Yes. In one thread I’m asking for a comparison of the BHK and LTA MicroZOTL pre and in the next one I’m asking about paring the M1200 with a Schiit Freya+. I’ve had a pair of M1200 for a couple of weeks. I’m not hearing much difference between them and my Ragnarok 2. But my room needs help and I’m feeding the M1200 with the Raggy preout. All said I may not be giving the M1200 much opportunity to shine. I have to decide if I send the M1200 back or keep them and pair them with a pre that fits the budget (Freya+) and that I happen to be a bit obsessed with. Eventually I’d consider changing up to the BHK or something like the LTA MZ.
So the other thread considers an eventual M1200, BKH pre paring or pairing the LTA MZ with a Schiit Aegir to start.
Once you have a preamp with tubes in your system, you will most likely find a path that is right for you, whether that results in you leaning toward more tubes or completely away from tubes, or somewhere in between.
I have a pair of M1200’s, and feed them with a different preamp (solid state versus tube versus tube hybrid) based on the speakers that are connected, until I change my mind again, lol. One thing’s for certain, I plan on keeping the M1200’s for quite some time. They are magical with both the Sonist Audio speakers and the Infinity Modulus, and I know that with them, I can choose just about any speaker in the future to go with them.
I can’t answer your specific questions about combining the Freya+ with the M1200s, as I just ordered my M1200s today and the Freya+ is in my office system, while the M1200s are for my home.
I can tell you that the Freya+ works great with my two Aegir amps. It is extremely responsive to tube rolling, as well as to power cords and interconnects. In other words: it’s highly adaptable and quite capable. Is it up to the BHK preamp? Not likely, but it’s certainly not bad and a really fun place to be, whether it’s for the short term or the long term.
Thanks much!
One needs to practice great patience before realizing the potential of the M1200 amplifiers. I’ve never owned amplification that takes SO long to reach its final stabile sound signature and I’ve owned many amps during my 50 years of audio obsessions. Although most of the changes happened in the first couple of months, it probably took four or five months of daily use before mine settled down and stabilized into their final sound. They are very revealing amplifiers and probably aren’t ideal to partner with equipment that isn’t on their same level of finesse. I find them to be ruthlessly revealing of any deficiencies in source, preamp, and cabling.
I also found M1200 to be very revealing, and I could hear SQ changes with different cables and tubes easily. Thank goodness they do not have fuses in them. They paired particularly well with BHK pre in my system. With the right cables and tubes this combination beats my previous combo that costs many times more.
Many thanks for this. The amps only have 100 ish hours on them. In using the Raggy preout my assumption was the Ragnarok and M1200 would share the same input so an output comparison would be valid. Maybe that is a poor assumption.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I didn’t know fuses were a thing of concern till reading of $300 fuses being a worthy upgrade. I sincerely hope that my ears are not that good.