[judmarc]

 
Quote:

 
Have you tried Empirical Audio's suggestion of doing the bit rate first to 24 (so saved as 24/44.1) then upsample to 96? Much more holographic presentation, although it does mean more work. 
 
 
 

I haven't.  I have a very hard time thinking this would make a difference, since AFAIK a DAC chip's registers will "zero pad" the missing 8 or 16 LSBs anyway (depending on whether the file has a 16 bit or 24 bit word length, and whether the DAC's internal processing is 24 or 32-bit; the Bifrost's AKM chip does 32-bit internal processing IIRC).  Moreover, I can't see how zero padding the LSBs, whether in or prior to the DAC, would change the sound, since the resulting loudness values are exactly the same, like 1 and 1.00000000 (that's 1 with 8 LSBs zero padded).  It's not like changing the sample rate, where interpolated loudness values are added, resulting in most of the bitstream (147,900 samples per second in the case of upsampling from 44.1 to 192) actually being new sound that wasn't present before.
 
So - don't see how zero padding would change sound, and even if it did, it's happening every time you listen to your DAC anyway.
 
Of course Steve Nugent has forgotten more about audio than I'll ever know, so I guess some humility is appropriate....

 

[Kremer930]

Airport express will work with the Bifrost but AE is limited to 16/48. You can get other routers that will and 24/96 and still output digital. 

 

[kchau]

Quote:

Airport express will work with the Bifrost but AE is limited to 16/48. You can get other routers that will and 24/96 and still output digital. 

are they compatible with my iphone and itunes?
 
i dont have any music that is 24 bit, minus for the open your ears album i bought. But it will pass 16/48 as bitperfect right?

 

[wberghofer]

Quote:

It should work with the bifrost just fine.

 
Can confirm this. Bifrost works flawlessly with an Apple Airport Express.
 
Werner.

 

[Kremer930]

Most routers that are able to output digital should still work fine with iPhone and iTunes. It is the computer which does the communicating with the iPhone. I haven't personally tried the non AE brands though. I ended up just moving my mac book pro and external drive to near my headphone rig. 
 
Check out some other threads on this topic or Computer Audiophioe. 

 

[hp300plus]

Some of the DAC makers (and forums) claim the upsampling helps reduce jitter.  Not sure how true that is, but that might be the difference people hear with upsampling... not so much 'new' bits/info being added to the music, rather the further reduction in jitter from the higher amount of times the data is being sampled.
 
Quote:

 
A Li'l 'Speriment
 
Remarks by some DAC makers and software authors over at Computer Audiophile got me interested in trying sample rate conversion in software prior to feeding the signal to the Bifrost.  
 
Long story short, after the Gillian Welch, Mark Knopfler and Rosanne Cash I provisionally felt I preferred upsampling.  

 
Quote:

I haven't.  I have a very hard time thinking this would make a difference, since AFAIK a DAC chip's registers will "zero pad" the missing 8 or 16 LSBs anyway (depending on whether the file has a 16 bit or 24 bit word length, and whether the DAC's internal processing is 24 or 32-bit; the Bifrost's AKM chip does 32-bit internal processing IIRC).  Moreover, I can't see how zero padding the LSBs, whether in or prior to the DAC, would change the sound, since the resulting loudness values are exactly the same, like 1 and 1.00000000 (that's 1 with 8 LSBs zero padded).  It's not like changing the sample rate, where interpolated loudness values are added, resulting in most of the bitstream (147,900 samples per second in the case of upsampling from 44.1 to 192) actually being new sound that wasn't present before.
 
So - don't see how zero padding would change sound, and even if it did, it's happening every time you listen to your DAC anyway.
 
Of course Steve Nugent has forgotten more about audio than I'll ever know, so I guess some humility is appropriate....

 

 

[kchau]

I forgot I had an airport express hooked up to my speakers, but i was doing some reading and i found out that the AE has a burr brown pcm2705 dac inside, which does not have an amp built in. so i decided to A-B that with my ipod 4th gen line out, and the ipod had a much bigger sound stage, and it was more detailed. 
 
Since we're on the topic about the AE and toslink, how is it possible to control the volume if the digital out bypasses the dac component?

