INTRODUCTION
Itâs been a wild few weeks for me with sound gear. After lots of encouragement and positive feedback from this forum I reached out to a few audio companies and asked to review stuff for them. Schiit was one such company and graciously agreed to send me a Magnius for review. The only condition they asked for was to read this review first to do a âtech fact-check.â I agreed, as I also want to be sure I get my Schiit straight. [A Schiit rep read this review before posting and did not ask for any changes or edits.] Also, I donât plan to spend too much time on the tech aspect of it because really what weâre after here is the sound, isnât it?
The TL;DR version of this review is that the Magnius is an outstanding value in this measurement-focused, sorta-budget-kinda-low-cost category of headphone amps. I havenât heard all of this type of amp yet, but Iâve heard a good number. To my ear the Magnius is 1) the best sounding example of its type of amplifier so far and yet 2) it still doesnât quite reach the standard that Schiit themselves have set for how good a $200 headphone amp should be.
I must declare a bias I had going into this review. I owned the THX-based SMSL SP200 for several months and while I was initially impressed I rather quickly became aware of its shortcomings. Namely, it had harsh, brittle treble, mediocre spatial re-creation, and was bettered by the far less expensive JDS Labs Atom amp on timbre. Since multiple sources described the SP200 as nearly sonically indistinguishable from other THX amps I have developed a bias against THX amps and other amps that take the same measurement-focused design approach. Itâs my current position that up to about $150 the measurement-focused amps sound great and are price appropriate, but the SP200 just didnât offer much of value beyond what those entry-level units already offered. So, when Schiit dropped the Magnius at $200 while making claims they were getting into the measurement game I was equal parts intrigued and skeptical. With that declared, letâs dive into the detailsâŚ
ABOUT THE MAGNIUS
As I said, Iâm not going to get deep into the tech, so you get this one paragraph on design. Iâll stick close to what Schiitâs website has to say about the Magnius. Itâs a fully balanced headphone amp rated to deliver 5 watts of power from its balanced output at 32 ohms. That makes it more powerful than most THX amps out there. On Schiitâs description page, they describe the Magnius thusly: âMagnius uses a handful of very high-end integrated circuits, including buffers with feedforward, exotic fully differential op-amps, and powerful current-feedback outputs in a composite configuration to reduce THD and noise to vanishingly low levels.â I read that as Schiit saying they have combined elements of the feedforward topologies found in THX and similar amps with more traditional solid-state designs. Schiit clearly plants their flag with the very next two sentences on their description page, though: âIf youâre looking for measurements, Magnius is our best-measuring amp. And it out-measures a whole lot of other gear out there, at much higher prices.â [emphasis mine] Clearly Schiit wants in on the what is obviously the hopping market right now of relatively low-cost, measurement-focused headphone amps. So, since thatâs the measuring stick they want, Iâll compare the Magnius to several such amps later on in this review, as well as Schiitâs own Asgard 3.
The Magnius includes a single-ended RCA input, a balanced XLR input, and both single-ended RCA and balanced XLR pre-outs on its back panel. The main power switch is also in the rearâŚa uniquely Schiit-y feature that at some point needs to go away, but is what it is for now. The front panel has both SE and balanced XLR headphone outputs, a gain selector button (2 levels, high and low), an input selector switch (RCA and XLR), and the volume knob which is connected to an Alps potentiometer. The build is rather solid. The construction is a fairly light but solid aluminum chassis and the power supply is an external power brick, which brings the unitâs weight down a fair amount. The power brick itself is integrated into the plug. I get that this power supply is cheap and helps the amp reach a price point, but there are also cheap power supplies that donât integrate the big brick part into the plug. Thatâs a big, bulky thing to plug into a power strip and I wish Schiit had used a cheap power supply that had the power brick mid-cord. Some will argue with me on this, but that kind of arrangement is more friendly to my setup. Back to the amp itselfâŚthereâs a red LED inside the chassis that can also create a cool light pattern as the light filters through the ventilation holes in the top of the chassis. But thatâs about it as far as build and features. Itâs a pretty simple unit in that itâs a really no-frills design that is meant to take a music waveform in and make it come out taller. So on with theâŚ
SOUND
The bulk of my time with this review was listening through Magniusâs balanced input and balanced headphone output. I checked performance using the single-ended input and found that it really did not differ noticeably from the XLR input, but the unbalanced headphone output is definitely not up to the performance level of the XLR headphone output. If you buy this amp, make sure that itâs to use the balanced headphone output. The thoughts that follow will therefore be based on my listening from the balanced output.
Remember the bias I declared in the first section? The Magnius almost made me eat crowâŚalmost. The Magnius has that same ultra-clean sonic presentation of the amps itâs trying to compete with and that cleanliness makes a great first impression. I also quickly noticed the treble was not as sharp as I remember the SP200âs being and the spatial presentation â soundstage and imaging â were better than I expected as well. The overall signature is quite neutral, and thereâs a good overall mix of smoothness and detail. The bass was extended and controlled and the mids were smooth with reasonably natural timbre. The overall sonic presentation reminded me of what I hear from the Asgard 3. Thatâs a good thing. For my money the Asgard 3 is the sonic benchmark at $200, and honestly probably is still the sonic benchmark up to $300 or maybe even $350. That puts the Magnius in pretty good company. To my ear there was really nothing noticeably wrong with the sound. So why the âalmostâ?
