I happened to have the Schiit vidar on exchange for my parasound with a friend of mine.
The Schiit vidar is a 100W per channel into 8 ohms poweramp in stereo mode. Two vidar's in mono block mode will output 400w each, when fed by a balanced input via xlr. Each vidar retails at usd699/- each, internet direct from Schiit.
The Schiit fan boys are singing its praises all over the net. And Schiit claims it to be their no expense barred poweramp, that will compete with amps below the usd3000 mark.
The above fanboy and schiit's own claims, along with darko's punch award got me interested in this amp.
So I plugged it in place of the parasound , with speakers remaining in the exact position. And started playing some of the tracks from HD tracks that I now know by heart.
And my experience has been disappointing to say the least. The Schiit has no sense of bass control. The bass is boomy and flabby. There is a sense that it is tuned to sound bassy, and is not neutral at all. And the lack of control in that department, results in an overwhelming amount of flabby bass that drowns the detail in the mid range.
And when the passage gets complex, it can't separate the instruments like the parasound. The result is a complete cacophony. Individual instruments can't be followed at all. And the whole thing sounds a mess.
In addition, in order to stake a claim to neutrality with that extended bass, they have tweaked the treble too. Which sounded ragged and piercing too.
So all in all, it was a big disappointment for me. And to me, it has lowered how I behold Schiit as a company. Maybe iam wrong in comparing it with the parasound, which is 3.5 its price. But Schiit themselves invited this comparison.
And add the fact that even after 2 years of launch, there is not a single professional review of this amp, except darko's and schiit's own fanboys on several forums.
I didn't want to break the bad news to my friend, who is contemplating adding an expensive preamp to feed the vidar. so I enquired if he found the parasound lean sounding. And the reply was a resounding yes. But he was in love with the detail and the instrument clarity and separation. I of course couldn't tell him he was listening to well controlled bass . Each to his own I guess
The Schiit vidar is a 100W per channel into 8 ohms poweramp in stereo mode. Two vidar's in mono block mode will output 400w each, when fed by a balanced input via xlr. Each vidar retails at usd699/- each, internet direct from Schiit.
The Schiit fan boys are singing its praises all over the net. And Schiit claims it to be their no expense barred poweramp, that will compete with amps below the usd3000 mark.
The above fanboy and schiit's own claims, along with darko's punch award got me interested in this amp.
So I plugged it in place of the parasound , with speakers remaining in the exact position. And started playing some of the tracks from HD tracks that I now know by heart.
And my experience has been disappointing to say the least. The Schiit has no sense of bass control. The bass is boomy and flabby. There is a sense that it is tuned to sound bassy, and is not neutral at all. And the lack of control in that department, results in an overwhelming amount of flabby bass that drowns the detail in the mid range.
And when the passage gets complex, it can't separate the instruments like the parasound. The result is a complete cacophony. Individual instruments can't be followed at all. And the whole thing sounds a mess.
In addition, in order to stake a claim to neutrality with that extended bass, they have tweaked the treble too. Which sounded ragged and piercing too.
So all in all, it was a big disappointment for me. And to me, it has lowered how I behold Schiit as a company. Maybe iam wrong in comparing it with the parasound, which is 3.5 its price. But Schiit themselves invited this comparison.
And add the fact that even after 2 years of launch, there is not a single professional review of this amp, except darko's and schiit's own fanboys on several forums.
I didn't want to break the bad news to my friend, who is contemplating adding an expensive preamp to feed the vidar. so I enquired if he found the parasound lean sounding. And the reply was a resounding yes. But he was in love with the detail and the instrument clarity and separation. I of course couldn't tell him he was listening to well controlled bass . Each to his own I guess