It is not inexpensive by Schiit standards, but by prevailing high-end standards it is in the moderately priced class, and yet it is worthy of a place in any system. But the Loki Max aims higher, at the target of essentially ideal transparency, and to my mind hits that target. It was and is so inexpensive that one did not have to worry about exactly how good it is, although, in point of fact, it is very good. I was talking about the Loki Mini+ in my review almost in a spirit of fun. It is a remarkable component, indeed, worthy of a place in the most exotic systems there are-and a useful place it will be, too. Anything one inserts in a signal path will do something, but the Loki Max is amazingly close to doing nothing at all except what it is supposed to do, altering frequency response and, as a minimum-phase device, altering phase response correspondingly. Purists may find this hard to accept, but Schiit has come up with an EQ device that is transparent down to the level of the cable connections involved. It is less massive and less expensive than the Palette, but it has similar sonic goals and similar aims of uncompromised quality-aims which are accomplished superbly well. It is, in a sense, a contemporary reply to the famous Cello Audio Palette EQ device introduced in the early 1990s. I f the Loki Mini+, which I reviewed in February 2002, is an introduction to broadband EQ on the cheap (but good), the Loki Max is a head-on assault on the best possible analog EQ of the broadband type.
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