Glenn, will be interested in your conclusions. Saga -plus Vidar should be good! Reviewers have made various comments about that combo vs. Freya plus 2 Vidar's (balanced), but that 's a bit of extra coin for that bump up. Then again, with Schiit it won't "break the bank" to give it a whirl.
The Schiit folks says that Saga actually measures a touch better than does Freya (for whatever that is worth). I've used some killer pre-amps and I have to say that Freya is quite satisfying even with having owned some of the TOTL high $$$ pre-amps. Not sure how it would stack up side by side, but .... using Freya - I'm not feeling like I'm missing out on anything significant. I does run hot though! Careful where you touch it! And there is no channel balance control either (not missed it, but its not there). Oh, and being able to switch remotely between passive, JFET buffer and Active Tube stages - leads to some audio nervosa! I think I finally have it figured out though. I don't use the passive stage (good but not as good as the others), I use the JFET buffer for most recordings and the tube stage for recordings that lack a bit of "body" or have a "strident" character to them.
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