XX that has a very noticeable difference in the two outputs while others have negligible difference such as the DCA Aeon 2 Noires. In my experience, the Halo has never been worse sounding than the SE out, but I suspect that the Halo secret sauce is the real-time impedance matching of some headphones with wild impedance swings at certain frequencies and phase error feedback correction as well during the Halo mixed mode feedback circuit which translates to the differences in what we hear. This is pure speculation about the Halo topology and nothing I mention are facts.

That's a big pile of Schiit!

And to your observations on Halo that would make sense with dynamic drivers non-linear impedance curves.

 

[theveterans]

That's a big pile of Schiit!

And to your observations on Halo that would make sense with dynamic drivers non-linear impedance curves.

Wait till you see Gungnir Multibit, Loki Max, Kara and Mjolnir 3 stack. I wonder if the Schiit guy at Schiitr will let me make that happen haha

 

[OhmsClaw]

This is going to be an embarrassing post as I had to redo all my testing with my RME ADI-2 DAC FS (ESS) as I discovered the DAC was set in "mono"! No wonder the soundstage was amiss.
After double checking everything and coming off last night's RME AKM based unit's test, I went through the Schiit vs RME tests again this morning. To further the quest, with one of my test tracks in question (Yosi Horikawa's Letters), I additionally made use of the Crossfeed feature set to 3: this further cleaned up the soundstage image.
This was important as the Midgard is a powerful headlamp and I also used the RME through the Midgard to do more testing.
Using Crossfeed was indeed a night and day difference through a more powerful amplifier.
Putting the Modius back in, everything is perfect and I don't have to change any settings, although I would expect some material could use some tweaking (hypothesis).

Ok, so my bad. I apologize but the journey has been worth it for me. I'll double check everything going forward (I don't know how I missed it, the Mono setting).

I've got two great units here. One with many options (the RME, they got you covered) and one with a powerful headlamp (Schiit); and that Modius (E) dac, still.very.good.com on it's own with little to fiddle with. Magic both ways.

And I discovered the "Crossfeed" feature and found it very useful with my test track. Again, Thank you "ThEvil0nE", with your help, I figured it out.

Cross feed follow on. I prefer 3 as a "bass enhanced Jan Meier". But would say, start with width at full stereo separation when comparing! Cross feed on a center image is a little wonky (unpleasant). #2 is an emulation of the OG DIY analog discrete crossfeed circuit.

1: 650 Hz, -13.5 dB (just a touch)
2: 650 Hz, -9.5 dB (Jan Meier emulation)
3: 700 Hz, -6 dB (Chu Moy emulation)
4: 700 Hz, -4.5 dB (30° 3 meter emulation)
5: 700 Hz, -3 dB (example how even stronger would sound)