[compoopers]

Moreover, why was it that at first, people seemed to think that the Magni/Modi were pretty much the same to the O2/ODAC, and now suddenly after a couple people mention it, everyone is flooding with the idea that it is bright?

I'm incredibly skeptical of these claims until an A/B/X test can be done to determine if the modi/magni is truly brighter or if people are just imagining it.

 

[proton007]

Any idea why the Schiit combo is cheaper than the O2/ODAC combo?
 
What is the technical difference between the two? Apart from the obvious battery and gain differences, that is.

 

[Tequilasunriser]

Quote:

Any idea why the Schiit combo is cheaper than the O2/ODAC combo?
 
What is the technical difference between the two? Apart from the obvious battery and gain differences, that is.

NwAvGuy (the dude that designed the ODAC/O2) and Schiit don't exactly get along and noting says "screw YOU!" better than under cutting the competition.
 
Modi and Magni are a direct result of the existence of the ODAC/O2, which was/is the king of the budget DACs and amps. Now with Modi and Mangi Schiit can enter the budget minded market.
 
I love competition in the market place, it creates better values for the consumer in the end.

 

[BrokeStudent]

Quote:

I love competition in the market place, it creates better values for the consumer in the end.

 
It's exactly why I finally bit the bullet and went with a full budget setup. I wanted a pair of HE-400's but couldn't justify another $350 (after shipping and broker to canada) for a DAC/AMP. This combo is nearly $100 cheaper and that was enough for me to place my orders.
 
Competition really is great.

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

Any idea why the Schiit combo is cheaper than the O2/ODAC combo?
 
What is the technical difference between the two? Apart from the obvious battery and gain differences, that is.

 
Hm...
 
Magni vs. O2:
Materials costs for both are pretty low, for high-volume orders, probably even lower for Magni because no batteries, steel rather than aluminum enclosure.  The ICs that both use should all be pretty cheap, even the op amps in the O2.  Neither has heatsinks inside I think, and both just use a AC/AC wallwart with the Magni's needing to be a little more expensive.  Magni has primarily surface-mount parts (i.e. placed and soldered by machine), so with a large order there, labor costs should be lower.  That's where the real savings are, even though apparently one can stuff and solder an O2 in about half an hour.
 
Modi vs. ODAC:
Again, materials costs should be pretty low for both.  The ODAC is all surface-mount parts inside, with probably pretty much the same story for the Modi.  ODAC is $100 for a board from a reseller like JDSLabs, which includes profits for the reseller as well as for George Boudreau (the guy that did mostly the USB part of the design, gets the boards ordered, and so on).  Original pricing was based on trying to break even on a couple / few hundred boards.  I think they've surpassed original targets by a fair margin by now.
 
Anyway, it's not like the price points for any of these are close to total production and labor costs.  Pricing is based on whatever profit margin they want to keep.  That said, most more-expensive audio gear has much much higher margins than these products.
 
ODAC and Modi materials costs have to be less than something like FiiO E10, which also has an internal amp and has dropped in price to about $55 on Amazon now.
 
edit: personally I think attributing the pricing to any other product in particular, as some are doing here, is probably a stretch.  But I know even less about business, so that's just my guess.

 

[Tequilasunriser]

Quote:

 now suddenly after a couple people mention it, everyone is flooding with the idea that it is bright?

 
Welcome to headphilia. People round these parts hear a lot of things that they're not actually hearing. People parrot the same sentiments over and over and it gets especially bad when it's a high profile member making the original statement. For the longest time Head-Fi was convinced that the Beyer DT880s had no bass. I read it everywhere.. no bass. The DT880s put out a filthy amount of bass if you want them to. Head rattling, fatiguing bass, again, if you want them to.
 
The best advice you'll get from Head-fi is to not take advice from Head-fi as everything is subjective. (I'm probably cruisin' for a bruisin' with that statement and this post, but it's true.)
 
Don't worry about the "bright" criticisms. In all likelihood the people parroting that claim either A.) Don't own it and haven't heard it but want to give their useless input, or B.) Can't hear for s*** and just use the last guys critique because it sounded good, takes little effort, and goes along with the status quo.

