There’s an interesting ability to provide a lot of spatial information on what’s going around the performers that’s not often found at this price point. Bigger and more expensive preamps will give generally a wider, less centre-focused soundstage, but as it comes to space projection this would be my only gripe in that regard. Moreover, what it does in this aspect is very believable, since it has good and rich texture. I started my listening sessions with something of a classic. Which was Dire Straits’ “Private Investigations”. And the Schiit offered here truly immense feeling of depth and atmosphere that was way above of what you could expect from an audio component at this price.
Even connected between the Schiit’s own Gungnir 2 DAC and Aegir 2 power amplifier it didn’t seem to be a bottleneck at any rate. What was very palpable there was both the Knopfler’s voice and the general separation of what was happening. And when things got more intense, the small Schiit didn’t hold back. It handled the dynamic swings with both aplomb and the feeling that nothing changed in it’s presentation. Let me express this in more detail here. There’s something about op-amp and generally feedback-designs (most of them obviously, and what also should be noted that op-amp generally entails using a feedback, I am leaving aside here some very technical stuff like emitter degeneration used in most if not all solid-state designs that can also be viewed as some form of a feedback) regarding conveying dynamic swings. When things get more congested and basically louder those designs tend to oversaturate or smear transients.
Yet Saga 2 offers very natural and unconstrained handling of those transients. And that was very obvious when playing another song of that famous American band. On “Heavy Fuel” it dealt with the recording with both gusto and enthusiasm. And it also provided swift bass performance. And as a somehow of a funny sidenote, while I put “On Every Street” album just to listen to that one track, I felt the urge to check how other sound would be rendered with Saga 2 in the system. And, oh Boy, it did provide. Just once again, it had both the timbre and the energy without feeling congested or impairing transparency in any noticeable way.
Sure, more expensive dedicated preamps will provide more laser-etched and authoritative presentation, but we’re talking about designs costing not twice, but rather five times as much. When I changed the repertoire to Ben Bohmer’s “Breathing” Saga 2 swiftly adjusted. I would like to comment here on both the general timbre and the frequency extremes and the relation between these components. While the small Schiit sounds a bit on the warm side, the lower registers provide real grunt, yet are not emphasized at the same time.
That’s why when using Saga 2 in a desktop system with smaller monitors you may not notice it’s capabilities in the lower octaves. It is just linear sounding with just maybe a tad of emphasis on the lower midrange. Still, it is not bass-light in any way, I’d rather consider this as a possible hint in general system matching. Top end is also quite good, it’s not etchy and is a just a little bit rounded, but it’s also quite polished and really well integrated with the midrange. What also should be noted is the fact that Schiit sounds coherent and composed with all sorts of repertoire being played. Then there’s that interesting thing that I mentioned earlier in this review and promised to get back to.