Soo, is the magnius worth the 100 dollars more in the long run if i was using headphones around the 500 dollar price range primarily? would love to hear yall’ thoughts cause i honestly have no idea about what headphones are how hard to drive…
I personally wouldn’t say so, the magnius really wasn’t something that sounded all that good imo, I’d actually rather have a modi 3+ over a magnius (although it was better than the magni heresy). I think personally the asgard 3 is a much larger step over the magni and magnius and more appropriate for that range of headphones if you wanted to go with schiit at a similar price. That being said, what headphones are you looking at, and what general signature are you after and what sonic aspects do you want to prioritize?
Thanks for the advice!
The sort of profile im looking forward to is not a very technical, but rather warm one, like the argon mk3, nighthawks, trx00, aeon open x, etc, which would actually mean a rather neutral or more technical amp would enhance the details while the warmth is also there (im new to amps so i could be absolutely wrong), in the long run, im also planning to get the lcd 2c, the best suiting for the sound profile i just described ive ever heard, i love those things tbh. so i was looking for starter amps and dac combo like the magni and modi to first drive my argons or 6xx depending on which ill get. even considering trying a tube amp at some point. But im more liking the argons from what ive heard about them.
P.S if i were to buy the asgard would the modius or modi even work with it?. or really any dac, because ive not seen anybody ever use two different amp and dac other than the actual suitable pairs.
Gotcha, in that case, honestly while the asgard 3 is still warmer leaning, it shouldn’t be overpoweringly warm and is still pretty technical, I think it would keep that warmer leaning signature of the headphones without disrupting. It would also give you plenty of both power and quality for the cans you are looking to drive. That amp generally is a fair bit more spacious, revealing of lower level detail, and more organic sounding than the magnius, and I think that meshes well with the headphones you look to use
Gotcha, that should be a great match with the asgard imo
That’s worthwhile later on, although for this first amp purchase I’d get something solid state since a lot of the tube amps around 300 bucks won’t play nicely with things like the argons, x00, hawks, aeon open, and audeze (mainly only the 6xx basically in terms of what you are looking to pair with them)
They will work just fine, although I actually might caution against the modius with the asgard because the modius is actually fairly relaxed, and I think that might be too relaxed in combination with the asgard. Personally around the same price point of the modius I would prefer either an allo revolution dac with their basic power supply for something more overall neutral and refined (and fairly tweakable as well), or a geshelli jnog 2 for something also reasonably neutral but a bit more forward. Otherwise the basic modi 3+/3e will do the job just fine for the time being (it’s actually more neutral than the modius although a bit less technically proficient)
Actually you could always get an asgard with the built in dac module (with the regular one it’s basically a modi built into the chassis), although I think separating things out is better for upgradability and more flexibility in the future
got it. thanks that was really helpful.
do you perhaps know if i can use my already existing btr5k as a dac for the time beeing?
just a random question. im most likely gonna buy a modius anyways but im curious if that’d work
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Yes you can do that, it won’t be ideal, but you can just use it as a usb dac, and grab a 3.5mm to rca cable to plug into the asgard. I would adjust the volume on the btr5 to be almost max but not quite max to try and get a line level ish signal from it but you will have to play around with that to avoid distortion
Thanks!
Do you perhaps know if sound wise theres any difference in single end or balanced? Because the asgard is unbalanced 3.5 and everybody keeps reccomending the balanced version if the argons…
Was just wondering if it was just because getting more power is easier on balanced or if theres actually a difference
So to be honest unbalanced vs balanced doesn’t really matter for power, single ended amps can make just as much as if not more power than some balanced amps, it all depends on the design. Balanced is a design choice that isn’t inherently better than single ended, and again vice versa. If you do get a balanced amp you will need to use it balanced for max performance, but if you get a single ended amp you only need single ended for max performance. So it’s something where I would personally ignore if something is balanced vs unbalanced and instead look at individual amps at hand. There are very powerful single ended amps, and very powerful balanced amps, it just depends on the design, and I wouldn’t stress over needing balanced. It’s more important that an amp actually sounds good rather than being balanced, and if you are concerned with power output you will be able to find both single ended and balanced amps to give you plenty of juice
Also, if you felt the absolute need to have a balanced amp, I personally think the balanced amps only start getting good around 500 bucks, things like a monolith liquid platinum, cayin iha-6, flux fa-12, etc (mentioning these because I think they would pair very well with the cans you are going for, along with being balanced), so you would really want to move up to that price point to get a proper fully balanced amp. But then again there are also great options at that price range which aren’t balanced as well. Really just does all come down to the specific amp at hand. Just view balanced as something you only have to mess with if the amp you picked prefers to output in balanced, otherwise you don’t have to worry about it and aren’t missing out with a similar tier single ended amp (assuming it’s properly matched for your headphone)
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i use lyr3 for my argons. its single ended and has around 5watts/channel at the argons impedance. i like the combo personally.
edit: i also don’t think they can get much better spending more then the 500 the lyr3 costs. i really feel like it opens them up as much as they are going to be. i have not heard them on more expensive, so i can’t be 100% sure. but it feels like the amp pushes them to their limits to me.
I’d agree the argons really aren’t worth spending more than some of the aforementioned on amp wise, I’d really just get better headphones at that point, there’s only so far you can take a t50 no matter the mods
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the thing i love about it, or, expect to love about them is just the fun characteristic, as i dont listen to many songs with vocals, or voices at all
so the extra bass and warmth of the argons really stick out to me and other stuff that could represent such a fitting match for me lay way higher up in the price point like my absolute favourite ldc 2cs or the aeon open x
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