Seriously, if you have any doubts, cancel your order. Simple as that.

With respect to you other problems:

1. Bifrost: did you contact us regarding the cosmetic issues? What are they? It is certainly not our intention to send out cosmetic blems, unless they are sold as B-stock. If your Bifrost was A-stock, and not purchased through Fulfillment By Amazon (we are currently in a fight with them to return to us any returned products, rather than turning them around and selling as new), let me know and we'll make it right. If it is FBA, contact Amazon and return it, they will take care of you. Plus, it advances our case for never having them exercise their "judgement" about what is "resellable" or not.

2. Asgard 2: yes, the amp gets very warm, and steel and aluminum have dissimilar thermal expansion coefficients. So some of them make weird noises when warming up. The one on my desk does so. About 99.9% of them do not. If you'd like us to take a look at it, please let me know, and we will take a look at it, or swap it for another one.

With respect to other perceived "problems" with our gear, here are some real statistics:

1. DOA Units, 2014: <0.01%
2. Operational or cosmetic issues, 2014: <0.04%
3. Packing/Shipping issues, 2014: <0.5% (working on this, changed some procedures)

These numbers are despite having 6 product launches in 2014 to date, which usually results in some skewing of the numbers. The packing/shipping issue would be much less if we hadn't introduced, say, a 6VAC wall-wart that looks pretty much like our 16VAC wall-wart (despite resizing the power connector so that there won't be any "ahh, blown up product" moments.

Consider we are currently on a ship rate of 40,000+ products per year, and our entire repair staff is a single person who comes in one day a week—literally, for all products, from company inception.

Mike and I have been doing this for a *long* time, and I believe if we are good at anything, it's in making reliable products that stand the test of time.

Seriously, if you have any doubts, cancel your order. Simple as that.

With respect to you other problems:

1. Bifrost: did you contact us regarding the cosmetic issues? What are they? It is certainly not our intention to send out cosmetic blems, unless they are sold as B-stock. If your Bifrost was A-stock, and not purchased through Fulfillment By Amazon (we are currently in a fight with them to return to us any returned products, rather than turning them around and selling as new), let me know and we'll make it right. If it is FBA, contact Amazon and return it, they will take care of you. Plus, it advances our case for never having them exercise their "judgement" about what is "resellable" or not.

2. Asgard 2: yes, the amp gets very warm, and steel and aluminum have dissimilar thermal expansion coefficients. So some of them make weird noises when warming up. The one on my desk does so. About 99.9% of them do not. If you'd like us to take a look at it, please let me know, and we will take a look at it, or swap it for another one.

With respect to other perceived "problems" with our gear, here are some real statistics:

1. DOA Units, 2014: <0.01%
2. Operational or cosmetic issues, 2014: <0.04%
3. Packing/Shipping issues, 2014: <0.5% (working on this, changed some procedures)

These numbers are despite having 6 product launches in 2014 to date, which usually results in some skewing of the numbers. The packing/shipping issue would be much less if we hadn't introduced, say, a 6VAC wall-wart that looks pretty much like our 16VAC wall-wart (despite resizing the power connector so that there won't be any "ahh, blown up product" moments.

Consider we are currently on a ship rate of 40,000+ products per year, and our entire repair staff is a single person who comes in one day a week—literally, for all products, from company inception.

Mike and I have been doing this for a *long* time, and I believe if we are good at anything, it's in making reliable products that stand the test of time.

Hehehehe.. I like you, Jason. I wish I could also say "Don't buy it if you have doubts" to my clients, too.

And hell no. I am not going to contact your company for cosmetic issues unless they are too big and downright unacceptable. The time, effort and money spent to pay the shipping, packing the stuff, drive/walk to nearby postal office to ship stuff, wait for the stuff to be returned.. As a person who needs some precise delivery date to properly receive postal packages (Amazon lockbox is such a godsend to me), I can't afford to do it.

But I do afford to whine about it on Internet.

Thing is, many people I know of are in similar situations. They really do not have much time to try to contact customer services and get things right. It takes too much time, effort, and usually ended up with frustration. Instead they carry on with broken products. The number of products that have problem might be slightly higher than what shows up on your paper. (Then again, opposite also happens. I believe people just do not understand why Vali does microphonics)

Amazon is really an expert with this issue. The sole reason it's No.1 online retailer in USA.

That said, I guess I will put some trust on you and Mike's effort. I won't cancel the order then. Let's see how it turns out....


Since you responded to this thread, let me ask about the progress of Ragnarok. I am in order number #20681. The person in Head-Fi whose order number #20682 says his Rag order shipping date is delayed til 14th of November. Am I in same boat? What happened?

Whining about cosmetic problems on the internet potentially costs a company a lot more than replacing your product, sir.

