Always exciting when the people on this forum who start with budget gear and talk themselves further and further into the wormhole of kilobuck headphones and headphone amps then get offended by gear that is “expensive to them”. I say this as someone who will never own one of these, unless something unforseen occurs. I just remove the offense. Do you know what else is out there in the audio realm??
**Software EQ is sometimes as cheap as free.**
Yep, it is. It also requires a computer, phone, tablet, whathaveyou to run, and the UI is usually not exactly what you’d call friendly and intuitive. Loki Max isn’t meant to replace surgical software EQ; it’s designed to be a fingertip way to tweak substandard recordings, compensate for not-100%-perfect systems and rooms, or dial in the sound to your individual preference. You could technically use both software EQ and Loki Max, or Loki Max alone, or no EQ at all, depending on what you like.
**Seems like this is real similar to Lokius, but a lot more expensive.**
Lokius’ bands are similar (by design), but Lokius doesn’t have 4 crazy nickel-core chokes, 72 relays, 6 motorized pots (to match the relay settings—they’re not in the signal path), Nexus™ topology, or microprocessor control. When you scale up to big crazy, big crazy price is the result. It’s also physically larger, so it matches the size of components like Freya, Gungnir, and Urd.
**Ahem. Allow me to butt in. I don’t consider this to be a big crazy price. I find it quite pedestrian. In fact, my total system cost is—**
Yeah, let me stop you right there. We’re sorry you have been abused by the musical-industrial complex in the past, but this is a big crazy price. You could buy a really good laptop for this price, something you could use to launch a business, explore entrepreneurship, and set yourself up nicely.
They already make the lokius for around 300 for those that don’t see the price as justifiable, basically same features sans remote, but the loki max seems more geared at sound quality than the lokuis or loki mini+. You can pretty easily see why the loki max is so expensive by looking inside, but in the end the sound is what will justify the price. So if it sounds the part I don’t see a problem.
The mass majority of cheap hardware eq sound not great imo (and you’d be better off using a nice software eq imo), would be nice to see if the loki max can somewhat break that (and yes sub 1k is considered cheap, a quality mastering stereo eq is expensive), the loki max could be a pretty cool offering depending on how it ends up sounding in the end for a simple option that actually sounds good, but who knows until people start getting them in
Same idea of looking at the yggy when the bifrost 2 has basically all the same features, it’s all in the sound that justifies the extra cost
I could see someone using this at a desk setup if they went high enough (since most of the higher end amps and dacs are larger than the max anyways lol), although with the remote it is aimed at 2ch for sure
Don’t we already have a few threads like this? This discussion really isn’t over the whole “to eq or not to eq” side of things, rather just discussing the reasoning behind and market positioning of the loki max (so I feel like it would be better served with an official thread on it which I’ll make right now)
Moved to dedicated thread
Power to ‘em for putting the $$ in the circuit design. It’s gotta be really hard to describe to people why that pic makes this $1500. Especially since I don’t see many systems with EQs these days, at least around here.
(Though I do feel like I’ve have seen a rise in single driver speakers, so I imagine these lokii are really well timed releases)
Meh. For high end folks it might be a thing. It looks very nice. And while I like the idea of it as it seems to offer greater function and precision over the Loki (to be determined by the review squad in the very near future I hope), they completely leapfrogged the mid-fi folks, which is kind of a shame. I think I can turn my own damned knobs, thank you very much! Just more schiit to break. Oh well. We’ll see how many get sold. How many of you are lined up credit cards in hand? LOL…
That is one problem I can actually see.
Equipment like the Drawmer 1974 (which has more options) or the elysia xfilter exist in the same price bracket. After import tax, the Tegeler Audio Manufaktur EQP-1 (dual mono EQ) is also an option.
That stuff all looks Very studio though. Maybe that is also Schiits target?
It is certainly way beyond someone like me that always wants to add a touch of bass and sometimes tame some treble.
Think more it’s for the kind of crowd that uses something like a Freya as a preamp and likes the uniform stack esthetic and otherwise a better deal than a power cable for a grad imo
I would pick it up just to try, but I already have better hardware EQ on hand (probably), and also I don’t really use EQ for playback in my setups anyways, so can’t really justify it myself
Exactly. Seems like the hardcore audiophile types are kind of against EQ’ing in the first place. And those that aren’t are probably going to use something better than this. I think it’s going to find challenges in that regard. Don’t get me wrong at all, it certainly appears to be a nice piece and may compete nicely. I hope it does. It certainly doesn’t align with my system profile, however. The Lokius might do better for me, but that unit is getting somewhat mixed reviews as far as I can tell.
Again, we’ll see how she goes. It would enhance that upper tier Schiit stack for sure. Cost aside, Like you, it’s not an option for me, either.
That’s true, those after something more tone control esque might be using flavor eq like pultec eqp-1a/mercury eq-1/all the other pultec clones, chandler tg12345, manley massive, etc, or something more neutral and accurate with more bands like a gml 8200, spl pq, weiss eq1, crane song ibis, maselec mea 2, etc. That being said most of these are much less simple and plug and play, might not look the part for some, or more investment than someone would want to make in an eq, so I still see some going for a loki max, but it is in a slightly weirder spot. Already have an 8200, chandler, and a pair of pultec so I’m pretty set with hardware eq for my needs (absolutely love those pultec, work on anything and basically a “make this better” box most of the time, better spatialitiy, richer tonal density, more natural, more dynamic, just adds a lot of character and life. It also works as an eq as well lol)
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