The lad from lancs
While lacking the stage width of the much
costlier Meridian Prime, the Magni can swing from out-of-the-ear stereo to
in-the-head mono with convincing solidity and a wonderful retention of low-level
details. The title track of George Formby’s When I’m Cleaning Windows – His 52
Finest 1932-1946 [Retrospective RTS 4104] was recorded the year Quad was
founded – 1936 – yet it sounds refreshingly ‘full frequency’ and as rewarding
as anything decades younger. Then again, the playing is peerless.
Schiit
Audio Magni review 3
Speech therapists would love the Magni:
with the B&Ws, I heard every nuance of his Wigan accent, his inability to
keep a straight face and that spectacular ‘banjolele’ strumming. And the
orchestra! Slick, like you wouldn’t believe: woodwinds and trumpets were vivid,
if reduced in scale. Of course, being pure mono, it’s entirely in-your-skull,
but the experience is enough to make you thirst for a bottle of stout. To chase
your whelks.
Even better is his ‘Chinese Laundry Blues’
– suddenly there’s rich bass and an increase in level. Hard to fathom that it’s
even older: from 1932.
But I followed it with the audiophile-grave
live material on Little Feat’s Rad Gumbo: The Complete Warner Bros. Years
[Warner 8122796057], where the Magni was able to flex its muscles, spread its
wings. It embraced the rhythmic fluidity, the funk that made this band so
genuinely inimitable.
Schiit
Audio Magni review 4
This in
itself is enough to warm most of us to so inexpensive a headphone amplifier.
Headphones are unnatural at the best of times, and yet they represent the
future mode of listening for the multitude.
Which
raises a point: at this price level, should we be as concerned with sonic
absolutes as much as we should be grateful just for the sheer musical fun on
offer? I have often maintained that one cannot approach product X at $168.96
with the same expectations of something costing $1,689.61… or $16,896.08. So,
had this device measured badly, or had a weird suck-out somewhere, or cut off
at 60Hz, or any other measurable crime, I wouldn’t care.
I love
this little baby. No Schiit.
Hi-fi
news verdict
While
challenged by units costing $84.48 more – small change to many – the tenets of
this series dictate that every pound counts. I am not suggesting that I’ve
heard every headphone amp below $168.96, but I can’t imagine this much glorious
sound from anything less expensive. It joins NAD’s PP2 phono amp and a bunch of
Pro-Ject Boxes in a select group of components that let you wallow in decent
sound for under a ton.
Sound
quality: 83%
A
quick shot of some amazing open back headphones used with the Magni
Lab report
Second only to the Teac HA-501 in raw power
output, Schiit’s Magni is surely the most the most capable single-input
headphone amp at this very affordable ~$168.96 price point. Rated at
1.2W/32ohm, the Magni delivered a full 2W/25ohm under test (<1% THD) with a
maximum output voltage capability of 8.95V into 47kohm. Couple this with the
engineered low output impedance (sub-1ohm to 2ohm from 20Hz-20kHz depending on
volume position) and the Magni will drive even the lowest impedance, power
hungry ’phones with relative ease. The DC-coupled output stage also offers an
incredibly flat and extended response, to within ±0.01dB from 1Hz-5kHz before
rolling very gently away to –0.18dB/20kHz and –2.8dB/100kHz.
The +12.5dB gain is more than sufficient
and there’s enough headroom to accommodate inputs in excess of 6V at lower
volume settings. Distortion increases linearly with output level from 0.001% at
1V to 0.5% at 5.3V (all at 1kHz) and also with frequency, reaching
0.012%/20kHz. Driving a 25ohm load, distortion increases very slightly to
0.002%/1kHz and 0.02%/20kHz but the general trend remains the same. The
harmonic complement varies somewhat with gain, being mainly 2nd harmonic at
+12dB but with equal 2nd-4th harmonics at –6dB. Arguably the Magni’s greatest
feature, aside from its prodigious power output, is its fabulously wide 98dB
A-wtd S/N ratio – another figure for the record books at this price and well
beyond.
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Specifications
- Maximum output (re. 1% THD into 47kohm): 8.95V
- Max. power output (re. 1% THD into 25ohm): 1996mW
- Output Impedance (20Hz-20kHz): 0.86-1.03ohm
- Maximum gain: +12.5dB
- A-wtd S/N ratio (re. 0dBV): 98.4dB
- Frequency response (20Hz-20kHz/25ohm): +0.01dB to –0.18dB
- Distortion (20Hz-20kHz, re. 40mW): 0.0016–0.020%
- Power consumption: 5W
- Dimensions(WHD): 127x32x89mm
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