Schiit DACs (Bifrost and Gungnir down, one to go)? The information and anticipation thread. - Page 92

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason Stoddard 

You should have gotten a power cord, but no other cables. We'll send you one!

 

Thanks Jason!

@ Pseudohippy

I was order number 217 or something like that.  I got the paypal notice on Sunday and the unit was at my home in NY on Wednesday.  Not bad Schiit (having lived in Germany for 2 years I love saying that, even thought they used the american spelling...)

tony

Quote:

Originally Posted by TS0711 

@ Pseudohippy

 

I was order number 217 or something like that.  I got the paypal notice on Sunday and the unit was at my home in NY on Wednesday.  Not bad Schiit (having lived in Germany for 2 years I love saying that, even thought they used the american spelling...)

 

tony

Thanks for taking the time to post that Tony. Im a patient guy but all this is getting me overly excited. That gives me a good idea that it should be very soon for me. Im only up the coast from them so hopefully it will arrive within two or three days. Good to hear most people are enjoying theirs.
 

Got my Bifrost yesterday (w/ USB, Order #215)!

Had a bit of a hiccup that turned out to not be the Bifrost's issue but my PC's own. At first I noticed something odd in that under Playback Devices the CMedia driver was only letting me choose in the 16-bit range of sample rate output, even though this is a 24/192 USB implementation. Just thought it was a weird Windows issue, though. Then after doing some brief 2 hour or so burn-in with Pink Noise, I did some listening. Everything sounded great until I began getting a strange wave "wa-wa-wa-wa" like distortion about halfway through the second song in a playlist. This would continue until I double-clicked a song again and re-started playback. Contacted Jason who thought it might be a driver issue, so he let me know they had updated the USB drivers at schiit.com/drivers and I might want to try them to rule out a driver issue. No dice. Tried other things - swapped out USB cables, DirectSound instead of WASAPI output in Foobar, tried other players beside Foobar, etc., and still had the issue. Just when I thought I might have a faulty USB card on my Bifrost, I remembered an old addage of sorts thrown around Computer Audio Asylum and some other forums - "not all USB ports are created equal." Sure enough, when I plugged my USB cable into another port, problem solved, no distortion, playback clean as a whistle! Really weird, never had problems with that port before, all other ports were disabled in Device Manager, the port in question had its own IRQ, etc., but apparently it either didn't like Bifrost or was fried. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there if anyone runs into similar problems.

Another piece of advice for Windows users of (I'm Win 7) the Bifrost with USB, the CMedia drivers were a bit inflexible for Jason and co. and as such have a lot of unnecessary clutter. Namely, if you look under your system tray -> volume icon -> right click -> Playback Devices tab, you'll see "USB 2.0 High Speed True HD Audio" for "Speakers" (this is the one you want!) but also "Digital Output", which is basically as if the USB board also had SPDIF/digital out, which it obviously doesn't. You can simply right click disable this, it won't do any harm, and will keep things less complicated (in Foobar, for instance, if you don't disable it you'll get an option to output sound in Foobar settings to "USB 2.0 High Speed True HD Audio Digital Out" as well as "Speakers" - Digital Out will produce no sound). If you go under the "Recording" tab in Playback Devices you'll also see a bunch of other unworking/not applicable stuff, e.g. "USB 2.0 High Speed True HD Audio Microphone", "Line In", "SPDIF In" etc. - disabling these also won't effect anything negatively, as far as I can tell, since, again, only "Speakers" is what you need here. Lastly, for some reason, after installing the driver for USB in Windows, at least in Win 7, "USB 2.0 High Speed True HD Audio" starts out only at 67% volume - I checked with Jason and he recommends you change this to 100% volume (to do so, system tray -> volume icon -> right-click -> playback devices -> right-click "USB 2.0 High Speed True HD Audio Speakers" -> levels tab -> slide volume bar to 100%).

