[kstuart]

This with a vali and an HD600 is just the bee's knees. 

I did try the Multibit Bifrost with the Vali ... and like jfoxvol I do also use a Vali in my late night setup.  It has great resolving power of detail (and pairs well with the Mad Dog Pro that I use with it).  It's possibly the best amp in the sub-$200 category.  (to quote Jason "I have not heard everything").
 
However, the big flaw of the Vali is that it has poor instrumental timbre - everything has the timbral quality of an electric guitar string.*  That makes it fine for rock, metal and EDM and for fun listening in general.
 
However, one of the biggest strengths of the Multibit Bifrost is the excellent instrumental timbre... if you pair it with a Vali, you are wiping out all those precise overtones.
 
So, use the Bimby with a better amp (unless you only listen to metal ).  Asgard 2 perhaps, or better, or there are probably Asgard 1's floating around used at bargain prices.
 
===
 
( * that is a description of the timbral quality.  It's not like there are zero aspects of the original instrument character, but just not as much as an amp that does timbre better. )

 

[earnmyturns]

  However, one of the biggest strengths of the Multibit Bifrost is the excellent instrumental timbre... if you pair it with a Vali, you are wiping out all those precise overtones.
 
So, use the Bimby with a better amp (unless you only listen to metal ).  Asgard 2 perhaps, or better, or there are probably Asgard 1's floating around used at bargain prices.

Just listening to the the opening movement of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra in the great Fritz Reiner/CSO/RCA recording on Synology NAS FLAC > SOtM sMS-100 > Bimby > Asgard 2 > MrSPeakers Alpha Prime. Instrumental timbres come out beautifully. Spaciousness and dynamic range don't get to being in prime seats at Davies Symphony Hall, but still a very detailed rendering, with each instrument group clearly represented. The percussion at the start of the second movement popped out just right, and the combined strings, brass, and woodwinds followed with great presence. Overall, a delightful listening experience.

 

[jfoxvol]

I did try the Multibit Bifrost with the Vali ... and like jfoxvol I do also use a Vali in my late night setup.  It has great resolving power of detail (and pairs well with the Mad Dog Pro that I use with it).  It's possibly the best amp in the sub-$200 category.  (to quote Jason "I have not heard everything").

However, the big flaw of the Vali is that it has poor instrumental timbre - everything has the timbral quality of an electric guitar string.*  That makes it fine for rock, metal and EDM and for fun listening in general.

However, one of the biggest strengths of the Multibit Bifrost is the excellent instrumental timbre... if you pair it with a Vali, you are wiping out all those precise overtones.

So, use the Bimby with a better amp (unless you only listen to metal ).  Asgard 2 perhaps, or better, or there are probably Asgard 1's floating around used at bargain prices.

===

( * that is a description of the timbral quality.  It's not like there are zero aspects of the original instrument character, but just not as much as an amp that does timbre better. )

I may need to break out my Asgard now. I still absolutely love the tonality that these two together bring. I'm hoping for a Vali 2 soon. It's such a great sounding amp. It's not perfect but is just magical and musical.

 

[billerb1]

I too have been very impressed with the ability of the Multibit to render instrument timbre in very real terms.  I'm a drummer who has played in live settings for nearly 50 years.  Closest thing to being behind a kit that I've ever heard on headphones with the MultiFrost/Beyer T1/Woo WA2 combo.  Lot of "bottom" to the toms, solid woody substance to the snare and very nuanced cymbal detail.  And THE best acoustic piano I've ever heard when the recording quality is up to snuff.  Great Schiit.

 

[theblueprint]

I may need to break out my Asgard now. I still absolutely love the tonality that these two together bring. I'm hoping for a Vali 2 soon. It's such a great sounding amp. It's not perfect but is just magical and musical.

Love my vali, it's also my go-to amp for the Mad Dogs. I love how it brings the vocals and mids a little more upfront. The intimacy in addition to its clarity makes it a great amp. Can't wait to try it with the multifrost when I finally upgrade.

 

[kstuart]

I may need to break out my Asgard now. I still absolutely love the tonality that these two together bring. I'm hoping for a Vali 2 soon. It's such a great sounding amp. It's not perfect but is just magical and musical.

I don't think there will be a Vali 2.   That was a chance availability of tubes that happened to work out very well for a headphone amp.  I don't think there is anything more they can do with those tubes that they did not already do at the time.

 

[jfoxvol]

One can hope. They hit one out of the park with this one.

 

[jimmers]

  I don't think there will be a Vali 2.   That was a chance availability of tubes that happened to work out very well for a headphone amp.  I don't think there is anything more they can do with those tubes that they did not already do at the time.

Vali 2 Uber; aluminium case to match the Modi 2 Uber and line out.

