Schiit Freya plus. Is this an upgrade?

@ghasley - 20 dB reduction is very surprising. I haven't been able to find that information.  Like @wolf_garcia , mine is very quiet. With the gear at idle, I measure 37dB room noise from my listening seat 11 feet away. Noisy is not an adjective I would use to describe my Freya. Curious that others have found it noisy.

Tom

A preamp that seems whisper quiet in a typical system can suddenly have very noticeable noise (from seating position) when placed in a system with high-sensitivity speakers & amps. If your speakers are below 90 dB, your system probably won’t be a stress test for preamps, and you’ll be wondering about others’ complaints of noise. My speakers are 96 dB / Watt, 8 ohm, and amps output almost 300 Watts at 1V input. It is definitely a stress test for preamps. Impressively, the ARC REF 6 is whisper quiet here.

The Freya +’s noise spec of -115dB, if legit, is superb. Stereophile measured the REF 6 at -100dB, A-weighted.

@mulveling - that makes sense, thanks for the clarification. My Vandy 2Cs sensitivity is on the low side, about 86 dB if memory serves me correctly.

Tom

Interesting, and I'd buy one if my "original version" seemed noisy or lacking in some way

If you have a look, there's 4 new preamps in the Freya/Saga range.

And by saying the old was/could be noisy, it could have been only with measurements you could see this, not by ear, but this is enough to put the fear of god into some users to upgrade to the newer ones! Great Schiit marketing!!!!

Should be some great used buying of older models coming up soon.

Cheers George  

I also have been shocked and rendered defensive by those with noisy Freyas, although those mostly seemed from tubes. Maybe I can stop being such a "Schitt Defender." My speakers are 99db efficient and I’d know it if a pesky hum showed up...does the new Freya seem to have returned to the 12 db or so jump in tube mode? I’m used to that in mine, although it seemed later versions had lessoned that somehow...and the "tube shut-off" feature doesn’t matter to me since I only use the non tube modes to check on my tubes, and I turn everything off when I’m not around. So now I’m back to simply being a "me" defender.