General Questions

Is that really your name?
In case you didn’t get it from typing in the URL, reading the home page, reading the About Us section, and, like, every page of this site, YES, that is our name. And yes, it’s pronounced exactly how you think.

Are you guys for real?
Absolutely. Yeah, our name is a fun attention-getter, but you’ll quickly find that we’re dead-serious about audio. Everything we do uses the purest topologies, the highest-quality parts, and innovative production engineering to keep costs down. You won’t find a single integrated circuit or op-amp in any of our products. But you will find quality parts like Alps Blue Velvet potentiometers, Nichicon and Wima capacitors, Dale resistors, and Neutrik connectors. And you’ll find it for prices that compare favorably even to Chinese-made products.

Where’d you guys come from?
For lack of a better phrase, we are “audio industry veterans.” Our two product designers come from Sumo and Theta, respectively. At Sumo, Jason Stoddard designed the following products: Polaris II, Polaris III, Andromeda III, Ulysses, Ulysses II, The Ten, The Five, Athena II, Diana, Artemis, Theorem, and Axiom. At Theta, Mike Moffat designed the Theta Pre-Amplifier, and at Theta Digital, designed the DS Pre, DS Pro, DS Pro Basic, and many other products.

What do you stand for?
Best sound at lowest possible cost, in solidly engineered products you’d be pleased to pass down to your children. That’s our main driving force. There are a lot of other engineering principles we adhere to as well.

So, what are those engineering principles?
First, use the simplest, purest possible circuit to achieve a specific goal. We’re not in the business of building discrete op-amps; we’re in the business of making music. That’s why you’ll see that all of our circuits are discrete, feature zero feedback, a single voltage gain stage, and are single-ended and noninverting.

Noninverting? But (insert audio guru name here) says that doesn’t matter.
For speakers, not so much. For headphones, yes it does. Until headphones come standard with connectors that have separate grounds, or iTunes has phase inversion on its lists of switches, we’re going to stay noninverting.

iTunes? You aren’t seriously advocating we plug this fine audiophile product into a computer, are you?
You can plug it in to whatever you want, whether it’s an SACD player, $10,000 standalone D/A converter, or your MacBook Air. If all you have is a computer and high-end headphones, we think you’ll do just fine with our products.

But, wouldn’t a separate D/A converter sound better?
Sure it would.

So, are you going to make a standalone D/A converter?
We don’t discuss future products, except to say that anything you buy today won’t be a disappointment as we add to the line. Meaning, anything else we make will augment what you buy now, or will be priced significantly differently. As in, a lot higher.

Can you recommend a D/A converter?
No.

No, really, can you recommend a D/A converter, my budget is . . .?
Not to be dicks or anything, but no. We don’t endorse products from other manufacturers. It’s not that they suck, but we don’t make them, so we don’t really know how they’ll perform over time.

Do you seriously make your stuff in the USA?
Yep. We worked long and hard to get our designs and chassis so they could be assembled by first-world labor for prices similar to the Chinese. That’s why you won’t see a single wire in our products, and why our chassis are an ultra-simple (but cool-looking) two-part design.

But wouldn’t it be cheaper doing it in China?
Maybe. But we’re not going to find out.

Well, hell, all your parts are probably Chinese anyway, right?
Um, no. The majority of our parts, on a total cost basis, come from right here in the USA, from companies manufacturing their products in the USA. Most other parts are bought from US-based companies, but are manufactured all over the world. Notable exceptions are Valhalla’s tubes (Russia), and the Alps Blue Velvet pots (Japan.)

What’s with the product names? Asgard? Valhalla?
They’re neat and go with the pseudo-Teutonic vibe we have going.

That’s all there is to the names? 
Do you think we’re a cult looking to resurrect the old Norse gods or something?
Uh, no.

I’m sorry, I can’t take you guys seriously, what can I do?
That’s cool. Not everyone gets us. But ask yourself this: would you rather buy product from a soulless company that worries about how they can offend the minimum number of people in the world? If so, cool. There are lots of other manufacturers out there.

I heard from a friend that you really are descendants of an ancient Teutonic engineering tribe, is that true?
Your friend is an idiot.