 

 

[cyberridz]

I have written a short impression on the 4490 here:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/783686/schiit-bifrost-4490-impressions/30
 
Wondering if anyone is willing to post up some impressions of the 4490 vs. the Multibit? I am very interested in comparing the two. I found the 4490 to be a very outstanding and capable DAC for its price. It sounds completely different from the older Bifrost and Bifrost Uber. I am very happy with it to be honest.
 
Thanks.

 

[earnmyturns]

Just came back from dinner, after a nice pre-dinner listening session. I had left the whole chain on (SOtM sMS-100, Bimby, and Asgard 2). I decided to play some different music (a FLAC rip of Joe Henderson's So Near, so Far). As soon as the first track started (Miles Ahead), I heard an awful distortion in the mid frequencies, like a sawtooth wave overlaying the music. I turned off the Bimby, waited for it to reboot, and happily the problem went away and I'm hearing Henderson's horn clearly as I hoped to, as well as Dave Holland's driving bass, Al Foster's light touch on the drums, and John Scofield's swirling arabesques. But the Bimby's glitch is a bit concerning, given how Schiit advises to keep the Bimby on at all times. I used the sMS-100 with the Buber since April, and sometimes I've also used it with a Bel Canto C7R speaker amp without anything like this, so I'm relatively confident its USB output is not the culprit.
 
Update: It just occurred to me that there was a sample rate change (88.2/24 to 44.1/16), I wonder if that is causing some unhappiness in the sMS-100>Bimby connection that was reset when I rebooted the Bimby.

 

[jimmers]

I just came back to my PC and un-paused foobar to continue my music but Bimby had disappeared (?)
I cycled Bimby power and after the light-cycle Foobar had it again and all OK.
 
Also,
sometimes playback jiggles in one position, not stopped, just repeating the same fraction of a second over and over until I click the current location on the progress bar and it continues.
Just a little flaky as it is. (I'm using Windows generic driver as I can't load the Schiit one). Sounds good though.

 

[Billheiser]

Got my Bimby upgrade today, and happy!  Really like the sound, it IS an upgrade from Uberfrost.  Better sense of space, and I'm hearing more resolution but in a natural way, not "etched".  Maybe a little stronger bass too sometimes, not sure.
But when I switch up to hi rez tracks (24/96 or 24/192 via USB), I get a terrible scratchy sound with high frequency noise while the music is playing.  Once I had it on 16/44 too, when I switched back down to that.  Each time I've solved it by stopping the music, cycling through the 3 inputs, and then it played fine.  Did not have to cycle it on and off.  So I can fix it in 10 seconds or less, each time.  But why does it do that?

 

[grrorr76]

  Got my Bimby upgrade today, and happy!  Really like the sound, it IS an upgrade from Uberfrost.  Better sense of space, and I'm hearing more resolution but in a natural way, not "etched".  Maybe a little stronger bass too sometimes, not sure.
But when I switch up to hi rez tracks (24/96 or 24/192 via USB), I get a terrible scratchy sound with high frequency noise while the music is playing.  Once I had it on 16/44 too, when I switched back down to that.  Each time I've solved it by stopping the music, cycling through the 3 inputs, and then it played fine.  Did not have to cycle it on and off.  So I can fix it in 10 seconds or less, each time.  But why does it do that?

your probably best to email schist tech support and ask them. I don't think thats normal at all.

 

[nedifer]

  I just came back to my PC and un-paused foobar to continue my music but Bimby had disappeared (?)
I cycled Bimby power and after the light-cycle Foobar had it again and all OK.
 
Also,
sometimes playback jiggles in one position, not stopped, just repeating the same fraction of a second over and over until I click the current location on the progress bar and it continues.
Just a little flaky as it is. (I'm using Windows generic driver as I can't load the Schiit one). Sounds good though.

 
Hi jimmers,
 
The first issue you mentioned sounds like it could be that your computer cut power to the USB port while you were away.  You should go into Device Manager on your computer and go through all of the devices in the 'Universal Serial Bus' section and turn off the check box for 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' (or at least do it for the USB controller for the port that your computer is plugged into, if you know enough to figure out which one that is).
 
That might help.
 
 

 
 

 

[earnmyturns]

  But when I switch up to hi rez tracks (24/96 or 24/192 via USB), I get a terrible scratchy sound with high frequency noise while the music is playing.  Once I had it on 16/44 too, when I switched back down to that.  Each time I've solved it by stopping the music, cycling through the 3 inputs, and then it played fine.  Did not have to cycle it on and off.  So I can fix it in 10 seconds or less, each time.  But why does it do that?

As I described in my earlier post, I also got that horrible sawtooth-like sound when I switched from 24/88.2 to 16/44.1, which was fixed by turning Bimby off and on and waiting for the LEDs to stop switching. I suspect there's something iffy in the switching between sample rates, maybe around the protocol negotiation between the USB source and Bimby. But my source is not that usual, a SOtM sMS-100 (now discontinued), a small Linux box with some proprietary software on top of MPD 0.18.11, so we may be seeing similar behavior with different sources.