This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit Vidar 2 stereo/mono class AB amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $799.
Nice to see Schiit (finally) put a stand-by switch in the front. They usually have only a power button in the back.
Being a class AB amplifier with a linear power supply, the case is quite heavy and front loaded. The sharp fins make it hard to transport but that is a one time hassle.
Overall design manages to look unique and yet attractive.
There is a rather long delay before the unit goes form standby to on. Here is the back panel:
It is a shame we don't have trigger input. Or balanced input for stereo (the one there is for bridged mode).
If you are not familiar with the measurements you are about to see, please watch this tutorial:
Schiit Vidar 2 Amplifier Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard:
Mains noise was variable depending on how I grounded it. You may be able to do a bit better (or worse) than I did. 2nd harmonic distortion dominates and that is what sets SINAD to 88 dB which is good bit above what Vidar did (right highlight):
Noise performance is significantly improved over the original Vidar:
Frequency response is excellent as we would expect:
Channel separation is better than average:
Multitone just clears the hurdle for 16-bit content:
Distortion hardly increases at higher frequencies which means 19+20 KHz test also does well:
Company specs are easily met for power:
Max power was achieved at 1.7 volts so I ran my frequency vs power sweeps at that. While many amplifiers go into protection at high frequencies, the Vidar 2 blew its AC fuse. I replaced it with the spare that it came with and set the limit lower as to avoid clipping:
Given this, I didn't try to pus the amp with my reactive load or testing it in mono. I trust their specs for the latter.
Conclusions
Nice to see Schiit improving on both usability and performance of the Vidar across the board. Company does a good job of staying competitive despite manufacturing products in US and giving 5 year warranty. I know many still find comfort in class AB designs and here you have a good example of it.
I am going to recommend the Schiit Vidar 2 amplifier.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Nice to see Schiit (finally) put a stand-by switch in the front. They usually have only a power button in the back.
Being a class AB amplifier with a linear power supply, the case is quite heavy and front loaded. The sharp fins make it hard to transport but that is a one time hassle.
Overall design manages to look unique and yet attractive.
There is a rather long delay before the unit goes form standby to on. Here is the back panel:
It is a shame we don't have trigger input. Or balanced input for stereo (the one there is for bridged mode).
If you are not familiar with the measurements you are about to see, please watch this tutorial:
Schiit Vidar 2 Amplifier Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard:
Mains noise was variable depending on how I grounded it. You may be able to do a bit better (or worse) than I did. 2nd harmonic distortion dominates and that is what sets SINAD to 88 dB which is good bit above what Vidar did (right highlight):
Noise performance is significantly improved over the original Vidar:
Frequency response is excellent as we would expect:
Channel separation is better than average:
Multitone just clears the hurdle for 16-bit content:
Distortion hardly increases at higher frequencies which means 19+20 KHz test also does well:
Company specs are easily met for power:
Max power was achieved at 1.7 volts so I ran my frequency vs power sweeps at that. While many amplifiers go into protection at high frequencies, the Vidar 2 blew its AC fuse. I replaced it with the spare that it came with and set the limit lower as to avoid clipping:
Given this, I didn't try to pus the amp with my reactive load or testing it in mono. I trust their specs for the latter.
Conclusions
Nice to see Schiit improving on both usability and performance of the Vidar across the board. Company does a good job of staying competitive despite manufacturing products in US and giving 5 year warranty. I know many still find comfort in class AB designs and here you have a good example of it.
I am going to recommend the Schiit Vidar 2 amplifier.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
