Some of my headphones have balanced cabling so some of the otherwise good suggestions don’t let me take full advantage of the ‘phones. If I stay in the world of Schiit, that leaves me with the Gumby as DAC and the Mjolnir 2 with LISST (solid state) ‘tubes’. The Mjolnir that way would still be warm but hopefully not too warm for the night table. That, of course, should be a killer setup.
In looking at the Schiit website, I also just noticed the Jotunheim which is a fully balanced solid state headphone amp that as an option can have a balanced DAC card (unfortunately, no multibit option)(of course, with the Gumby I wouldn’t really need the DAC unless I got it to have a spare DAC for an additional $100). Since the website doesn’t mention Class A, I’m thinking heat from it is not a big deal. Of course, if it doesn’t sound good then solving the heat problem doesn’t really help me.
Any experience out there with the Jotunheim (with or without the DAC card or the Mjolnir 2 (with LISST)?
[BTW: The Bryston BHA-1 is not in the hunt for the amp part of the combo because it is too big. The Gumby footprint is the absolute biggest I can make fit where I need this to go.]
Thanks for your thoughts
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Office/Music Room
Dynaudio Heritage Special. Uptone Audio EtherRegen Ethernet Switch. Akasa NUC 10i7 with Roon Rock. Bryston BDP-3 Digital Music Player (with 4 Tb Internal SSD and Synology DS920+ NAS)-->Holo Audio May Kitsune Edition DAC-->Shunyata Sigma USB—>Gryphon Diablo 120 Integreted Amp w Transpatent XL PC. Oppo BDP-105D and BDP-203. Power: Shunyata Hydra Sigma S12 PD. Additional Cabling: WW Silver Electra PC, WW Electra PC, Shunyata Venom 3 PC. Digital: WW Starlight Ethernet, WW Gold Starlight AES-EBU, WW Platinum Starlight USB. IC and Speaker: WW Eclipse 8.
Bedroom System
Ipad with MusicStreamer App-->Schiit Jotunheim DAC/Amp—>Audeze LCD-XC, Focal for Bentley Radiance HO, Massdrop E-MU Teak HP. AK SE 200 DAP.
Mobile Survival Kit
Astell & Kern SP1000M. Noble Kaiser Encore IEM with Double Helix Balanced cable, Westone W80 IEM w ALOaudio Ref 8 cable, Westone W60 IEM, Shure se535 Ltd with Westone Bluetooth Wireless cable-amp. Mark Levinson No. 5909 Wireless HP.
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