Schiit Aegir 2 is a stereo power amplifier that is made by an American company which is well known by the virtue of making some very interesting and even – in some cases – disruptive audio gear. Aegir 2 is at the same time Schiit’s third power amplifier that happened to find its way to our premises. It is also the biggest and the most powerful one of those that we reviewed to date. Some time ago we took a look at both the smallest in the whole power amps line-up Rekkr, and at the second smallest, which was Gjallarhorn. Both of those power amps turned out to be really unique and actually very good for what they were intended to be. And let me remind you here that the first one – Rekkr – was rated at 2 times 2 Watts (at 8 ohms) and the Gjallarhorn was 2 times 10 Watts (at 8 ohms).
So, we’re definitely talking sound quality from well-designed class AB (more on that later) amplifier designs here and not some hundreds-of-watts switching designs that usually live by numbers and not necessarily sound as well as those numbers might suggest (also more on that later too). Coming back to the Aegir 2, when we look at the current Schiit’s power amp line-up we see that it’s located between Vidar and Tyr. The first one looks exactly like the Aegir 2, yet has much more power (100W per channel instead of a 30W in the case of the amp we review here). This also means that the Vidar here can be seen as an amp for less sensitive speakers (like smaller and medium-sized planars) that trades some of the sound-quality for more power (or rather the Aegir 2 that we review here can be seen as a special issue of an amp, where you get less power but better sound quality).
And the Tyr, which sits at the top is a completely different issue, even judging from the appearance (the price alone also sets it apart). The biggest power amp in the Texas company’s range is actually a mono-block, which means you need a pair of them for a stereo setup. (Rekkr, Gjallarhorn, Vidar and Aegir 2 are all stereo power amplifiers with the possibility to work in mono bridge them – yes, even the smallest Rekkr can be work as a mono-block, while the Gjallarhorn and all the rest have an XLR input that allows for obtaining a fully balanced configuration with both plus and minus speaker terminals active). Aside from the Tyr, the Aegir 2 can be viewed as the Schiit’s Tier One power amplifier when it comes purely to the sound quality then. You still have those 30W per channel, which in most cases with reasonably sensitive speakers in a reasonably sized rooms should actually be plenty for everyday listening.
What should also be noted is that the Aegir 2 is currently the only power amplifier made by Schiit that utilizes their own Halo technology, which is Schiit’s own way of dealing with back-EMF from the drivers and was first introduced in the Midgard headphone amplifier. And let’s not forget that the Aegir is also a Continuity amp, which means that it at least should behave – also sonically – as a class A amp by, as the company states “eliminating the transconductance droop outside of Class A bias region”. So, apart from not-that-huge power (which is, by the way, whole 10 Watts more per channel than the first version of Aegir, which was 20WPC), we actually get quite a lot, judging from a purely technical standpoint.
Because for that 899 USD what we have here is a stereo power amp that is a low-power but high-biased one, should behave more like a class A than class AB design, has this Halo technology and is even bridgeable. Another thing that should also be noticed is that “next” power amplifier in the Schiit’s range – the much bigger Tyr – is not the 1599, but actually a 3198 USD, because you need two of them. So that actually leaves us with the Aegir 2 as their possibly-best-sound-wise-yet-still-reachable power amplifier to date. Those 899 USD that the Aegir 2 is listed at is obviously not a pocket change and is still more than two (bridged) Gjallarnorns for example, so that’s why we’ll definitely need to take a closer look at the amp that was named after Lord of the Sea in Norse Mythology.
Schiit Aegir 2 – the design
As I mentioned, this is the third of the Schiit’s power amplifiers that is reviewed by Hifizone. Yet the one design trait that we will start with will be something that all those power amps reviewed up to date have in common. And this will be that the look of each of them confirms that the form follows function here. While, for example, in the Rekkr and the Gjallarnorn we had radiators mounted at the top of the enclosure, in the Aegir 2 they are at the sides. This is because the Aegir 2 is much bigger amp and has to dissipate much more heat. In the absolute terms the amp is not that very big, on your typical audiophile shelf you could theoretically even put two side-by-side and they should fit, but what you need to consider is the depth of that thing – 13 inches equals to 32.5 centimetres, but you also need to consider that you won’t bent your more or less audiophile speaker and power cables at the 90 degrees angle, so be warned. You will simply need to consider the “depth” dimension here.