Burson or Bitfrost

[totto2222]

i am going to get a dac for my system but i dont know which to get ?
my system would look like this
 
foobar 2000>burson da-160>schiit lyr>hd650
 
foobar 2000 >bitfrost>lyr>hd650
 
my budget is (top end ) 1000.00
heres my dilemma,i like the reviews on the burson but the price is on the end of my budget and i was hopping to have enough left over to save  some for new lcd2's
the bitfrost looks promising BUT nobody owns one yet so dont really know what to expect,if its like the lyr it's gonna have good quality and solid build
 
 
pros>burson,already out and reviewed so i kinda know what to expect for sound,high quality,solid build,highly recomended
pro's>bitfrost,price,already have dealt with schiit,build quality,made in usa,asthetics to match the lyr,have some money left over to start saving for a set of lcd's
 
cons>burson,price is at the very end of my budget,dont need all the extras(dual usb etc ) have to ship overseas to service
cons>bitfrost,too many unknowns,nobody has heard one,nothing to review,waitng list
 
i need some info to help me decide what to do,if you know of anything similar to these feel free to pipe in with suggestions
p.s. it must have usb,seperate power ( no usb power only) and be capable of 24/192
 
any help is taken into consideration
thanks

 

[nsk1]

I would go with Bifrost and start saving for LCD-2..

 

[olor1n]

There will be a lot of LCD-2's > Lyr > Bifrost rigs in a few weeks. Just wait for the flood of impressions. Just take care to filter out those who'll inevitably declare their new toy as the greatest straight out of the box. I believe Skylab will receive a review unit. Look for impressions from him and other experienced, more restrained members.

 

[Willakan]

I would happily recommend neither. In that price range, you would be better served by a Benchmark DAC1 USB, which is effectively completely transparent far beyond audibility and supports 24/96 via USB / 24/192 via anything else, which is on par with the other products you suggested. The Benchmark is a little over budget, but for that price you get verified, good quality engineering rather than the latest FOTM attempt at selling via buzzwords (as Burson and Schitt rave on about how opamps will mysteriously corrupt your music through methods unknown, thus requiring "fully discrete" designs, which get the reviewers all excited.)
 
 

 

[all300b]

The Benchmark comment is silly.  While Benchmark was one of the first companies pioneer quality computer audio a few years ago, what "special quality engineering" remains on the Benchmark DAC1 that is not available on the most DACs in that price range, or at much lower prices, in 2011?
 
They use a Centrance-based adaptive USB input system- it's fine- but more advanced solutions (asynchronous) are now available.  They upsample to an odd frequency (110) in order to use a single clock- better systems leave sampling alone or sample to powers of 2-4 and include two fixed frequency clocks for 44 and 48 based samples.  Their digital filtering is standard, run-of-the-mill, advances have been made here as well.
 
And most importantly their analog output stage does not represent "high end engineering."  It's just an AC coupled, off-the-shelf OP amp that is biased heavily into class A.  Of course THD will be low- all the leading OP amps use tons of negative feedback to make their THD numbers look good on the spec sheet.
 
All-in-all the Benchmark is a fine product.  I owned it for 2 years and for liked some aspects of the sound.  Then I bought the Burson HA-160D and it sounds clearly better- from the next room better.  
 
 
 
 
 

 

[olor1n]

Quote:

I would happily recommend neither. In that price range, you would be better served by a Benchmark DAC1 USB, which is effectively completely transparent far beyond audibility and supports 24/96 via USB / 24/192 via anything else, which is on par with the other products you suggested. The Benchmark is a little over budget, but for that price you get verified, good quality engineering rather than the latest FOTM attempt at selling via buzzwords (as Burson and Schitt rave on about how opamps will mysteriously corrupt your music through methods unknown, thus requiring "fully discrete" designs, which get the reviewers all excited.)
 
 

So you've heard the Bifrost a month out from release?

Care to enlighten everyone else on the planet how Schiit have failed to implement these buzzwords to your ears?
 

 

[TheWuss]

I keep seeing "bitfrost" everywhere i look. Hahaha.
I guess the brain puts the "bit" in there. Because we associate bits with digital audio...

Interesting name. Like all schiit products.
But will be most unfortunate if it turns out to be a cold sounding source.

 

[Head Injury]

It seems like you buy hype in a box with Schiit. Just because they made a couple inexpensive amps with unnecessary amounts of power output, everyone loves them. I won't recommend them until they start to publish more measurements and specs. The ones they do publish (for the Bifrost, 0.008% THD, SNR of 105dB) are unimpressive for the price. For $350 ($450 with USB) you'd be better off with something like a CEntrance DACport which has been shown by Stereophile to measure well.
 
