Itās just what happens when you go for a fully differential design, your single ended has to suffer, itās not uncommon on other fully balanced amps, otherwise you also have to design a whole nother single ended amp inside the amp to get good single ended performance which doesnāt make sense from a cost perspective
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And as you saidā¦ donāt need fully differential to prevent ground loops.
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I wonder how it compares to the Jotunheim?
Clarification, they seem to have largely the same power output but the Magnius has a couple years of development on it at the very least and Iām wondering if the cost drop from Jot to Mag is a product of years of R&D bringing down the cost
also interested in sound signature differences
Sorry misread what you meant, yeah I agree
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Regarding balanced, thereās also just a coolness factor to it for people just jumping into hi-fi. I was (arguably still am) that person a few months ago, and if you havenāt had experience with SE vs balanced, itās easy to overstate or overthink the difference.
A lot of it is aesthetic really. Itās just cool to use the big chunky XLR plug and calling your setup ābalanced.ā I mean, just from a linguistic perspective, being balanced sounds WAY better than being unbalanced, right?
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Decided to look at the PCB a bit (if someone could find/take some straight down shots of the PCBā¦)
Is an interesting happening arround those two Op-Amps (LME49724 and OPA 1688 if anyone is interested).
As far as I can tell, the single ended is in paralel with the R+ (or L+) of the balanced.
Buying more than 1000 TI TPA6120A2 (the main amplfier stage in this, as in the RNHP, Topping A90, SMSL sAp-1, etc.) brings the price down to $2.00 per piece, making it cheaper than the LDOs in the power supply of the device 
Good deal or bad deal? lol
To me, good deal.
A lot of hifi-gear makers push the power conditioning to the user. Which IMHO is a garbage practice.
To Schiits partial credit, they have a diode (electronic check valve) in place to protect the device from incorrect polarity barrel plugs. And some capacitors.
Again lacking proper chokesā¦
Edit: Apparantly the Magnius has an AC input, so that āDiodeā may be 4 Diodes in shape of a bridge rectifier.
I donāt expect the power supply to deal with 24V DC to 400V 3 phase, but come on! Some input filtering (common mode choke, Class Y filter Caps, etc.) are neither too big nor too expensive to fit into a >100ā¬ device.
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Reading this new thread reminds me to thank all the knowledgeable people who contribute here, and are so helpful to we who have been helped. THANKS!!! 
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This is an amp that was made to match the Modius in looks and provide a balanced partner. If you wnat stellar SE perf and are into specs for $99 cheaper get the Hersey for SEā¦BOOM.
The power out for balanced is indeed more for the balanced sideā¦but at 32 ohms the SE is a āmeaslyā 2 watts RMS compared to 5 watts RMS for the balanced sideā¦
WTF overā¦how many cans need a full 2 watts RMS pf power??
To me the SE option is not as ābadā as some stateā¦
This is a world class amp for $199 with full balanced and a āslightlyā gimped SE side it you can call it that.
2 watts RMS is not gimped IMOā¦
Alex
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how do you think the magnius will mess with the DROP THX amps
Honestly if this thing performs like a balanced RNHP (same chip as mentioned) it might be a GS X Mini killerā¦
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Letās not get unreasonable here lol
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Heyā¦for the specs its really closeā¦
So you dont have 15 pounds of billet aluminum in a caseā¦hmmm.
And it doesnt cost $2000 + etcā¦
Understand what your sayingā¦but look at the specs and compare, and do the blind testingā¦
Would guess many would be really surprised!!
lol
Alex
I mean for a world class amp it should sound world class, not only look the part on paper
I havenāt been surprised yet then lol, although honestly I canāt say that I have really heard anything world class outside of a few things (that are unreasonable to own lol)
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Understandā¦ you have to define what world class is in some objective terms?? Many of these touted āworld classā amps often state their specs or other glittering adjectives etcā¦
So here is a $199 amp touting some really great specsā¦but I do agree its all in the listeningā¦
I will report back next week after some of thatā¦
the best!
Alex
You mean like the Topping A90?
That has 4 TPA6120A2ās in there.
Moar chips = moar better, right?
Specs are meh, Spec Sheets are better, assuming one knows how to read them 
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Canāt say that was the case unfortunately lol
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I would say, that Schiit has been knocking it out of the park consistently since the Asgard 3/Bifrost 2. Iām going to be very interested what people think about this amp.
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Oh yeahā¦didnt want to confuse folksā¦bedside reading 1953 RCA Tube Manual !! or Bob Cordells amplifier design bookā¦
