[Neweymatt]

I’m holding off on a Bifrost 2/64 purchase for now.

Pains me to have to agree, I really hope Schiit figure this out for all of you intrepid early-adopters.

I will have to import mine from the US, so I will wait until this issue is sorted.

 

[cgb3]

Disappointed to see many of you guys experiencing problems with the upgraded Bitfrost. Seems more than just a few bad units. I'm not very familiar with many other forums so not sure how wide spread this is but I'm going to assume it's not good. Hard to believe Schiit would put something out without running it through a gauntlet of test. But...guess I'm just naive. I don't doubt it sounds wonderful...but no one should have to worry about how they use it or what bit rate a track is...or cycle through everything or stress about anything. Wither you paid for the upgrade or buying new for $829...it should be good to go.

My unit was delivered today.

SD card updated the unit without issue.

Attempted to install the new card from the back. After 4-5 minutes, I went with the cover off installation. No problems. Card was seated easily, and I replaced the top. What's that nice shiny little "turned" SS button doing on my desk?

The source selection button isn't affixed to the front of the top cover. Remove cover, place button, cover the front of the cover and button with tape (I actually used blu tack to avoid residue). Unit is back in one piece.

Really enjoying the sound. I know that Jason S. and many others claim there's no burn in. I'm at about 4 hours. The sound seems to be improving (maybe my ears are adjusting .

More Impressions to follow after a week or so of listening.

 

[cgb3]

Seems like for the people with this issue it's pretty consistent that when the sample rate changes, they don't get the 'click' from the relay and can hear some of the digital distortion.

Has anyone with this issue been able to fix it by re-seating the board? Wondering if it's an alignment issue that can be fixed by taking it out and re-aligning it.

Who knows without trying? It's the first thing I'd try.

I suggest anyone with problems, take the top cover off (securing the front selection button while doing so), and re-seat the card.

 

[Reputator]

Concur with this, event mode gave me issues pre-upgrade on the higher sample rate tracks so I just switched it back to push and everything was fine.

Here I was blissfully ignorant of this new problem til someone on reddit pointed out it was an issue and sure enough I'm affected. Steps to reproduce:

1. Play a 44.1 track (plays fine and has done for days since the upgrade)
2. Play a 96k track, relay clicks and the track plays fine.
3. While playing said 96k track seek or start another 96k track and the output goes metallic.
4. Play another 44.1 track, relay clicks and it plays fine. This resets the system as it were and you can start another 96k track without distortion.

Yes, I have to use WASAPI in push mode as well.

 

[tameral]

I've been using just the Qobuz App without issues. For what it's worth.

 

[erwinjaquez]

Who knows without trying? It's the first thing I'd try.

I suggest anyone with problems, take the top cover off (securing the front selection button while doing so), and re-seat the card.

I've done that multiple times. The problem remains and I can replicate it every time with the new card. The old one stills work perfectly all the time.

 

[kumar402]

I moved to Coax and so far it’s working fine. Anyways I’m not USB user so fingers crossed with coax.

 

[theeclone]

The problem is that NOS mode sounds terrible

lol. Schiit NOS mode: It sounds terrible

 

[theveterans]

lol. Schiit NOS mode: It sounds terrible

I'm a bit lonely in the NOS camp lol. NOS saved me from the 2/64 GAS since OG card in NOS sounds more natural/analog without the NOS roll-off traits to me than the OS mode (I'm referring to 44.1 KHz NOS specifically)

 

[theeclone]

I'm a bit lonely in the NOS camp lol. NOS saved me from the 2/64 GAS since OG card in NOS sounds more natural/analog without the NOS roll-off traits to me than the OS mode (I'm referring to 44.1 KHz NOS specifically)

Hey, different strokes for different folks. And I should qualify this by saying that I obviously love Schiit.

But yeah, I hate the way NOS mode sounds, both with the old card and the new.

Kind of hoping they tweak the NOS filter with a future firmware update personally. I find it hard to believe that just because things are designed around their proprietary filter they can't also make NOS sound better.

 

[theeclone]

I moved to Coax and so far it’s working fine. Anyways I’m not USB user so fingers crossed with coax.

So it's sounding like the problem is isolated to usb input?

Ok, now who's gonna try unseating the usb card for a minute and putting it back in to see if it solves their issue? That's what I accidentally did while upgrading and have no issues over usb.

 

[tmac17]

Okay, very interesting. I made some progress. The issue doesn't happen if the DAC is in NOS mode. The problem is that NOS mode sounds terrible, but okay. Separate issue.

Standard mode:
48khz > 96khz, relay clicks, seek track > sound goes distorted.

NOS mode:
48khz > 96khz, relay clicks, seek track > sound remains normal. It sounds way worse (because of the lack of filter), but there is none of that tizzy distortion.

Maybe this gives some hope that the issue can be resolved via firmware?

How do you turn off NOS once it's engaged? Do you have to turn the DAC off and back on again?

 

[theveterans]

Hey, different strokes for different folks. And I should qualify this by saying that I obviously love Schiit.

But yeah, I hate the way NOS mode sounds, both with the old card and the new.

Kind of hoping they tweak the NOS filter with a future firmware update personally. I find it hard to believe that just because things are designed around their proprietary filter they can't also make NOS sound better.

NOS is not noised shaped (dithered) and is heavily dependent on ultrasonic analog filtering hence you see heavy aliasing on the output. NOS DACs on the upper end of scale optimizes their analog filtering (some use tube stage to do this) so that you won't hear unnatural sonic byproduct of running NOS. No way that I see Mike Moffat abandoning his principles of optimizing closed-loop filter oversampling for a DAC to sound exemplary with NOS. Also, NOS truly needs exceptionally designed ladder DACs to sound good while the Ti chips and the AD chips that are used in Schiit aren't even for audio applications. The Analog Devices AD1865N-K DAC chip from what many NOS designers claim is the best chip for the purpose.

 

[erwinjaquez]

How do you turn off NOS once it's engaged? Do you have to turn the DAC off and back on again?

Just keep the button pushed for 2 seconds.

 

[theeclone]

NOS is not noised shaped (dithered) and is heavily dependent on ultrasonic analog filtering hence you see heavy aliasing on the output. NOS DACs on the upper end of scale optimizes their analog filtering (some use tube stage to do this) so that you won't hear unnatural sonic byproduct of running NOS. No way that I see Mike Moffat abandoning his principles of optimizing closed-loop filter oversampling for a DAC to sound exemplary with NOS. Also, NOS truly needs exceptionally designed ladder DACs to sound good while the Ti chips and the AD chips that are used in Schiit aren't even for audio applications. The Analog Devices AD1865N-K DAC chip from what many NOS designers claim is the best chip for the purpose.

Have you heard the modi multibit or the O.G. Bifrost multibit at 192K (effectively NOS)? They sounded great to me, and I thought they were using AD chips.

My understanding of oversampling as it's applied here is that it allows the antialiasing filter to be relaxed. When I hear noise shaping I think delta sigma. Noise shaped dither on the other hand I thought was distinct from that, and I'm not sure I follow how NOS would preclude dither.