Today is March 22, 2020. Outside my door, the plague is gaining intensity. People are wearing masks and rubber gloves. But outside the window by my desk, there is a Callery pear tree, and every day its blossoms are becoming more intensely white. Each day its brightness (measured in units of luminous flux) increases noticeably. The optical radiance of its zillion-petal whiteness illuminates the whole garden.
Looking out that desk window, I notice also the spring-warmed radiance of the sun, the racing shadows of ravenous sparrows, and daffodils. Each one of those things, in its way, affects my thoughts about what matters in life: art, music, and [cough] high-fidelity audio reproduction.
Unavoidably, these peculiar circumstances have caused me to reconsider: What are the most important criteria for music reproduction? Today I am thinking they might be levels of brilliance, measured in units of awestruck pleasure, and some tangible sense of the life force that propels all music making. Looked at from a different point of view, accurate tone character is always ahead of whatever criterion is in second place.
And what a lucky guy I am. Sitting right in front of me, on a pine-board shelf, at arm’s reach, is a Schiit Audio Jotunheim R amplifier (which I call the “Jot-R”) powering the RAAL-requisite SR1a full-range ribbon headphones hanging directly under it. Right next to the Jot-R is the “Jot”: a regular, non-R Schiit Jotunheim (in silver; the Jot-R only comes in basic black), powering a pair of HEDD Audio full-range air-motion–transformer HEDDphones. How much brilliance and life force can this exotic hardware recover?
The Schiit Jotunheim
Schiit describes the Jotunheim ($399–$799, depending on options) as a “configurable balanced desktop headphone amp and preamp.” (footnote 1)
By “configurable,” Schiit means you can choose to add a “True Multibit” DAC, or an AK4490 Balanced DAC, or a passive phono equalizer. Mine came unconfigured.
By “balanced,” Schiit means the Jotunheim provides balanced (XLR) and single-ended (RCA) line-level inputs and balanced and single-ended preamplifier outputs. It also means that the Jot is “balanced and differential from input to output, including a 4-gang Alps RK27114 potentiometer,” Schiit’s Jason Stoddard wrote in an email. “No conversion to SE for internal processing.”
By “desktop,” Schiit means that the Jotunheim is a small, 9″ × 6″ × 2″, solid-as-a-tank object that looks Danish Modern–cool in a way that will make its owner proud to display it for years to come.
By “headphone amp,” Schiit means “headphone AMP!” because the Jot has enough power to drive almost any headphone in my collection.
By “preamp,” Schiit means that the Jotunheim provides two selectable line-level inputs (one balanced and one single-ended), two “pre-out” outputs (one balanced and one single-ended), and—of course—a volume control.
On its front panel, the Jotunheim offers switchable gain (6dB or 18dB) and both unbalanced ¼” TRS and balanced four-pin XLR headphone jacks.
The Jotunheim uses only discrete components in what Schiit calls its “Pivot Point” current feedback topology.
HE6se?
The Schiit website assures potential customers that Schiit’s Jotunheim amplifier is “ready for any headphone.” “IEMs? Sure. HE-6? Sure.” “[J]ust be confident that you can plug any headphone into Jotunheim and get great sound, with ultimate power and authority.”
I knew then that the first headphone I would try would be the $1800, 83.5dB/mW, 50 ohm HiFiMan HE6se. The main song I used was Bob Dylan’s new “Murder Most Foul,” released on March 27 as a gift to his fans (24/96 FLAC Columbia/Qobuz). This song is almost 17 minutes long and requires repeated listening to grasp its hidden intentions and the satisfying quality of its recording.
The HE6se is probably the hardest-to-drive headphone on the market. Powered by the Jotunheim, I was hard-pressed to notice anything but fresh vigor emanating from Dylan and the HE6se. They had good flow and momentum. They had strong bass, a textured midrange, and vivid, detailed highs. Best of all, the HE6se gave me an open view into Dylan’s intimate monologue and how it was recorded. Headphone amplifiers with insufficient “power and authority” will get dull and slow and unnaturally dark driving the HE6se. The Jot did not.
My floorstanding system made this song, which is about the Kennedy assassination, sound too long and hard to follow. It took me three tries to make it to the end.
With the Mytek Brooklyn+ DAC driving the Schiit Jotunheim through the badass HiFiMans, I played it through twice—for fun—and understood every carefully articulated word, as though Dylan was in my room speaking to me in private. Previous to the Jot, only the ZMF Pendant and Pass Labs HPA-1 amplifiers had played the HE6se with more life force and transparency.
Jot with Vérité
That $2000 ZMF Pendant amplifier played the $2499, 300 ohm ZMF Vérité Closed closed-back headphones with eager force and delicate, lacelike detail. Piano reproduction was weighty and balanced across the entire keyboard. Melody was gloriously emphasized. So of course I had to check what the more budget-friendly Jotunheim could do with ZMF’s flagship headphone.
The Jot + Vérité played Ito Ema playing J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (on her Steinway Model D piano) with superb tone, excellent dynamics, just-right note attack, and rousing forward momentum (CD, M•A Recordings MO24A). Note decays were a little short, but there was still a satisfying amount of natural reverberance. The Vérité was the Schiit Jotunheim’s favorite headphone.
HEDD Audio HEDDphone
To the best of my knowledge, the $1899 HEDD Audio “HEDDphone” headphones employ the world’s first and only full-range, air-motion-transformer (AMT) drive-units. That’s a big deal, because in countless commercial and audiophile incarnations, AMT tweeters have proven their ability to reproduce high frequencies with a unique, low-distortion ease. The question here is: Can AMTs do low distortion for nine or 10 octaves?
Designed by Dr. Oskar Heil, the AMT is a simple dipole transducer that, when signal is applied, squeezes air from the accordion-like folds of a sheet of polyimide film with a conductive trace deposited on its surface. This folded diaphragm is called an “air motion transformer” because opposing currents cause it to squeeze like an accordion, ejecting air from its folds at a velocity several times higher than the motion of the diaphragm itself.
I have been waiting, since the AMT patents ran out, for engineers somewhere to more fully exploit the potential of Dr. Heil’s brilliant invention. And now, Klaus Heinz, founder of both HEDD (Heinz Electrodynamic Designs) and ADAM Audio—and clearly someone with a lot of AMT-driver design experience—has worked out a new “variable diaphragm geometry” called “VVT technology” that uses folds of varying width and depth that, according to the HEDD Audio website, allow the HEDDphone to reproduce the “complete audible frequency band.” (footnote 2)
Footnote 1: Schiit Audio, 24900 Anza Dr., Unit A Valencia, CA 91355. Tel: (323) 230-0079. Web: schiit.com.
Footnote 2: HEDD Audio GmbH, Salzufer 13/14, 10587 Berlin. Web: hedd.audio/heddphone. US Distributor: RAD Distribution. Web: raddist.com.
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