[schneller]

Does the GD 19/10th Ed. benefit much from a host of "add-ons" like the Regen, Jitterbug, etc.? 
 
Preferably not...
 
If such add-ons benefit the SQ, it seems to point out deficiencies in the DAC. The DAC should be as good without all the extras.

 

[HiAudio]

   
Based on my testing, the SE DAC-19 is better than the SE GMB.  You can find more details on the testing in the link in my signature.  Happy to answer any specific questions.

Yes, I read your review of DAC-19 vs. GMB. Pretty cool and thank you for that. After I learnt that the DAC does not have balanced output I began to lose interest in it. And my interest shift heavily to the GBM and then I found the review on the GMB by another fellow member. In that he particularly mentioned that "The sigma-delta Gungnir is a good DAC overall, but relatively to Audio-GD NFB-28 & Matrix X-Sabre DAC, the sigma-delta Gungnir has a more noticeable "digititis" that sounds too aggressive/harsh, especially with HD800." I happen to be looking for DAC for my HD800 paired with HDVA 600. I am looking for more user feedbacks.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/products/schiit-gungnir

 

[bimmer100]

Does the GD 19/10th Ed. benefit much from a host of "add-ons" like the Regen, Jitterbug, etc.? 

Preferably not...

If such add-ons benefit the SQ, it seems to point out deficiencies in the DAC. The DAC should be as good without all the extras.

I had the dac19-10th and now have the master11.
I also have the USB regen Amber and noticed no significant improvement worth spending money on it. A bit of a dissapointed result. The amanero is darn good.

Also had the schiit wyrd and did less than the regen Amber. Seems to work a tiny bit better, may be in my head, with the nfb-28 and heard no improvement with my m11.

 

[Stillhart]

 
Yes, I read your review of DAC-19 vs. GMB. Pretty cool and thank you for that. After I learnt that the DAC does not have balanced output I began to lose interest in it. And my interest shift heavily to the GBM and then I found the review on the GMB by another fellow member. In that he particularly mentioned that "The sigma-delta Gungnir is a good DAC overall, but relatively to Audio-GD NFB-28 & Matrix X-Sabre DAC, the sigma-delta Gungnir has a more noticeable "digititis" that sounds too aggressive/harsh, especially with HD800." I happen to be looking for DAC for my HD800 paired with HDVA 600. I am looking for more user feedbacks.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/products/schiit-gungnir

 
You quoted a review about the Delta-sigma Gungnir, which isn't the GMB (Gungnir Multibit).  There's a huge difference. 

 

[Liu Junyuan]

Yes, I read your review of DAC-19 vs. GMB. Pretty cool and thank you for that. After I learnt that the DAC does not have balanced output I began to lose interest in it. And my interest shift heavily to the GBM and then I found the review on the GMB by another fellow member. In that he particularly mentioned that "The sigma-delta Gungnir is a good DAC overall, but relatively to Audio-GD NFB-28 & Matrix X-Sabre DAC, the sigma-delta Gungnir has a more noticeable "digititis" that sounds too aggressive/harsh, especially with HD800." I happen to be looking for DAC for my HD800 paired with HDVA 600. I am looking for more user feedbacks.

http://www.head-fi.org/products/schiit-gungnir

Be careful with how interpret that: the DS version refers to the old Gungnir, not the newer Gungnir Multibit upgrade. He's saying the old version was outclassed, in his opinion, by those two well-implemented Sabre DACs. He believes the GMB outclasses them all. He did not, however, compare with the DAC-19.

 

[lukeap69]

It's interesting that you have the Schiit amp but did not choose their Gungnir or Gungnir Multibit as DAC. I have been reading the DAC-19 recently but their lack of balanced output made me lose much of interest in it. I don't know how much difference the balanced connection between DAC to amp can make over the unbalanced one.

GMB wasn't announced yet when I purchased my DAC-19.

 

[schneller]

I appreciate the review, Stillhart. At around $300 cheaper than the GMB, this should be a no brainer. I would gladly pay more for Made in USA but Schiit screwed themselves by gimping the SE RCA outputs of the GMB, which I need. This may be the deciding factor since SQ is similar.

 

[HiAudio]

   
You quoted a review about the Delta-sigma Gungnir, which isn't the GMB (Gungnir Multibit).  There's a huge difference. 

 
 

Be careful with how interpret that: the DS version refers to the old Gungnir, not the newer Gungnir Multibit upgrade. He's saying the old version was outclassed, in his opinion, by those two well-implemented Sabre DACs. He believes the GMB outclasses them all. He did not, however, compare with the DAC-19.

 
I don't know those difference. The reviewer gevorg put "Multibit Gungnir" in the title and the unit has the same case so I took that as the Gungnir Multibit (the $1249 unit listed on their website). It turned out I did not read the whole paragraph carefully. But the rest reviewers seem only reviewing the Gungnir ($849 model). 

 

[HiAudio]

GMB wasn't announced yet when I purchased my DAC-19.

 
I see. Your Ragnarok is probably better than the HDVA 600 for the HD800. I believe the DAC-19 could make a big impact on my HD800/HDVA600. Right now the DAC-19 and Gungnir MB are my two candidates.

 

[lukeap69]

I see. Your Ragnarok is probably better than the HDVA 600 for the HD800. I believe the DAC-19 could make a big impact on my HD800/HDVA600. Right now the DAC-19 and Gungnir MB are my two candidates.

