2025 Budget Product of the Year: Schiit Audio Tyr Monoblock Amplifiers

$3398/pr.

The Tyr monoblock amplifiers from Schiit Audio answer with a resounding “yes” the longstanding question of whether an amplifier can offer both accuracy and musicality. This question arose in the early years of the high end, when there seemed to be tension between usual measures of technical accuracy and desirable listening impressions. And amplifiers which combined the two characteristics were most often pure Class A and thus either low-powered or, if high-powered, both huge and hugely expensive. Analog amplification is a mature technology, but progress still happens, and the Tyrs offer both superb technical performance, publicly documented by Schiit, high power at 200W, and a completely satisfying listening experience at a reasonable price. The Tyrs have complete resolution—what there is to hear you will hear—but without any exaggeration of high frequences or artificial edge-exaggeration in imaging. They are wide in bandwidth and neutral in timbre, low in output impedance, but without any edginess that often accompanies wide-bandwidth designs. Their spatial presentation reflects the spatial information on recordings in full truth, and as monoblocks, their channel separation is total. They push every explicit button, technical and in sonic criteria. But beyond this, in a way not easy to quantify, they have “nameless graces which no methods teach”: While they present recordings in all truth and honesty, the Tyrs also present them as satisfyingly as possible by completely avoiding any amusical alterations. Here, truth really is beauty after all. (353)

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