Some more answers, after some more reading:

Hehehehe.. I like you, Jason. I wish I could also say "Don't buy it if you have doubts" to my clients, too.

You can. Anyone can.

And hell no. I am not going to contact your company for cosmetic issues unless they are too big and downright unacceptable. The time, effort and money spent to pay the shipping, packing the stuff, drive/walk to nearby postal office to ship stuff, wait for the stuff to be returned.. As a person who needs some precise delivery date to properly receive postal packages (Amazon lockbox is such a godsend to me), I can't afford to do it.

You should contact us. I'd love to see what the cosmetic issues are, because, as I said, it's not our intention to ship blem product. Did you buy from us?

But I do afford to whine about it on Internet.

Thing is, many people I know of are in similar situations. They really do not have much time to try to contact customer services and get things right. It takes too much time, effort, and usually ended up with frustration. Instead they carry on with broken products. The number of products that have problem might be slightly higher than what shows up on your paper. (Then again, opposite also happens. I believe people just do not understand why Vali does microphonics)

These are internal numbers, of course, and we have no idea if, say, 90% of the people are actually getting DOAs and simply throwing them in the trash. However, even for internal numbers, they are worth comparing to the industry standard, which runs 10-20X higher.

Amazon is really an expert with this issue. The sole reason it's No.1 online retailer in USA.

Completely disagreed. Have you worked with Amazon as a seller? The reasons they are the #1 reseller:

1. They were there first.
2. They really don't care at all about anything other than one thing: you buying *something.* It doesn't matter what. That's why you can search for "13" retina Macbook Pro" and get results from Asus, Dell, Lenovo, etc.
3. They are profoundly terrible at working with sellers, allowing customers who are even Brand Registry holders to have the buy button taken from them by other sellers selling counterfeit goods. (And, to add insult to injury, the sole remedy the Brand Registry holder has is to buy the competing product, document how it is not their own product, and submit it to Amazon.)
4. When doing Fulfillment By Amazon, they will take returned goods and try to sell them as new, despite our clear directive to return all returned goods to us, for assessment and resale as B-stock.

So why do we work with them? Because they are an important channel. And, as our sales increase through that channel, our ability to get good service increases. They will likely shor tly allow our directive on returned goods, for example.

That said, I guess I will put some trust on you and Mike's effort. I won't cancel the order then. Let's see how it turns out....

Since you responded to this thread, let me ask about the progress of Ragnarok. I am in order number #20681. The person in Head-Fi whose order number #20682 says his Rag order shipping date is delayed til 14th of November. Am I in same boat? What happened?

"Some trust" "see how it turns out." Those are not words of confidence. I'd rather cancel the order personally, if I was in that position. Why not do so?

And more answers, as I read more. Bottom line, I think you should cancel your order, since you are already disinclined from being satisfied with USA-made gear. However, I think some more commentary is in order:

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.

Noise/buzz: Those issues are usually related to AC line noise, which we have said that circlotron-style designs are susceptible to. However, the "humming when it is off" I responded to personally, saying that it is simply not possible. Ragnarok disconnects both hot and neutral when the amp is off, so there is exactly zero connection to the wall, other than the ground. The hum was probably caused by another component. Any other hum/noise issues are extensively checked before shipping on ALL of our products, from Magni on up, by instruments and with ears.

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.

Yes, we had some problems with Asgard 2, which I explained in the Schiit Happened book (condensed version: bad transformer batch, noisy shop). All were rectified, including bringing back and replacing entire products on our dime. Vali? Nope, other than people getting used to the idea that the amp could ring. At the lower price levels, people really expect it to act like an iPod.

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.

And this is where I get really irritated. There is no propaganda in our product descriptions, only fact. We don't say, "Beat the eeeeevill minions of outsourced labor by purchasing only gen-u-wine Made in USA goods!" We say, "Our product is made in the USA. Really made here, with local suppliers." This is a statement of fact. Not propaganda. It matters to some people. Not to others. It is our choice to do this, and I ha ve been very frank about the pros and cons of doing so in the Schiit Happened book.

The fact that you perceive this as propaganda is the same way people think we're "against the eeeevil objectivists" or that "we hate evillllll op-amp designs," or that "we are a bunch of boobs who design by ear because we don't think measurements are god." Again, this is interpretation of what we say. We say, "We prefer discrete designs when possible," and some people take that as an indictment of all op-amp designs. We say, "we use both measurements and ears to design our products," and piss off both the objectivists and subjectivists, or at least some of them, because they perceive it as an attack. Whereas what we are doing is saying what we do.

Go ahead, give me negative karma. Just calling it as I see it. The same, no doubt, as you are doing. While you are exercising your right as a customer, I am exercising my right as an engaged business owner. There is no fault in not being able to find common ground.