[Pappi Daa Hobo]

Dude thank you.. your comparisons are helpful beyond belief. So glad you shared your findings / comparisons. Def swung me over to pull the trigger on a 2/64 Bifrost. It sounds exactly like what I'm looking for.

Glad I could help! Enjoy! I know I do

 

[decooney]

Question - curious to know if others here on the head-fi.org forum have experimented trying different Digital Coax SPDIF cables between your streamer device and the Bifrost 2/64 DAC yet?

Note: as good as the unison USB is supposed to be, I'm not a usb fan, prefer SPDIF, just my choice. I've restarted this process, utilizing some existing cables I have from Analysis Plus (Crystal OCC) and another Audioquest Cinnamon Digital coax I had from a few years back. May try a Cardas Clear SDPIF some time this winter season. Just for grins I went from my current AP/Crystal spdif back to my AQ digital spdif. A notable difference I was truly not expecting to hear. Quite interesting, like What type of difference? The AP/Crystal is much fuller sounding with a much more impressive soundstage with this BF 2/64 dac

Bringing this up because it seems quite relevant to try different cables with this dac - if you can borrow/swap, etc. Again I was really not expecting to hear much difference and had to swap back-and-forth a few times just to believe the difference that was actually occurring between two different SPDIF digital inteconnect cables.

-----

[Edit] re-reading my post, I may not be communicating very well. I guess what I'm really trying to say is this DAC for whatever reasons responds very well to different types of SPDIF/Digital RCA interconnect cables.

 

[mvneufeld]

Really appreciate you guys' discussion above on NOS and upsampling in software. I had tried NOS mode and didn't like it, but running NOS and upsampling to 92 kHz in Audirvana is great. There's treble smoothness and now I've got splashy cymbals, too. As theeclone said, "an excellent blend of oversampling smoothing effects without sacrificing NOS sheer microdetail retrieval." Perfect!

 

[theeclone]

Really appreciate you guys' discussion above on NOS and upsampling in software. I had tried NOS mode and didn't like it, but running NOS and upsampling to 92 kHz in Audirvana is great. There's treble smoothness and now I've got splashy cymbals, too. As theeclone said, "an excellent blend of oversampling smoothing effects without sacrificing NOS sheer microdetail retrieval." Perfect!

Sounds like something theveterens would say. I strongly dislike NOS mode on BF2 in my system at all sample rates

 

[mvneufeld]

Sorry - You're right!

 

[decooney]

Sounds like something theveterens would say. I strongly dislike NOS mode on BF2 in my system at all sample rates

@theeclone for learning purposes and to understand different setups out there in use by members with BF2/NOS, a few questions if you don't mind, I hope.

• Is your source dac, preamp, and amplifier all solid-state gear (no tubes) in your setup?

• Is yours a new BF 2/64 unit -or- a prior gen Bifrost 2 unit that has ben upgraded with the Bifrost 2/64 card and firmware adding NOS capability?

The reason for the questions has to do with something @theveterans mentioned about tubes in the signal path and I'm curious to know which version of 2/64 people are running, and perhaps the results folks are hearing in their setups. Thanks in advance for your reply if you see this.

 

[theeclone]

@theeclone for learning purposes and to understand different setups out there in use by members with BF2/NOS, a few questions if you don't mind, I hope.

• Is your source dac, preamp, and amplifier all solid-state gear (no tubes) in your setup?

• Is yours a new BF 2/64 unit -or- a prior gen Bifrost 2 unit that has ben upgraded with the Bifrost 2/64 card and firmware adding NOS capability?

The reason for the questions has to do with something @theveterans mentioned about tubes in the signal path and I'm curious to know which version of 2/64 people are running, and perhaps the results folks are hearing in their setups. Thanks in advance for your reply if you see this.

Yeah, I was also curious about tubes, and posited that maybe they were acting like an analog smoothing filter somehow. I actually run everything thru a Lyr 3. Have tried with a Sylvania 6sn7gta but usually use LISST.

One possibility as to why I still don't like the NOS sound, even w the Sylvania tube is that there's a Saga S in between my BF2 and the Lyr 3. The Saga S is always in active mode with the volume up all the way, so that it's basically a source selector. The BF2 started out as an OG and was upgraded to a 2/64.

So the signal path is 2/64-->Saga S-->Lyr 3-->Solid State Adcom Speaker Amp-->Advent AS2s. Also disliked the sound of NOS coming directly out of the Lyr 3 with my Grado cans, if memory serves.

So, either the mirror frequencies from NOS mode are being reflected down into the audio band when they hit the Saga S, or I just plain don't like the sound of a stairstep waveform whereas others don't mind it. As was mentioned earlier, a tube preamp probably wouldn't filter out those ultrasonic mirror frequencies anyway, whereas a tube amp might. It's all speculation to me at this point, but I know what I like, and a stairstep waveform coming out of the BF2, even when playing back 192KHz flac files, ain't it, at least in this system!

 

[tincanear]

Yeah, I was also curious about tubes, and posited that maybe they were acting like an analog smoothing filter somehow. I actually run everything thru a Lyr 3. Have tried with a Sylvania 6sn7gta but usually use LISST.

One possibility as to why I still don't like the NOS sound, even w the Sylvania tube is that there's a Saga S in between my BF2 and the Lyr 3. The Saga S is always in active mode with the volume up all the way, so that it's basically a source selector. The BF2 started out as an OG and was upgraded to a 2/64.

