Schiit Audio Ragnarok

The Schiit
Ragnarok is an excellent integrated amplifier that is good-looking and
great-sounding.  I bought it new a couple
of years ago.  It is in perfect cosmetic and sonic shape.  I doubt that there is
anything in its retail price range ($1,499) that sounds better.  I bought it when I was down-sizing from an
Audio Research/Vandersteen system because I moved to a smaller home.  I already had KEF LS50 speakers that were a
recommended match for the Rag and I had been driving them with my big AR amp/preamp.  I expected to hear a drop off in sound
quality, but was amazed to hear that in my small room the differences were
slight  --  perhaps a bit less transperancy  -- but nothing that detracted from my
enjoyment of music.  The Rag is powerful,
well-balanced, and drives the LS50s (85db efficiency) with ease.  I loved my AR/Vandy system, but I don’t miss it.  The Rag/KEF system is probably not quite as
good, but it is damned good.

I measure value
in audio gear in part by what components don’t have and that I don’t
need.  In this case, the Rag doesn’t have
a DAC.  I have a Schiit Gungnir Multibit
so didn’t want to buy an inferior built-in DAC. 
The Rag does not have a remote so I could get in a few steps when
adjusting volume, changing inputs, etc. 
Like most high end gear these days, it does not have balance, tone
controls, or a mono switch.  If you don’t
require any of those things the Rag will work for you.  If you want tone controls Schiit makes an inexpensive,
intelligently designed 4-band equalizer (the Loki for $149) that works just
fine. I use the Loki for listening to low-level background music with my 72 year-old ears.  At louder levels my old ears don't require assistance.   My final point here is that at the price the
Rag is actually more expensive than it looks because of the things it doesn’t
have.

I also
measure value by what the unit does have. 
The Rag has two balanced inputs so I can run both my DAC and phono
preamp in balanced mode.  It has a good
headphone amp, which is something I have listened to but don’t use.  I’ve never been a headphone guy, but if you
are the Rag’s headphone section will probably be quite satisfactory.  Schiit is well known for its separate
headphone amps.

 The Rag
has some idiosyncrasies.  It uses a “relay-switched
stepped attenuator” as a volume control. 
It makes little clicking sounds as you adjust sound levels (details are available
on the Schiit site).  This may surprise you
at first, but it is no big matter.  The
Rag runs hot.  How hot?  Not quite as hot as my AR tube amps.  The top of the case is very warm, but I don’t
think it would blister your fingers if you left them there.  Just make sure that it is in a well-ventilated space.  I didn’t bother to buy a fan, but
you can if you think you need one. 
Schiit has thoughtfully installed red LEDs that glow pleasantly through
the vent holes on the top.  I don’t know
what they “do,” if anything, but they encourage the viewer to think that maybe there
are tubes in there, even though the Rag is entirely solid-state.  Anyway, it all adds to the fun.

So, with
all this fun, value, and excellent sound on hand, why am I selling such a satisfying
piece of gear?  Well, I noticed that
Schiit makes a tube-based preamp, the Freya, that has a remote and an even more
refined stepped attenuator.  It has all
of the virtues and design features that I value in the Rag – and it has a
remote.  (Well, I’m 72.  I can give up a few steps a day in pursuit of
convenience.)  I played the Freya using
the Rag as an amp.  There’s no point in
using the Rag like that over the long haul so I bought a  Schiit Aegir amp.