Zarathustra[H]
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2000
- Messages
- 39,056
Could put bigger feet on your monitors. Or bracket it under the desk
I already have the screen as tall as I think I want it. Ideally I'd actually have it an inch or two lower, from a viewing position perspective.
I'd also be slightly concerned about venting and air flow if I bracket it under the desk. The manual (like with pretty much every amp I've ever owned) is very clear about not blocking or restricting vents.
I think I am going to stand it on an IKEA Lack table under my desk. Not ideal, but I think it will work.
I dug around my spare cable boxes and was able to hook it up by stringing two sets of 3ft XLR cables together. Not ideal, but it works for now:
I only have minimal testing in it thus far.
I don't hear any noise even when turned way up.
It sounds excellent.
There are three gain settings. Low is mostly enough for both my headphones and my speakers, but lacks a little bit in the top end if I want to crank it up. I think mine will live in "medium" most of the time.
In medium there is enough power to probably instantly hurt my hearing at the high end. High is just insane. Possibly "blow up my headphones and/or my eardrums" insane. Going to have to be careful when touching the buttons so I don't accidentally find myself in the wrong setting.
Volume changes are not as smooth as with other amps, but I knew that going in. The relay switched 128 step volume results in some ticking and quirks while you are twisting the knob, but on the flipside, left and right channels will always be perfectly matched (as opposed to with pots)
Now to the curious part.
There are three output settings you cycle through by pressing the center button.
- Headphones
- Speakers; and
- Headphones + Speakers
So far so good.
The odd part is that the pre-amp outs are ON in headphone mode, but are OFF in Speaker mode.
So, if you use pre-amp outs for - for instance - a subwoofer - it's going to be a little weird. In order to get the sub and the speakers to play at the same time, you need to be in "headphones + speaker" mode, and in that mode it will also be outputting to the headphones. So if you have very sensitive headphones be sure to remember to unplug them before cranking the volume.
This also results in the potential (which I have done before) of accidentally having the subwoofer pounding late at night when I think I am just listening to headphones. (This is not very popular with others in the house)
In my existing setup, I had a sensing power strip turn on the amp and sub at the same time, and used the button on the front of the amp to do so. This meant, very limited risk of accidentally having the sub blasting.
With this configuration I am concerned that I might screw up.
Add to the annoyance that Schiit continues their really questionable choice of putting power switches on the back of their amps. (I feel like it is just a "fuck you for complaining about it" thing at this point.)
The sub - of course - does not have a front power button either. It has a 12v trigger input, but the Ragnarok does not have this capability. If the sub had high level inputs, I could use those, but it doesn't. Only RCA.
And I can't rely on a sense power strip to turn on the sub anymore, because then it will turn on when I am listening to headphones as well. Right now I have to crawl under my desk and unplug the sub to listen to headphones
I've been trying to figure out what they were thinking. Maybe the thought was that since you have two output modes, if you really want to JUST use pre-amp for something (not sure what that would be) then you can do so by both switching to headphones AND unplugging headphones. If the pre-amps were on with the speakers there would be no way to use the pre-amp without the speakers blasting.
That said, the correct implementation here would have been a separate relay for the pre-amp outs, but that would probably have added cost to an already costly amp.
It's annoying, but not annoying enough to return an otherwise great amp.
I feel like there has to be a way to solve this somehow before I accidentally wake my better half in the middle of the night with subwoofer thump, but I am not 100% sure what that is yet.
One way I am thinking of is using high level to RCA subwoofer adapters and run them to the speaker outputs. At least then, even if I forget the sub on, it won't be pounding without speaker output. Not sure if they are any good though. Will have to read up.
If anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate them.