In terms of sound - just fantastic. I'm coming from a Keces DA-151 Mk. 1 USB DAC, which was quite fantastic for its price range two or three years ago, but is isochronous, USB 1.0, limited to 16/44.1 etc., despite some good bells and whistles like a respectable chip (Burr-Brown PCM2702) and a toroidal transformer. Comparitively so far, lower noise floor, better soundstage and separation of instruments, and sensitivity to source material (MP3's versus FLAC, e.g.) - running to a Little Dot MKIII with Voshkod driver tubes and stock power tubes - also really brings out the warmth of the Little Dot's signature better than my last amp, which I guess is to say the Bifrost is fairly "neutral" and, apparently, my last DAC colored the sound more. Just some initial impressions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dyl1dyl 

 

Great review. Haha, maybe dCS should start getting worried about the upcoming Schiit Statement DAC. If Schiit's $350 DAC can match a $2000 DAC, their statement $1000+ DAC may just be good enough to take on the $10000+ heavyweights.
 

 

Please, can we *not* do this. It may have been tongue in cheek, but there are fora out there where various keyboard warriors take immense pleasure in holding up Head-Fi hype to the spotlight - lets not give them any more ammunition than they already have. I've seen hot rods that can cover a 1/4 mile faster than a stock Ferrari, but put 90% of people behind the wheel of both cars and I know which one they will choose.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maxvla 


I'll have to order an optical cable. Can't seem to find the one I had years ago.

Go to a store and buy 5-10 cheap ones and try them all.  Keep the one you like, return the rest.  You might notice some deviations in how the fiber is terminated and polished.  I have yet to try a sysconcepts cable yet but it's on the list.  I need a custom 1 incher.  >.<

Still have yet to hear glass but I know proper acrylic can be polished to be more transparent than regular glass so I'm not sure about that debate.  Perhaps transmission length is where glass pulls ahead.

x2. Very well-put, estreeter. Thanks for this key point of advice.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by estreeter 

Please, can we *not* do this. It may have been tongue in cheek, but there are fora out there where various keyboard warriors take immense pleasure in holding up Head-Fi hype to the spotlight - lets not give them any more ammunition than they already have. I've seen hot rods that can cover a 1/4 mile faster than a stock Ferrari, but put 90% of people behind the wheel of both cars and I know which one they will choose.

Jason,

what is the ETA in sending a batch to I enjoy Australia for distribution?

Quote:

Originally Posted by agisthos 

Thanks judmarc, I finally understand the difference between them now. This DAC you mention that does not do either, I presume is the TotalDAC which decodes a DSD stream using ladder resistors or something. Since Schiit claim their statement DAC will not be using any DAC chip perhaps that is the approach they are taking as well.

The DAC I was referring to, the only one I know of that doesn't do in-DAC oversampling on *non-DSD* material (though of course there may be others I'm unaware of), is the Phasure NOS1 24/768 async USB DAC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maxvla 

Well I'll get one just to see if it's the fix or if I need to go the USB module route. On these UERMs this noise is really distracting on anything remotely soft. Been listening to mostly rock/pop/metal to avoid it.

Maybe it's ground hum.  Optical is a cool thing to try on its own, so I won't discourage you at all from going that route, but meanwhile go to Google University re ground hum and see whether you can find a way to stop it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ecohifi 

Jason,

 

what is the ETA in sending a batch to I enjoy Australia for distribution?

I suspect that you needed a hyphen in there, Amigo !

http://www.i-enjoy.com.au/

Hey all,

Sorry to say the distributor situation is pretty grim--we ship first to direct sale customers, and we are now in backorder for first run of Bifrost, as we still try to finish up shipping the preorders (should be finished early next week.) Current preorders are all covered.

The second run starts hitting at the end of the month. We hope. I can't emphasize more that dates provided are *estimates*, or, in less fancy terms, *guesses.*

All the best,

Jason

Nothing for me so far, Still waitting... My order is #389

I like to know is there any GOOD usb cable include?