There's been a few articles about how 24/192 files are not only completely unnecessary, but potentially harmful to audio quality. There's no point in a 24/192 USB DAC.

 

[Yikes]

The Benchmark was an OK (albeit over priced) DAC 2 or 3 years ago. I like many bought into the tremendous hype generated by numerous rave reviews and purchased a DAC 1. I found it a bit threadbare and analytical sounding. I tried for several months to build a system around the DAC 1's sound, but there is no turning a pigs ear into a silk purse. I sold it and moved on. Now it's three years further on and I seriously doubt that it's Cost/Performance ratio has improved.
 
The Schiit is at this point vaporware and I haven't heard the Burson, but I doubt that I would dislike either of them more than the DAC 1. IMO the DAC 1 was over-rated 3 years ago, now it's just a has been.

 

[all300b]

There's just nothing from an engineering standpoint that's novel about the Benchmark anymore.  If you want to credit them for being part of the computer DAC revolution or think that others borrowed some of their approaches, fine, but it no longer stands out as much of a value at >$1200.  The new HRT music streamer II+ offer asynchronous USB transfer (better than the Benchmarks's adaptive system), a similar quality clock and DAC chip, marginally better digital filters, and a class A biased op-amp output stage for $350.  It also sounds quite nice- they picked a different op-amp that is a touch warmer than the National op-amp in the Benchmark- matter of taste- these all have distortion levels below audibility,

In the $1000 range some of the best choices are Anedio, Eastern Electric, Burson, Wavelength proton, Audio G-D...
 
 

 

[Willakan]

The reason I bought up the Benchmark was that it represents prettymuch the measurable pinnacle of audio. It is, in fact, technologically superior to the Bifrost - let me explain:
asynchronous USB transfer (better than the Benchmarks's adaptive system): Common misconception. As it happens, Benchmark license a proprietary method of jitter reduction, which, from a measurable standpoint, is about as good as it gets.
similar quality clock and chip: Means bugger all, it's all in the implementation.
Marginally better digital filters: I fail to see how you can audibly improve on the filters of the Benchmark.
Class A biased op-amp output stage: I fail to see how you can audibly improve on the output stage of the Benchmark.
 
But then again, you're talking about opamp sound signatures, so we're coming at this from different sides of the divide. I would say that opamp specs by themselves are incredibly insignificant - it's how you use them that counts.
 
And yes, the Bifrost's specs are very unimpressive, largely thanks to their obsession with "fully discrete" designs to please those who buy into audiophile mythology. That said, it seems to be working.
 

 

[olor1n]

^ No one is talking up Schiit here. I'm just curious as to how you've heard the Bifrost a month out from release to have come to these conclusions.

 

[Shike]

Anyone that would recommend the Bifrost before release is being disingenuous, however going by their amps I wouldn't expect much (I don't fully trust their products honestly).
 
However, the Bifrost seems to be the only DAC I know of that supports 24/192 over USB - take that for what it's worth I guess.

 

[Yikes]

I for one am tempted by the Bifrost. I will however probably wait for the Schiit statement DAC. I have 4 digital front ends (3 DAC's 1 SACD Player) all of which sell/sold for significantly more than the Bifrost, and all perform very well. So I'd be surprised if the Bifrost bettered any of them. The Bifrost is being designed by a great engineer, one of the true pioneers of high performance high end DAC's. Knowing Mike Moffat's previous work I'm excited by what I'm hearing about his upcoming efforts.
 
As far as the Benchmark goes; I'd retell a story.
 
I loaned the head engineer of Benchmark a high end power cable to try with the Benchmark DAC-1. After two months I called him to find out what they thought. He said that they had measured the cable and its impact on the DAC-1 and that their was no measurable difference. At which point I asked if they had actually listened to it; He replied "Why would we do that?"
 
I'm not saying that they would have heard a difference, or that they should have heard a difference, but the fact that they didn't even bother to plug it in and give it a try says something profound about how they engineer their equipment. Ultimately any audio product is intended to reproduce or make Music, and if a designer doesn't listen to the end product how good a product can it be?

 

[Willakan]

I think I'll bugger off at this point before I derail the thread/outstay my welcome, but I'm afraid I'm with the Benchmark engineer on that one. The day high end power cables are proven to work is the day I burn all the books in my house that make passing reference to physics.
And of course I haven't heard the Bifrost, I'm just going by how they say they've designed it, which to my mind doesn't make a whit of sense from an audio quality perspective.