The âalmostâ comes from the fact that the Asgard 3 just gives you a little bit more; a little bit more detail, a little bit more soundstage width, a little bit tighter imaging, a little bit more instrument and vocal separation, a little bit more natural timbre. The A3 doesnât have that immediate âwoah, thatâs clean!â impression that the Magnius offers. It takes some time â a couple dozen hours for me â to âhear pastâ the shiny object that is Magniuâs sonic cleanliness. That is not to say the A3 sounds dirty or noisy â it most certainly does not! â just that the Magnius has such a black sonic background that itâs attention-grabbing in its own way and makes a first impression that lingers. It was biodynamic-driver headphones (a level 3 Lawton modded TH-X00 and a ZMF Eikon) where the differences between the Asgard and Magnius started to reveal themselves. Then, slowly, planar-magnetic driver headphones started showing the same thing (HiFiMan Edition X V2, Audeze LCD-2 and LCD-3 both prefazor). Finally, even with classic dynamic-driver headphones in the same price class as the Magnius and Asgard (Beyerdynamic DT-880 600 ohm balanced modded, Massdrop + Sennheiser HD6XX) those same differences started to come out. The Asgard just wrings out slightly more from every headphone I tried. These differences were hard to parse out initially but once I did the Asgardâs improvement in individual technicalities summed up to a more natural and involving listening experience. The Asgardâs sound just drew me in more quickly and left me wanting to stick around longer. That does not mean the Magnius is not engaging or enjoyable â there were several hours-long listening sessions I really enjoyed with â just not as much as I do with Asgard.
COMPARISON WITH OTHER AMPS
I already compared the Magnius to the Asgard 3 above. I also mentioned some of my long-term-memory recollections of how Magnius compares to the SP200; the Magnius was much closer to the A3âs performance than the SP200âs. Yes, that should be taken with a grain of salt because of the time between, but I was on the lookout for the flaws I remembered from the SP200 in the Magniusâs sound and I didnât find them. I am also currently reviewing (now finished!) the Topping L30 and the Geshelli Labs Archel 2 GMR. Both of those amps have a similar âwow thatâs cleanâ initial presentation like the Magnius does. The L30 has a much smoother sound than either of the other two. The Archel 2 GMR sounds a hair more treble-forward than Magnius, though not by much. The Magnius sounds wider, has more coherent and even soundstage than either of the other two, and is more detailed with slightly more natural timbre than either of the others. Magnius also had a bit more slam and control in the low-end than either L30 or GMR. These differences were not large but they were easier for me to parse out than the differences between the Asgard and the Magnius. At $200 the Magnius, to my ear, sounds appropriately superior to the L30 and GMR at $130 and $150, respectively.
SIGNAL CHAINS
I tried the Magnius with the balanced outputs of each of the iFi Zen Dac, SMSL SU-8, Schiit Modius, and Schiit Bifrost 2, and from the single-ended output of the Topping D10. Unsurprisingly it was most at home with the Schiit DACs, but they have a competitive advantage here. The best combo was Bifrost 2 + Magnius, which again isnât surprising since the BF2 is 2.5x the price of any of the others. Combined with the Modius â letâs call it the Schiitius stack because thatâs funny â the Magnius still sounds excellent. When Schiit claims on their website that the Schiitius stack could be an âendgameâ stack for measurement-focused listeners, they may not be joking. Itâs a solid combo for the price thatâs only sonically bettered if you swap out the Magnius for the Asgard 3, IMO.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I must congratulate Schiit for what theyâve accomplished with the Magnius. Going into this review I thought the Magnius would be more-or-less a balanced version of the same sound obtained from the <$150 measurement-champ-amps floating around out there in abundance now. In actuality, itâs closer to the livelier, more natural, more engaging sound of the Schiitâs own Asgard 3 amp, but also notâŚquiteâŚthere. The Asgard 3 remains the best sounding amp, to my ear and that Iâve heard so far, up to at least $300. Yet, the Magnius impressed me enough to give me hope that amps of this type will eventually catch up to the Asgard and come down even more in price. We all win when that eventually happens. I recommend the Magnius for users whoâs primary goal is to get that black sonic background in their sound. Right now I donât know of a better price/performance option on the market. You should also consider the Magnius if you have a bad ground loop problem in your system and can match it with a balanced DAC and are on a budget.
I hope Schiit lets me hang onto the Magnius a little longer. I hope to get the Topping A90 in here someday soon and it would be an awesome comparison point. What do you say, Schiit?
[They said YES!]
Iâm still working on an iFi Zen CAN review. Then, I will post a round-up post of <$200 amps. Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading, all. Enjoy the music! 