My two cents. I have not looked at the Aegir in any detail, but i recall when it was announced they spoke of a Vidar with lower power and class-A - and the usual snarky (clever!) lines "more money, less power, schiit engineering". Gotta love that.
Now, whether it worked initially for them or not, i did this very thing 20+ years ago, when i took our 200 wpc high bias AB amp - same chassis, same circuit topology, same power supply designs - the whole 9 yards.
And changed it as follows:
-- "mostly" class A
(thermal reality limited being 100%, but this is simply a bias setting)
-- higher current-- lower rails (note the transformer cores were identical, just the winding count changed)
-- threw some expensive parts in where i always wanted them anyway
-- raised the price to cover the expensive parts
Superb results with no surprises. Became a bit of a cult amp, and I use the prototypes to this day.
So, whether Schiit did this or not, the playbook works just fine.
And i didn't even come up with a new confusing name for a complementary push-pull design running class A with no crossover distortion :-) What a load of marketing confusion. Why can't we just say what things are and do?
Mike's a very smart guy. I still have a Theta DSPro laying about and it's still quite good against modern units. I love my Modi3 (in bedroom system) and when its working my EITR is excellent. QC on both left much to be desired - both were initially defective. Not clear why...overall parts quality, soldering, etc. seems first rate, most of the corners cut are aesthetic and in the area of support/service.
G