 

[compoopers]

Tequila, I personally don't mind anecdotal, non-statistical reviews, but I agree with your point that most of it is biased and almost none of the first week or two of impressions end up being true.

The nail in the coffin was headfonia's reviews, which are almost always biased toward some ********. When he claimed that they were bright, but "bad for bass-heavy headphones", while tons of here are parroting the same thing yet saying it's "bad for bass light headphones", I thought to myself, "if it's bad for bass-heavy, and bad for bass-light, what the hell is it good for?" That's when I realized that there's got to be some problems with what people are saying. Put that together with the fact that basically no one mentioned it's brightness (aside from a small tinge, maybe) until like, yesterday, and I'm incredibly skeptical. I'll wait for more A/B/X tests and measurements. In all likelihood, the Magni/Modi and the O2/ODAC are incredibly similar in measurement, if not identical. These "bright" claims are either gripes about incredibly minimal differences, or bias in the head.

 

[asdfghjkzxcvbnm]

haha the Schiit Stack

 

[asdfghjkzxcvbnm]

Well this is crap I just bought E09K+E17, it's worse than the magni+modi and it costs more? 

 

[proton007]

Quote:

 
Hm...
 
Magni vs. O2:
Materials costs for both are pretty low, for high-volume orders, probably even lower for Magni because no batteries, steel rather than aluminum enclosure.  The ICs that both use should all be pretty cheap, even the op amps in the O2.  Neither has heatsinks inside I think, and both just use a AC/AC wallwart with the Magni's needing to be a little more expensive.  Magni has primarily surface-mount parts (i.e. placed and soldered by machine), so with a large order there, labor costs should be lower.  That's where the real savings are, even though apparently one can stuff and solder an O2 in about half an hour.
 
Modi vs. ODAC:
Again, materials costs should be pretty low for both.  The ODAC is all surface-mount parts inside, with probably pretty much the same story for the Modi.  ODAC is $100 for a board from a reseller like JDSLabs, which includes profits for the reseller as well as for George Boudreau (the guy that did mostly the USB part of the design, gets the boards ordered, and so on).  Original pricing was based on trying to break even on a couple / few hundred boards.  I think they've surpassed original targets by a fair margin by now.
 
Anyway, it's not like the price points for any of these are close to total production and labor costs.  Pricing is based on whatever profit margin they want to keep.  That said, most more-expensive audio gear has much much higher margins than these products.
 
ODAC and Modi materials costs have to be less than something like FiiO E10, which also has an internal amp and has dropped in price to about $55 on Amazon now.
 
edit: personally I think attributing the pricing to any other product in particular, as some are doing here, is probably a stretch.  But I know even less about business, so that's just my guess.

Interesting. Seems like Schiit is really trying to compete with the O2, and looks like the same thing Google did with their Nexus line, selling it at lower margin to penetrate the market.
 
It will be interesting to see how the two compare in terms of measurements.

 

[proton007]

Quote:

Well this is crap I just bought E09K+E17, it's worse than the magni+modi and it costs more? 

Not entirely worse. The E17 is a DAC + Amp in itself, and also includes a screen, bass boost, battery power and Coax/Optical option.
 
So in terms of the feature set, I think the combo price is alright. It can sell for a lot more if re-badged as a more famous brand.

 

[asdfghjkzxcvbnm]

Quote:

Not entirely worse. The E17 is a DAC + Amp in itself, and also includes a screen, bass boost, battery power and Coax/Optical option.
 
 

What can I can actually do with Coax/optical?

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Certain devices only have SPDIF out, so no USB capabilities...

As for the M&M vs Fiio setup, spend some time with them and level match, and I bet the differences wouldn't as huge as you make it sound.

The E17+E9K is a terrific setup, and much more versatile, with additional functions that will further tweak the sound to your liking.

 

[proton007]

Quote:

What can I can actually do with Coax/optical?

 
Maybe no use to you, but that doesn't make it a bad deal.

 

[iMusicLover]

Hello guys O2+ Odac are good for HE- 500 or i should see for other my max budget are 300$.