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Comment by sondr3 | Hacker News Reader

Did you upgrade straight to the Bifrost/Asgard or did you have something like the Vali/Modi before or? I currently have those, but I'm looking at upgrades some time in the future.

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I can't speak for cnkeller, but I first got a Modi and Magni. The Modi was good enough, but the Magni wasn't. The problems with the Magni were that it wasn't grounded and its volume pot sucked. The lack of grounding made it very susceptible to interference and crappy volume pot made fine adjustments in volume impossible. I replaced it with an Asgard 2 and have been satisfied ever since.

I suspect that the newer cheap amps such as the Vali and Magni 2 have fixed these issues.

It's pretty sad IMO when anyone selling a >$100 amp cheaps out on the volume pot, since it's a really obvious thing to upgrade, and Alps Blue Velvet pots are used in almost every hobbyist design. I would further question where else they tried to save money. This is a big part of why I like open-design amps / hobbyist / community-designed amps / kits.

Note: the Magni is a $99 amp.

Good question. I went to the Bifront/Asgard setup directly without prior Schiit experience (though I did have Sennheiser experience). My previous setup was constructed for a different environment, e.g, speakers and a Denon with a built in DAC/amp.

I can absolutely tell the details in certain albums using the new setup. Hearing the difference between FLAC/ALE and something encoded at 320bps or higher is really dependent on the material though.

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