Neck Deep in Schiit: Gungir Balanced DAC and Mjolnir Balanced Amp Announced!

[Jason Stoddard]

And... SACD questions are up:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/606053/the-schiit-sacd-dsd-research-thread-your-chance-to-win-a-bifrost

 

[sridhar3]

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Thanks for the update (and the poll)!

 

[Anathallo]

Just curious what headphones you use to verify the sound of your equipment?
 
What phones are sounding good on the Mjolnir?
 
 
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Hey all,
 
Not much to update yet, I'm afraid--we're deep in the physical layout and drawings of the statement stuff, so there's plenty of things yet to be worked out. Engineering is proceeding quickly, though, and the production-intent protos of Mjolnir and Gungnir are sounding good!
 
With respect to DSD, Mike is of the opinion that it's an inherently flawed format (and this is putting his response, ahem, very, very mildly), so we haven't spent much time with it. However, if enough people are using it, it's something we have to think about supporting. Which means it's probably time for another poll to see how many people have SACD/DSD and how much of their software is in that format. 
 
All the best,
Jason

 
 

 

[Jason Stoddard]

 
Quote:

Just curious what headphones you use to verify the sound of your equipment?
 
What phones are sounding good on the Mjolnir?
 
 
 
 

 
We're using pretty much all the headphones in my sig to verify the gear--and we'll soon have a pair of Anaxilus' modded HD800s and LCD-3s to add to the mix.
 
The early Mjolnir is a step up on all the headphones we've converted to balanced or have balanced cables for--really nice with Audeze, top-end Senns, HE-6, and Grados (PS500 is crazy good with Mjolnir.)
 

 

[Kremer930]

Life is great when you can write off a set of LCD3's against R&D.....

 

[AndreYew]

I don't know how normal people will use SACD with an external DAC.  The physical format is pretty much locked down, and there are one or two proprietary ways of transmitting that data from a couple of players, but I can't imagine what licensing costs, never mind the engineering effort, will be like.
 
I do know that you can hack older PS3s (the ones that can play SACDs, unlike the latest ones), and pull the DSD data off the disk, but that seems like a really small niche to serve.
 
DSD is also 64x44.1 kHz single-bit stream.  Unless you're using a DAC chip that can accept that kind of data, you will have to process the DSD to something else in order to convert it to analog.  I'm not sure DSD's really worth the trouble.
 
And I agree that DSD is inherently flawed as a format.  It's pretty much the dumbest thing one can do:  standardize a protocol around a snapshot of a particular technology at a certain time.  DSD is just the raw output of a single-bit delta-sigma ADC.

 

[M3NTAL]

How does the Mjolnir handle very sensitive, low impedance drivers and how is the volume control with them?  Dumbed up version... is this a good device for high-end custom in ear monitors?

 

[shaunybaby]

i spy with my little eye something beginning with s......
 

 
jude ( the owner of head fi ) has taken this picture so all credit to him!

 

[Maxvla]

Yummy!

 

[M-13]

^ Hotness!

 

[Kremer930]

Definitely look prototype. What is the deep blue led glow between the Bifrost and the intermediate amp? Is that a led within the Mjolnir?

 

[M-13]

 
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What is the deep blue led glow between the Bifrost and the intermediate amp? Is that a led within the Mjolnir?

 
The power of Thor...

 

[Kremer930]

After playing around with the iBasso Pb2 And feeding up to 2.5 wpc into my iems I am suddenly dreaming of the statement amp having 10 watts to feed to my HE6.

Jason.......Mooooaaaaaar please! :rolleyes:

 

[45longcolt]

The pic in Shaunybaby's post is definitely the prototype Mjolnir and Gungir, as demo'd at the Schiit table at the Village meet in LA just over a week ago. (Jason, Rina and Mike were wearing T-shirts - "Schiit happens.") Components still undergoing voicing at that point.
 
Blue light at the corner is a reflection.
 
And, Kremer930, the statement amp will have enough wattage to drive speakers - 50 wpc is the figure floating around.

 

[M-13]

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 50 wpc is the figure floating around.