Schiit Earns Realisation Award

“What can I say? We’re thrilled!” said Jason Stoddard, Schiit’s Co-Founder, upon hearing of the award. “I could be super-corporate and say something like ‘it validates the concept of extremely-high-value, USA-made products we embarked on last year,’ but then I’d have to wear a suit or something.”

 

“I’ve been in high end all my life,” said Mike Moffat, former founder of Theta, Theta Digital, and Angstrom. “And the most fun products are the ones that are affordable, like the Cobalt 307 was. It’s great to be back, and it’s wonderful to be making great products that most people can buy, without having to take out a second mortgage."

 

Lyr is the third Schiit amp that Srajan Ebaen has reviewed for 6moons, formerly noting the “insane value” of the Asgard and the superior performance of the Valhalla. With Lyr, he enthuses, “…to exceed it as pure valve headphone amp could take $4.000 for an Eddie Current Balancing Act or fully tricked out Woo Audio Model 5.”

 

On the company itself, Srajan says, ”…this build-in-the-US company leverages know-how of not only circuit design but the entire manufacturing process. They offer very simple but well executed circuits in equally simple but solid and attractive casings. Prices compete head-on with Chinese imports for bona fide shock value.”

 

He also comments on the founders’ re-entry into audio with the following: “We’re lucky indeed that the old dawgs of Moffat and Stoddard decided to not rest on their laurels; or re-entered the scene with more high-priced D’Agostino-level bling; but went for the jugular…In combination it would advocate this schiit for sainthood if this were more than a harmless hobby and hedonistic indulgence.”

 

The Schiit Lyr is the third in a trio of Schiit headphone amplifiers, an extremely high-powered design offering 6W per channel into 32 ohms; ideal for orthodynamic and high-impedance headphones. The Schiit Valhalla is an all-triode design offering exceptional performance with high-impedance headphones, while the Schiit Asgard is a true Class-A single-ended JFET/MOSFET design providing exceptional value and performance into a wide range of headphones.

 

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.