Have had my Gungnir 2 in for 3 days and my initial impressions are in. I find Yggdrasil A1 and MIB have more bass presence and quantity, while the Gungnir 2 presents a bit leaner and maybe even a bit poofy in the bass (Bass is not a tight single hit, but rather like a whiff, personally not a fan.) I find MIB to be the best DAC overall for myself and my system. While Gungnir 2 has similar resolving ability in the treble and a blackground akin to the MIB, it's just light-bodied and a bit prickly in the treble. I also find the imaging/depth/staging a bit "restricted" feeling in comparison to the Yggdrasil variants. It's as if elements in a song are locked in a horizontal grid such as | | | | | instead of being smoothly blended throughout the stage. It also does't have the holographic front-to-back layering/depth of Yggdrasil. Just sounds a bit flat.
Unfortunately, my unit seems to have a grounding issue, which also seems to be par for the course with Schiit gear at this point. I don't think I've bought a new piece of Schiit gear without some kind of problem in the last few years.
It's quite cold and dry here in NJ and with the heat running there's always gonna be some static. I've brushed my hand across the Gungnir 2 a couple times which resulted in the whole DAC dying, lights shutting off and emitting no sound. Power cycling fixes it, but I've never had an issue like this with any other Schiit DAC or components from any other company. Now I've had my fair share of problems with Schiit gear, but nothing this intrusive. I hope this is resolved with a refund quickly.
In any case: I much prefer MIB in my headphone system (and even A1 as a flavor DAC) over the Gungnir 2, issues with my unit aside.
Well, you clearly have a wiring issue if that’s what you’re experiencing…
Not quite the case at all.... Hasn't happened to any other gear I've owned, even the Yggdrasil it's sitting on top of, plugged into the same power conditioner. The Gungnir 2 obviously had a grounding issue internally or was not properly ESD tested during it's production. I've been in this hobby long enough to know when a piece of gear is defective. Also, the Schiit customer support agent even mentioned that his Kara does the same thing, which is not encouraging.
Weird, never heard of something like that? Your region has dry air or what?
That's some tasty Schiit! I bet it sounds great.Found a shelf for my desktop stack. The Gungnir 2 looks great.
Tasty and toasty. Sounds good so far. Missing a little bit of the syrupy warmth the BF2 had, but it’s far more resolving.
I recently picked up a Lyr 3 for my desk, and if I move around a lot in my chair while wearing IEMs I get a constant static shock through my ear canals (I don’t remember this happening with my Vali 2, but haven’t used it with IEMs in awhile). While moving some things around, I had my IEMs plugged into the DNA Starlett on my desk, no static.
Not quite the case at all.... Hasn't happened to any other gear I've owned, even the Yggdrasil it's sitting on top of, plugged into the same power conditioner. The Gungnir 2 obviously had a grounding issue internally or was not properly ESD tested during it's production. I've been in this hobby long enough to know when a piece of gear is defective. Also, the Schiit customer support agent even mentioned that his Kara does the same thing, which is not encouraging.
