No, it is not because I am impatient enough to cancel the order and buy another company's amplifier nor getting bitter about delay.


Currently I am building my Torpedo amp right now, and the incident I just had brought back many bad memories, and made me realize that Ragnarok follows worrisome pattern.


I was searching Head-Fi for Torpedo amp build help. Then, I decided to check some impressions of Ragnarok, and 'left channel buzzing' portion quickly gained my attention. I remember this... Wasn't it very same issue that marv reported during the open beta period? And the answer is yes. I assume this is already reported, yet we are having same problems on the release version of Ragnarok. I do have sensitive cans such as Grado and LCD-X. I am concerned now.

I also noticed there are people having issues with power supply humming. Sure it can be explained because of the Circlotron circuit and complex transformer wiring... but again, with such a lot of power going on, it can be other issues, and I am also having some worries here as well. Stuffs like tap noise on volume control also raise my eyebrows too.

It is not like Schiit has clean record on launch unit problems. Even disregard first Asgard, we definitely had some problems with Asgard 2 and Vali launch units. Ragnarok is far more complex product and will be far more problematic if these problems persist.

I am not sure. I just learned other guy that order number is right next to me is saying his amp won't be done until 11/14. Laura told me my unit may be shipping at end of this week. I will probably ask her about my Rag shipping date next Monday again (sorry! Laura) and if my unit is also indeed delayed like his case, I might ask her either just cancel the order or postpone until all of these early issues are fixed.



That said, I do not have good experience with "Made In USA" stuffs.


I have zero illusion about these 'Made In USA' propaganda. The mere fact that I always have troubles with those USA manufacturers, particularly audio companies.




1) Audeze :

Seriously these guys. always full of launch unit issues. And it is not just fixable stuffs such as pad issues. For a very long time, I have a huge bias against LCD-3, because when I first heard it, it literally sounded like an AM radio. No soundstage, no high, low resolution... it was like listening to a fine-tuned AM radio. Hard to believe they made a headphones that sounded worse than LCD-2 and put twice higher pricetag. It took me a while to convince myself to listen to LCD-3 again (after Audeze finally claimed that they resolved issues) and realized my first listening pair was really bad one.

Again, similar thing happened to my launch unit LCD-X. When I received directly from Audeze itself... The headband leather was in very poor condition, pads were squeezed, the damping baffles were poorly installed... I sent the unit back to Audeze. They fixed the baffles and replaced pads, but they did not acknowledge the condition of headband. I bought some leather restoration/care stuffs to 'fix' the headband. The fact that this headphone costs 1.7K USD, I am not so sure why this QA is acceptable for Audeze. Not to mention, after I bought my LCD-X, which is gun-metal one, Audeze decided to just make black version only. Inconsistency at its best.

Oh wait, I remember now. They had similar issues on their first commercial product, LCD-2, with ton of hasted revisions. After such poor experience with LCD-X, I wonder if I buy another headphones from this company.


2) Grado :

Tons of cosmetic issues, from the cheapest ones to the most expensive ones. Except SR-225 and PS-500, literally every other Grado I've bought - SR-60, MS-1, MS-2, PS-1000, RS-1. ALL of them have some sort of cosmetic issues. And they are not something that subtle. PS-1000 had a metal chipped off at very viable area of the cup. MS-1 and MS-2 had cable problems. I mean... PS-1000 is 1.7K USD. Isn't it hard to look up the cups at least once on expensive headphones? Unlike Audeze, Grado actually has generous warranty repairs, so I respect that point.

It is fortunate I never had other serious issues (i.e : poor wood quality on RS series, kidnapped HP1000, driver imbalances, etc), but I believe that wood quality debacle pretty much ruined Grado's reputation in Head-Fi.

(Oh, also like LCD-X, PS-1000 quickly went a huge cosmetic change right after it was released)


3) Schiit :

Surprise! I do have some uncomfortable issues with our beloved amplifier/DAC company. After 2 months of uses, Asgard 2 developed problem with noise on left channel. So it was RMA'd and they decided to send me a new unit instead of trying fixing my old one. Well, new one had a nasty habit to make 'tick' 'tock' sound when it warmed up. I talked to Schiit again, and they said it's normal to have such sound. Except, I never had such issue on my first Asgard 2. I closely inspected the amp and quickly found the problem; the grill on the vent was slightly misaligned. That misaligned area was making the sound due to thermal expansion from the case and grill.

My Bifrost also had cosmetic issues, but they were very slight and nearly invisible, so I decided to not bitch about it. Unlike others', my Vali has zero problem other than expected microphonic issue, which disappears very quickly when everything is set.


4) Koss :

Woohoo! No problems with them whatsoever, even cosmetic stuffs! Very ironic that I am getting best possible quality from a company which makes very bottom barrel priced products.


Sigh, maybe it is a sign that I need to go sleep and stop worrying about everything... Oh well, back to assembling Torpedo now.