I haven't heard HDVA600 so I won't know for sure. DAC-19 had made a considerable improvement in my system for HD800. Even my Lyr 2 which I didn't like for my HD800 'improved' when since feeding it with my DAC-19. I have no problem listening with it and my HD800.

 

[kenman345]

I appreciate the review, Stillhart. At around $300 cheaper than the GMB, this should be a no brainer. I would gladly pay more for Made in USA but Schiit screwed themselves by gimping the SE RCA outputs of the GMB, which I need. This may be the deciding factor since SQ is similar.

I do not remember where it was, but there exists a quote from Baldr about the SE outputs of the Gungnir that explain how the output comes to be and how its rather foolish to think that they would "gimp" the RCA outputs.
 
Basically, the Gungnir uses the same summers (things that sum channels) to take the fully balanced output normally meant for the XLR outputs and provide the RCA outputs. I am sure someone can pull up the quote for you but no company would purposely include a feature and then hinder it by doing extra work with no way of gaining from the change. It's not like they have a package where they "unhinder" the RCA outputs. No, they did the appropriate change to the signal to take advantage of the architecture of the DAC in as raw a form as possible. 
 
That said, if the RCA output does not sound as good as the DAC-19, thats a completely different argument
 
EDIT: Here it is
 

  Any rumor that the SE out on the Gumby has been gimped is pure bullschiit.  The implementation is as on the Yggy, where the individual balanced outputs are summed algebraically.  This inherently cancels common mode artifacts.
 

 

[Stillhart]

  I do not remember where it was, but there exists a quote from Baldr about the SE outputs of the Gungnir that explain how the output comes to be and how its rather foolish to think that they would "gimp" the RCA outputs.
 
Basically, the Gungnir uses the same summers (things that sum channels) to take the fully balanced output normally meant for the XLR outputs and provide the RCA outputs. I am sure someone can pull up the quote for you but no company would purposely include a feature and then hinder it by doing extra work with no way of gaining from the change. It's not like they have a package where they "unhinder" the RCA outputs. No, they did the appropriate change to the signal to take advantage of the architecture of the DAC in as raw a form as possible. 
 
That said, if the RCA output does not sound as good as the DAC-19, thats a completely different argument
 
EDIT: Here it is
 

 
What I get from reading that is that he seems to be defending against the idea that that they're purposely making the RCA sound bad just to sell more balanced amps.  He seems to be saying that the RCA sounds as good as it's going to sound and that is inherently worse than XLR just by nature.  

 

[kenman345]

   
What I get from reading that is that he seems to be defending against the idea that that they're purposely making the RCA sound bad just to sell more balanced amps.  He seems to be saying that the RCA sounds as good as it's going to sound and that is inherently worse than XLR just by nature.  

Yes, I am in agreeance. I do not have either DAC in this argument I just read that post and wanted to make sure that misinformation is not spread as Schiit is a sponsor and the idea spreading they purposely lessened anything is absurd. 
 
 
So is the RCA on GMB able to stand up to DAC-19 RCA output? I've read a few things that make interesting points in both directions, but nothing to indicate that the RCA outputs are supremely inferior on the GMB compared to the DAC-19. From my reading its more that the DAC-19 holds up against the GMB balanced and when you take away some of the added power of the balanced output of the GMB by using the RCA outputs, the gap between the two will feel wider as balanced outputs normally have a little more authority due to the added power and added noise reduction (however slight) it has over the Single Ended equivalent

 

[Stillhart]

  Yes, I am in agreeance. I do not have either DAC in this argument I just read that post and wanted to make sure that misinformation is not spread as Schiit is a sponsor and the idea spreading they purposely lessened anything is absurd. 
 
 
So is the RCA on GMB able to stand up to DAC-19 RCA output? I've read a few things that make interesting points in both directions, but nothing to indicate that the RCA outputs are supremely inferior on the GMB compared to the DAC-19. From my reading its more that the DAC-19 holds up against the GMB balanced and when you take away some of the added power of the balanced output of the GMB by using the RCA outputs, the gap between the two will feel wider as balanced outputs normally have a little more authority due to the added power and added noise reduction (however slight) it has over the Single Ended equivalent

 
This is mostly correct.  I found the GMB balanced to sound about on par with the DAC-19.  However, the GMB SE didn't sound as good.  
 
In my testing, the difference didn't come from a lack of power (that's more of an amp thing).  The RCA outputs sounded like the mids were recessed compared to the balanced outputs.  This was extremely easy to test on the Liquid Carbon and at least one other person I trust confirmed it on his amp (with manual volume matching).  
 
IMHO, the DAC-19 sounding as good as the balanced GMB for $400 cheaper is already a no-brainer.  But why pay 50% more than the DAC-19 only to use the GMB in its inferior SE mode?  That's just pure folly, IMO.

 

[HiAudio]

   
This is mostly correct.  I found the GMB balanced to sound about on par with the DAC-19.  However, the GMB SE didn't sound as good.  
 
In my testing, the difference didn't come from a lack of power (that's more of an amp thing).  The RCA outputs sounded like the mids were recessed compared to the balanced outputs.  This was extremely easy to test on the Liquid Carbon and at least one other person I trust confirmed it on his amp (with manual volume matching).  
 
IMHO, the DAC-19 sounding as good as the balanced GMB for $400 cheaper is already a no-brainer.  But why pay 50% more than the DAC-19 only to use the GMB in its inferior SE mode?  That's just pure folly, IMO.

Wow, this brings me back to rethink the DAC-19 (over the Gungnir GMB).