Thank you. Ballsy, maybe.
Years ago I owned and upgraded the original Bifrost an then did the stupid thing of selling it to help pay off the Oppo 105D that I purchased at the time. Huge mistake as that stupid Oppo was a constant PITA with it always crashing whether stream Tidal or attempting to play a Blu Ray disc. All it did was crash. Not to mention the darn thing wouldn’t even do seamless streaming.
So knowing how good that Bifrost was, I knew that their little Mani phono pre was probably going to be excellent as well for the money… And it IS. So with batting a home run with both the original Bifrost and the Mani, I knew from experience and reading actual owner reviews of both the Freya + and whether to go with a single or dual Aegir amps that I would be totally safe.
Schiit has not let me down! This is some good Schiit!
I wanted the original Freya because I wanted to get back into tubes and the fact that it has 3 different ways of running (passive, JFet or tube), but I didn’t get it only because of the fact that when in either passive or JFet mode, the tubes were still sitting there cooking away, just burning away the hours. And I leave my system up and running 24/7, so that was a no-go for me.
After learning about the updated Freya + and the fact that the tubes do in fact turn all the way off, I wanted to make the move. And then when I bought my Klipsch’s and read about the Class A Aegir amps, that really got me going again on my Schiit binge. (that sounds nasty)…
And to be honest, the only reason I went with two Aegir amps is not for the extra power, but because the only way to run a balanced connection to them is to run them bridged mono.
Did I make the right choice and was it a move up? Most definitely!
I don’t mean to bash PS Audio or the Stellar stack (and I’m not), but that stack doesn’t stand a chance against my current Schiit stack. No way, no how.
Everything has remained the same in this system other than the preamp and amps. With the Stellar GCD, I had my Bluesound Node 2 connected both via digital coax and analog so I could switch back and forth between the GCD’s DAC and the Node 2’s DAC. Obviously, with the Freya +, I can only connect the Node 2 via analog, and this setup is blowing away the Stellar stack, even including the GCD’s built-in DAC.
I honestly wasn’t expecting that big of a difference between both stacks, mainly just a sideways move more than anything else, but with the option of getting a little lower gain and the ability to play around with tube rolling again.
I won’t go into a full review, but with barely 24 hours on the system so far, and around 18 hours on the stock JJ 6SN7 tubes (as I switch over to passive or JFet mode at night when we’re all asleep), this setup offers a much wider, deeper and taller sound stage with a very life like center image of actual size and space. That’s obviously the biggest thing this setup is doing a lot better than the Stellar stack could manage, is sound stage, center stage and midrange.
Stage depth, instrument layering, multiple vocal tracks, the ability to spew out all of the texture and tangible bass and mid-bass detail. It’s almost like you can tell the difference in brand of drum heads being used, not just the type of drum heads. You can actually hear and feel the texture of either the drum stick, mallet or hand coming in contact with the drum head, as well as acoustic bass or electric bass. You can just about tell what kind of string they’re using and how much finger pressure they’re applying to the strings.
Treble is never strident or harsh, or even slightly edgy sounding. And no matter if you’re listening at a casual volume level or at concert levels, there’s never any cupped, nasal or honk going on. The music just gets louder.
And that’s the other thing, there’s a certain sense of easy and effortless that was not there before. With the Stellar M700’s and these Heresy III’s, I had 350 watts on tap. Now I have only 80 watts on tap, yet it sounds and feels so much stronger, cleaner and effortless.
I can only imagine what’s going to happen when I get the new Bifrost in the mix and have it connected via balanced inputs. I know for a fact that that DAC is going to blow away the one built into the Node 2. That, and I can’t imagine how much more improvement there’s going to be once this system is fully broken in.