So the signal path is 2/64-->Saga S-->Lyr 3-->Solid State Adcom Speaker Amp-->Advent AS2s. Also disliked the sound of NOS coming directly out of the Lyr 3 with my Grado cans, if memory serves.

So, either the mirror frequencies from NOS mode are being reflected down into the audio band when they hit the Saga S, or I just plain don't like the sound of a stairstep waveform whereas others don't mind it. As was mentioned earlier, a tube preamp probably wouldn't filter out those ultrasonic mirror frequencies anyway, whereas a tube amp might. It's all speculation to me at this point, but I know what I like, and a stairstep waveform coming out of the BF2, even when playing back 192KHz flac files, ain't it, at least in this system!

if you are using the Saga S basically as an analog input selector with its volume control maxxed (gain = 1 = 0dB), why not use the passive mode for lower distortion / simpler signal path instead?

in NOS (non-oversampling) mode, the BF2's analog output will include the 20-20kHz audio signal plus odd harmonics of the digital input sampling frequency sent out of the digital source (streamer, CD transport, etc.) perhaps up to ~400 kHz. for example, with a digital streamer sending 16-bit 44.1k into the BF2 in NOS mode, 44.1kHz and 132.3kHz spuriae would present on the analog outputs; similarly, with 192kHz flac files, there will be 192kHz sampling frequency artifacts on the analog outputs.

Saga S has a 400kHz (-3dB) bandwidth, so those 192kHz artifacts will be passed right through to the next device.

Many transducers (headphones, tweeters) have electrical roll-off approaching 20kHz (or even 10kHz or 15kHz), so sometimes mechanical resonances are intentionally designed in to "extend" the frequency response past 20kHz.

most tubes (6SN7, 6DJ8, 6N1P, ECC88, etc.) have a natural bandwidth extending to hundreds of MHz, so designers of tube audio pre and power amps often design in low-pass filtering with fc in the ultrasonic range (perhaps 50kHz ~100kHz) to prevent issues with RF interference (old-school AM radio band is 530-1700kHz).

IMO, the NOS mode on BF2 (and now yggy+) was designed for use with 352kHz or 384kHz digital sources (that up-sample native 44.1k/48k/96k files to 352/384k within the digital source).

 

[theeclone]

why not use the passive mode for lower distortion / simpler signal path instead?

Because I don't like how it sounds as much as active.

IMO, the NOS mode on BF2 (and now yggy+) was designed for use with 352kHz or 384kHz digital sources (that up-sample native 44.1k/48k/96k files to 352/384k within the digital source).

The BF2 and Yggy won't accept anything higher than 192KHz input, so that just plain wouldn't work (or if your setup is not bit perfect it might get resampled lower anyway).

 

[tincanear]

For minimal ultrasonic artifacts on the BF2 analog output (b/c of 192k input limitation) the MCB filter should be enabled. One could always 2x/4x up-sample on the streamer side from 44.1k/48k/96k native source files to 176k/192k with their filter of choice, and then let the MCB within BF2 upsample 2x to the internal DAC chip 352/384k rate.

lots of variables to tweak, signal chains and listening preferences are different.

 

[NCPat]

Bifrost 2 relays and usb c

It used to regularly click when first turned on and when idle. Now silent or just one click. Using USB c to i phone. For past few months had trouble recog iphone. Unplugging, on off stuff eventually got to work. Now today nothing or just one click no hand shake

Before i buy new usb and apple dongle, wondering if problem with bifrost2. It seems the clicking is the unit checking on inputs- cycling thru the 3 choices. Could be out of warranty

Thoghts?

 

[davidfrance]

Bifrost 2 relays and usb c

It used to regularly click when first turned on and when idle. Now silent or just one click. Using USB c to i phone. For past few months had trouble recog iphone. Unplugging, on off stuff eventually got to work. Now today nothing or just one click no hand shake

Before i buy new usb and apple dongle, wondering if problem with bifrost2. It seems the clicking is the unit checking on inputs- cycling thru the 3 choices. Could be out of warranty

Thoghts?

And you have done a test with a PC, not to an iPhone, to make sure that doesn’t work either ? I ask because I have never had any problem with a PC.

 

[MarkF786]

I'm curious, does there seem to be a majority opinion that the Bifrost 2/64 is an upgrade to the stock Bifrost 2? I ponder if it's a 1) a side-grade, 2) just a way to Schiit to deal with supply chain shortages, and/or 3) purely 'psychological'?

I'm ponder if to pull the trigger. It'd be very hard to A/B the pre/post upgrade, since IMHO auditory memory at that fine level of detail is faulty - and even when quickly switching between A/B comparison of DACs, I often find the differences very subtle if audible at all.

 

[Luckyleo]

Personally, it was one of the few times in my listening experience where the difference was immediate, not incremental, and in my opinion, a huge upgrade..... YMMV

Leo

 

[The Hawk]

Bifrost 2 relays and usb c

It used to regularly click when first turned on and when idle. Now silent or just one click. Using USB c to i phone. For past few months had trouble recog iphone. Unplugging, on off stuff eventually got to work. Now today nothing or just one click no hand shake

Before i buy new usb and apple dongle, wondering if problem with bifrost2. It seems the clicking is the unit checking on inputs- cycling thru the 3 choices. Could be out of warranty

Thoghts?

The clicking you hear is the muting relay……it will click if the SPIDF signal is interrupted

Below is a link to Schiit’s troubleshooting guide for DACs

https://www.schiit.com/guides/dac-problems