Mjolnir, Gungnir Balanced Amp and DAC Introed

End-Game Performance at Mid-Level Prices

Los Angeles, CA. Today, Schiit Audio announced information on its first balanced products, the Mjolnir balanced headphone amplifier and Gungnir balanced upgradable DAC. Both products are designed to offer “end game” performance at mid-level prices, significantly enhancing the price/performance ratio in balanced gear. In addition, the Gungnir DAC is modular and fully upgradable, for virtually future-proof performance.

“Mjolnir is a breakthrough,” said Jason Stoddard, Co-Founder of Schiit Audio. “It provides high power, low noise, and low distortion, thanks to our unique Crossfet™ circlotron-style topology. Despite its mid-level price, it’s a no-excuses, truly balanced amp with exceptional performance.”

Mjolnir’s maximum output is 8W RMS per channel into 32 ohms, or 5W RMS per channel into 50 ohms—ideal for power-hungry orthodynamic headphones. At the same time, its noise floor is low enough to be used with sensitive headphones like Grado and Denon.

“Gungnir has the most advanced clock regeneration of any DAC, our Adapticlock™ system,” Mike Moffat said. “No matter the quality of the source, Adapticlock automatically chooses the ideal system for regenerating the clocks–VCXO or VCO. In this way, we can lock to virtually any source and provide excellent jitter rejection.”

Gungnir is also a hardware-balanced DAC, with two AKM4399 D/A converters, fully discrete analog section and differential summing for single-ended output. Its analog stage offers DC coupling from input to output, as well as high operating voltage and low-noise JFETs for excellent THD and noise performance.

Rather than pre-order, both Mjolnir and Gungnir will offer “interest list” sign-up, for notification when ordering is available. We anticipate shipping Mjolnir in June 2012 and Gungnir in August 2012. Interest list members will be given first chances to buy the products, in order of sign-up date and time.

Schiit Audio expects to ship Mjolnir in June 2012, at a retail price of $749, and Gungnir in August 2012, at a retail price of $749 without USB, and $849 with USB.

Gungnirs ordered without USB can be upgraded to add the USB input at any time for $150. In the future, Schiit Audio will make selected upgrades available for Gungnir when there are meaningful changes in USB or D/A conversion technology.

About Schiit Audio
Founded in June 2010 by audio industry “old dogs” Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffat, Schiit Audio has a simple, if somewhat insane, mission: to bring superior performance, design, and quality to audio products at near-Chinese prices, while manufacturing in the USA.

Jason Stoddard was the former engineering lead at Sumo, designing power amps that included Polaris II, Polaris III, Andromeda III, Ulysses, Ulysses II, The Ten, The Five, as well as preamplifiers including Athena II, Diana, and Artemis, and Sumo’s first digital line: Axiom and Theorem.

Mike Moffat was the founder of Theta, Theta Digital, and Angstrom, and his audio history covers an impressive list of firsts, including the first standalone DAC, the Theta DSPre, the first use of digital signal processing and bit-perfect digital filter algorithms, the first DTS surround processor, and more.