There are many reasons a company may develop a so called ‘loss leader’ (although most will cover their cash cost + at a minimum).

Market share aka penetration and broadening a customer base that will hopefully jump to your more profitable products.

To cover costs of underutilized assets (people and machines/buildings)

As a predatory act against the competition who you believe may not have the same low cost position you have... (a potentially illegal action)

Back to original question........... have ordered the Valhalla 2 in black. I'll use it for my preamp as well as headphone amp until a final decision is made on which full-blown preamp to go with. At that point the Valhalla 2 will be relegated to headphone duty.

4/3 update - Valhalla 2 has arrived and is in the system breaking in with the Senn HD650. Am quite pleased with the fit & finish of the Valhalla 2. Especially for the $349. First 2-days were pretty "blah", sonically. Also, no fan of the turn-on first/turn-off last feature to keep the "thumps" out of my speakers. But, what do you want for the money? High quality and excellent sound is all I ask. ;)

4/6 update - Well into the 3rd day the Valhalla 2 has really come into its own. Sounds good enough that will begin some tube-rolling. GL 6922s are up first.

And, now that the Valhalla 2 has proved itself worthy of keeping, need more inputs. As the Manley Mahi amps have a quite high input sensitivity at 175mv, could use a passive switch-box, like the very nice Goldpoint SW4. However, for slightly less $$ than the Goldpoint the Schiit Saga with remote control offers either a passive mode or a tube-buffer with stepped volume control. A big plus is the Saga's 30sec turn-on delay that gets rid of the turn-on 'thump' from the Valhalla 2. A no-brainer to give the Saga a try.

Should have the Saga in a few days. Like the fact it has such low gain. Should work well with the high input sensitivity of the Manley Mahi amps.

The Freya is a "solid", passive/solid-state/tube, pre-amp...and as another reported, offers fully balanced circuitry...AND, should one wish to output a fully balanced signal from a single-ended source, in the "tube" mode, one can even do that. In addition, should one prefer solid state function, the higher gain, AND not have to worry about chasing down increasingly hard to to find NOS tubes, Schiit Audio now provides solid-state "tubes" to fit in the tube sockets...and all for less than a grand, (should the relatively low price not be of concern...)

Schiit must be selling everything they can make. Won't have the Saga until Monday. But, the Valhalla 2 has really come into its own and am very pleased with the sound. Think it is fairly sensitive to IC selection as a switch from Synergistic Research to WW made a big improvement in SQ. As for NOS tubes, I've got at least 20 NOS 6SN7 of various ilk as it is one of my favorite preamp tubes, along with the 6922. Looking forward getting the Saga broken-in so can start some tube-rolling.

New guy here. I just did the click buy thing and went all-in with a bunch of Schiit. 2xVidar, Freya +, YGGDRASIL and the Mani Phono Pre (I don't even have the turntable yet). Needless to say I'm very excited. It's been years since I sold all of my Phase Linear (Bob Carver stuff) gear and had a REAL audio system. All thanks to a friend of mine who pointed me to the real Schiit.

barkingspud... welcome to AudioAficionado!


:welcome2.:

Thank you!

barkingspud... Welcome to AA! :wave:

Thank you!

Welcome! Congrats on all the new gear! Plug your Yggdrasil in and let it run for awhile. It works best when left on all the time.
Tom