[ReelDeal]

I am getting a multibit Bifrost. I have a Wyred4Sound Recovery (one of the upgraded models that works with the Bifrost). I was going to go USB out of my Macbook Pro into the Recovery, into the Bifrost. But then I read that the USB input on the Bifrost isn't as good as the optical or coax. I can do optical out of my Macbook, but I've also read that optical has the most jitter in general (compared to USB and coax). 
 
SO... from what I hear, the Recovery will 'clean up' the jitter of the USB output from my Macbook, but the USB input on the Bifrost isn't as good. The optical in on the Bifrost is better than the USB, but optical has more jitter. 
 
Oh, I forgot, I can do USB out of my Mac to a USB/SPDIF converter to coax in on the Bifrost. But the converter doesn't 'clean up' the signal out of Mac. I don't really want to go USB >> Recovery >> USB/SPDIF converter >> Bifrost (via coax). That is a lot of connections. If it is best, I will, but - is it??
 
What have people been doing... do people suggest?

 

[PurpleAngel]

You could spend hours or days trying to figure out which connection to use.
Connect the Mac to the Bifrost using USB, nothing is perfect.
Go to the website Majorgeeks, find the best free program for playing audio files from a Mac.

 

[ReelDeal]

  You could spend hours or days trying to figure out which connection to use.
Connect the Mac to the Bifrost using USB, nothing is perfect.
Go to the website Majorgeeks, find the best free program for playing audio files from a Mac.

 
I know, this hobby can become a blackhole if you let it. ... Thanks for the 'heads up' about Majorgeeks. Hadn't heard of that one.

 

[rsnblmn]

The Bifrost has some counter measures internally to de-crapify USB, so I wouldn't really worry that much about jitter as long as you have a USB connection that stays reliably connected.  It seems like the bigger / more common issue is that USB ports and system drivers vary from computer to computer, and many computers have over-aggressive power management schemes, etc, that make USB ports power down or "sleep" at inopportune times. 
 
If your Macbook is a recent model, it is more likely to have some of these more aggressive power management issues from what I have heard.  Every generation of computers seems to get more and more paranoid about saving energy.  My Macbook is an older mid-2010 model, so I haven't experienced any USB issues with my Bifrost on it, and the USB connection has also been rock solid on my Windows 10 PC which has an Asus Sabertooth Z77 motherboard.
 
It seems to be consensus that coax SPDIF is the most reliable connection, but I've only seen it as a native output option on CD players / transports.  I admit I have never tried any of the USB/SPDIF dingus things, but fundamentally, it just doesn't seem like it would be very beneficial as you'd still need to have a driver for the USB end of it to talk to the PC/Mac and adding more complexity to a signal chain doesn't seem like a good thing.  The only use case that makes sense to me for a converter like that would be if you had a DAC that *only* accepts coax/SPDIF in and can't do USB in.  Otherwise, I don't see any benefit over going USB to USB if you have the option.
 
Anyhow, I've been really happy with my Bifrost 4490 over USB so far.  The Multibit version upgrade is very tempting, though...

 

[ReelDeal]

Thanks rsnblmn. That makes sense. ... I'm number 2 in the Schiit queue to get the upgrade. Will know soon what difference it makes.

 

[rsnblmn]

Nice! Please post your impressions once you get your upgrade. I'm always interested to hear the observations of people who've owned/tried both versions of the Bifrost. It doesn't seem like there have been that many reviews of that type.

 

[Pete Schiller]

I purchased/did all of the following within the last six weeks:
 
Mac Mini 1.4MHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD -> iTunes -> BitPerfect -> Bifrost MB -> Schiit SYS -> Valhalla 2 (stock tubes) -> Sennheiser HD 600
Pro-Ject Debut Carbon DC turntable with Ortofon 2M Red cartridge -> Schiit Mani -> Schiit SYS -> ...
Blue Jeans LC-1 cables, Belkin Gold USB cable (connecting Mac Mini directly to Bifrost MB)
CDs re-imported into iTunes as Apple Lossless files
 
I'm kind of blown away by how well it all sounds. I haven’t listened to other headphones, amps, DACs, etc., but I’m having a hard time imagining something considerably better sounding.
 
I was running out of space on my MacBook Pro (256GB SSD), so I bought the Mac Mini to be a dedicated iTunes/BitPerfect server, which I'm running headless with my iPhone as the remote. Even with a 512MB RAM buffer for BitPerfect, it only uses about 2GB of RAM. I really haven't listened to vinyl all that much yet, because the digital to analog system just sounds so amazing.