[ColtMrFire]

  So had my girlfriend over tonight & we listened to the two DACs blind. My GF listened to three songs, and preferred the 4490 bifrost two out of the three. We then switched and I preferred the bifrost all three times.

 
Some people prefer "velvety" sound.  Nothing wrong with that.

 

[madwolfa]

  Now I take great umbrage at this statement.  It is very easy to set up a test station to clearly demonstrate that Bimby - Mimby will output all original samples unchanged up to 192KHz sr, and Gumby-Yggy will do the same up to 396KHz sr.  You may dispute the sonic value of that capability, but the fact remains that the original samples are preserved.  

 
Sample rate is non-issue. I think what he meant is playing back the files with higher than DAC's native bit-depth resolution. What happens internally with 24 bit files?

 

[Peti]

  So had my girlfriend over tonight & we listened to the two DACs blind. My GF listened to three songs, and preferred the 4490 bifrost two out of the three. We then switched and I preferred the bifrost all three times.

I wish I could do that with my girlfriend!

 

[pkcpga]

Sample rate is non-issue. I think what he meant is playing back the files with higher than DAC's native bit-depth resolution. What happens internally with 24 bit files?

Only true 24 bit files I know are DSD and no schiit product plays DSD or higher than 20 bit, so the DAC does not play or recognize the song.

 

[rmoody]

Only true 24 bit files I know are DSD and no schiit product plays DSD or higher than 20 bit, so the DAC does not play or recognize the song.

DSD is 1 bit, the interwebz says so: The signal is stored as delta-sigma modulated digital audio; a sequence of single-bit values at a sampling rate of 2.8224 MHz.
 
Somewhere Mike/Jason commented on what happens if (and that's a big if) a 24 bit signal is sent, something about it doesn't process those bits. They also stated that it's highly unlikely that any audio you find will actually use all 24 bits.

 

[madwolfa]

  Somewhere Mike/Jason commented on what happens if (and that's a big if) a 24 bit signal is sent, something about it doesn't process those bits. They also stated that it's highly unlikely that any audio you find will actually use all 24 bits.

 
That's true, but some math is still involved to truncate those extra bits down to 16 and maybe some form of dithering is required to deal with quantization errors... So in this case the original samples are probably not there anymore?

 

[ColtMrFire]

So let me get this straight.  The guy who developed, designed and built the DACs in question says the original samples are preserved, and yet random nobodies on this forum (who've probably never built a circuit board let alone a DAC) keep insisting he's full of schiit and doesn't know what he's talking about, regarding his own invention.
 
This place never ceases to amaze me.
 
Keep fighting the good fight @Baldr 

 

[madwolfa]

In my case I'm just genuinely curious. As I said earlier, I couldn't care less about the high-res formats. Redbook 44/16 audio plus Schiit's Multibit technology is all I'd ever need for my listening.

 

[yage]

  So let me get this straight.  The guy who developed, designed and built the DACs in question says the original samples are preserved, and yet random nobodies on this forum (who've probably never built a circuit board let alone a DAC) keep insisting he's full of schiit and doesn't know what he's talking about, regarding his own invention.
 
This place never ceases to amaze me.
 
Keep fighting the good fight @Baldr 

 
Hey at least this random nobody is trying to understand the theory and concepts behind the marketing instead of using ad copy to try to shout down another poster's valid experiences.

 

[Defiant00]

In my case I'm just genuinely curious. As I said earlier, I couldn't care less about the high-res formats. Redbook 44/16 audio plus Schiit's Multibit technology is all I'd ever need for my listening.

 
I believe @Baldr said previously that 24-bit samples are rounded down to whatever bit depth the DAC supports. So you're right, not the original samples when dealing with high-res.

 

[yage]

   
That's true, but some math is still involved to truncate those extra bits down to 16 and maybe some form of dithering is required to deal with quantization errors... So in this case the original samples are probably not there anymore?

 
Well, Wikipedia has this to say about dither:
 

Dither should be added to any low-amplitude or highly periodic signal before any quantization or re-quantization process, in order to de-correlate the quantization noise from the input signal and to prevent non-linear behavior (distortion); the lesser the bit depth, the greater the dither must be. The result of the process still yields distortion, but the distortion is of a random nature so the resulting noise is, effectively, de-correlated from the intended signal. Any bit-reduction process should add dither to the waveform before the reduction is performed.

 

   
I believe @Baldr said previously that 24-bit samples are rounded down to whatever bit depth the DAC supports. So you're right, not the original samples when dealing with high-res.

 
I haven't heard anything untoward when decoding bits via SPDIF from my Oppo BDP-103 (48 kHz / 24 bit) - but maybe that's because the dynamic range of the Mimby is ~94 dB.

 

[jimmers]

   
Sample rate is non-issue. I think what he meant is playing back the files with higher than DAC's native bit-depth resolution. What happens internally with 24 bit files?

 
previously  ...
http://www.head-fi.org/t/815368/happy-as-a-pig-in-schiit-introducing-modi-multibit/615#post_12795039

 

[SilverTrumpet999]

Dither is something you do in ADC. The quote tells you exactly when and why. DACs do not need to do this, nor should they. If you pass extra information, the most significant 16-20 bits get used. It's not more complicated than that. Discussing truncation vs. rounding (IEEE correct or not) doesn't matter, because the difference is elementary below 14 real bits of loudness.

Most people clearly don't have a strong grasp on DSP theory, and why doing what Shiit has pulled off is so impressive.

 

[madwolfa]

  previously  ...
http://www.head-fi.org/t/815368/happy-as-a-pig-in-schiit-introducing-modi-multibit/615#post_12795039

 
Thanks, missed it somehow.

 

[theveterans]

 Euphonic?  I never thought I was producing euphonies.  As I have written in my own thread, a true audio pioneer, Mr Peter Walker told me 40 some years ago at the beginning of this road for me that it was my duty to reproduce music, not to alter it.  I still have a set of his original Quad Loudspeakers today.  Your statement about bypassing the filter puzzles me - if you have a mb Schiit DAC, the filter is always there, yup, no way to get rid of it.  

 
Pardon my ambiguous statement sir.
 
I meant, you upsample the Mimby/Bimby to 192 KHz on the software rather than the DAC oversampling it.
 
Euphonic sounding to me is very pleasing sound that puts a smile on my face despite the dead-on neutral sound signature of your multibit DAC.
 
NOS I mean non-oversampling where the samples aren't oversampled and filtered, it goes straight to DAC (Eg. NOS DIY PCM 1704 R2R DAC). Whether the sound those NOS R2R DACs make is accurate to the source (since there is literally no processing of the digital samples before it goes to the DAC) is up to your ears to decide.