Schiit Gungnir DAC - Page 62

Quote:

Originally Posted by deluxman 

 . . . .   Is the 3x price warranty the difference?  . . . .  .

FYI deluxman - the NAD M51 is approx. 1.5x the price of a USB Gungnir in Australia, not 3x.

R

• HDMI and AES/EBU inputs
• DSP volume control that "does not truncate bits"

I thought the M51 is priced at $2000 while the Gungnir is about $750, so almost like 3x. Has anyone compared the M51 to the Gungnir by the way?
 

As stated: "Not in Australia" - NAD is $1500 AUD - USB Gungnir is $1039 AUD.

Haven't heard it myself. Not enough outputs for me. Day-am...

R

I'm trying to run an older Mac Mini (G4, 10.4) into the Gungnir's USB input, and when I go to Sound Preferences Output, I get two copies of "Schiit USB Interface", and I get three copies of it in the Input section. Then System Preferences crashes. Has this happened to anyone else?

edit: when I select one of them and try to play back a system sound, the Gungnir clicks and the Mac Mini crashes.

10.4 probably doesn't have new enough drivers for the USB chipset in the Gungnir, so you'd have to update the machine or use something else.

The V192's XMOS chipset works fine with 10.4 but switching cables is a hassle, so I'll have to find my RCA/BNC cable and another USB converter so I can use the Gungnir's input selector. I sure hope that its USB input will work with an iPad/CCK.

Try upgrading or doing a clean install of 10.5 (Leopard)? Could be worth a shot.

Hard to believe Leopard is over 5 years old.

I found the cable, but not the converter so I poached an older V96 from elsewhere and no worries with 10.4.

Also the Gungnir's USB input works beautifully with the iPad/CCK, I'm currently listening to a fully balanced HE6 out of it

Quote:

Originally Posted by grokit 

The V192's XMOS chipset works fine with 10.4 but switching cables is a hassle, so I'll have to find my RCA/BNC cable and another USB converter so I can use the Gungnir's input selector. I sure hope that its USB input will work with an iPad/CCK.

I can tell you the Gungir's USB input will work with the IPAD/CCK --I use it all the time...

Jack

i have a macbook pro.

thinking about picking up a gungnir soon and was wondering if I should get usb or not.  ignoring difference in price, which input method would be superior ?

is jitter something i should be concerned with by using optical ?

also, is the macbook soundcard automatically bypassed when using the gungnir ?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mac336 

i have a macbook pro.

 

thinking about picking up a gungnir soon and was wondering if I should get usb or not.  ignoring difference in price, which input method would be superior ?

 

is jitter something i should be concerned with by using optical ?

 

 

also, is the macbook soundcard automatically bypassed when using the gungnir ?

I think you need to read this regarding your last comment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital-to-analog_converter

Short answer, yes. It is your soundcard.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mac336 

i have a macbook pro.

 

thinking about picking up a gungnir soon and was wondering if I should get usb or not.  ignoring difference in price, which input method would be superior ?

 

is jitter something i should be concerned with by using optical ?

 

 

also, is the macbook soundcard automatically bypassed when using the gungnir ?

Schiit's USB implementation is good enough that some users have reported preferring it over optical, and some have preferred the other when using a Mac.

When using the Gungnir, yes, you're bypassing the built-in DAC and amp in your Macbook.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mac336 

i have a macbook pro.

 

thinking about picking up a gungnir soon and was wondering if I should get usb or not.  ignoring difference in price, which input method would be superior ?

 

is jitter something i should be concerned with by using optical ?

 

 

also, is the macbook soundcard automatically bypassed when using the gungnir ?

If you want to go "faster" than 96Khz without downconverting - or another way of saying it, if you have content > 24bit/96khz (or intend to get some), then you need the USB as the MacBook and Mini S/PDIF(Toslink) will only do 96khz at most.  Apparently due to a hardware limitation of the chip that does the actual optical transmission.  Note that a lot of newer SACD are 176.4 khz.  So if you have a way to rip SACD (i.e. an old PS3) then you will have to convert to play those thru your DAC.

I'm on a mission to solve this by getting either an old Mac Pro (deskside) or a PC that can run "hackintosh" and utilize the S/PDIF Coax.

Cheers,

Frank

Or get a standalone USB to Spdif converter that will go up to 196k. I have both but was disappointed recently that the Gungnir's optional USB input didn't support OS 10.4 for a legacy Mac Mini. It worked out fine though, now I am using two converters into the coax inputs, 96k and 192k, feeding my Vizio monitor's optical out into the Toslink input, and using the USB input for an iPad via Apple's CCK.

So now all my Gungnir's connections are occupado except for the extra set of SE outputs, which seem to be begging for a stand-alone electrostatic amplifier. But I have my ears plugged (with headphones) and am singing out loud, continuously, so I can't hear them