 

[Kremer930]

It has been a while since I used it in my rig but I think the Mac adjusts its signal strength.  I used to use my iphone Remote app to select songs and route it via the AE. The iphone can then adjust the volume remotely.   It worked quite well but I ended up buying a Onkyo ND-S1 dock to extract digital directly out of my ipod as well as moving my laptop near the rig.
 
The iphone app is great for quickly finding a song in amongst the many albums.
 
I wasnt a great fan of the Onkyo at first but now I am finding that it is very close to the sound output from my Mac playing PureMusic.  I have an aftermarket power supply for it and find that Coax is the nicest on the dock.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

 
Hey all,
 
Here's a long-awaited update on where we are and what's coming up this year. 
 
As you may have known, we've been spending all our time ramping up production (Bifrost caught us WAY off guard, and ongoing demand for the other products continues to increase.) Because of this, we're late on a bunch of planned products. Sorry, sorry. White iPhone and all that. So here's where we are, in convenient FAQ format:
 
Q: What the heck have you guys been doing anyway? Sitting around, eating bonbons, watching Star Trek?
A: None of the above, actually. We've been working with our board house, our suppliers, and our production staff (yes, we now have staff) to increase capacity and ensure products are in stock. This is beginning to pay off as of, well, right now. It's entirely possible that our current backorders will be the last for a long time.
 
Q: Fine. Cool. We get it. What about the new stuff?
A: Okay, let's talk new products. Here's what we currently have planned: at least two pairs of products, one coming in Q1 and one coming in Q2. That's the current plan. Estimated. As in "guess." In Q1, we plan on introducing our first balanced DAC and balanced amp. In Q2, we plan on introducing our "statement" balanced DAC and balanced amp pair. 
 
Q: Sizes, prices, features? Tell us more!
A: All of the new products will be larger than the current products. The "midrange" products will be approximately 16 x 8 x 2.25", and the "statement" products will be taller and deeper than that. Unfortunately, beyond that, we can't talk price or feature set, for obvious reasons. What I will say is that we're sticking to our earlier statement that all new products (even the midrange ones) will be "one and only" products--using unique technology, and/or offering unparalleled performance, especially in their price range.
 
Q: So, is this going to be another "preorder and wait forever" deal like Bifrost?
A: No. That's one reason we're so late. Our preorders will be much shorter and more certain in the future.
 
Again, sorry for the delays. It was a heck of a 2011, but 2012 will be even more interesting!
 
All the best,
Jason

 

[mmayer167]

Great update Jason! 
 
The new year sounds really exciting from Schiit  
 
-M

 

[Maxvla]

Thanks for the update. Looking forward to the statement.

 

[luke99]

Is the airport express like a squeezebox? 

 

[Rebel975]

Quote:

Thanks for the update. Impatiently looking forward to the statement.

 

This.

 

[livewire]

Thank you for the update! A good read indeed.

 

[dyl1dyl]

Quote:

 
Hey all,
 
Here's a long-awaited update on where we are and what's coming up this year. 
 
As you may have known, we've been spending all our time ramping up production (Bifrost caught us WAY off guard, and ongoing demand for the other products continues to increase.) Because of this, we're late on a bunch of planned products. Sorry, sorry. White iPhone and all that. So here's where we are, in convenient FAQ format:
 
Q: What the heck have you guys been doing anyway? Sitting around, eating bonbons, watching Star Trek?
A: None of the above, actually. We've been working with our board house, our suppliers, and our production staff (yes, we now have staff) to increase capacity and ensure products are in stock. This is beginning to pay off as of, well, right now. It's entirely possible that our current backorders will be the last for a long time.
 
Q: Fine. Cool. We get it. What about the new stuff?
A: Okay, let's talk new products. Here's what we currently have planned: at least two pairs of products, one coming in Q1 and one coming in Q2. That's the current plan. Estimated. As in "guess." In Q1, we plan on introducing our first balanced DAC and balanced amp. In Q2, we plan on introducing our "statement" balanced DAC and balanced amp pair. 
 
Q: Sizes, prices, features? Tell us more!
A: All of the new products will be larger than the current products. The "midrange" products will be approximately 16 x 8 x 2.25", and the "statement" products will be taller and deeper than that. Unfortunately, beyond that, we can't talk price or feature set, for obvious reasons. What I will say is that we're sticking to our earlier statement that all new products (even the midrange ones) will be "one and only" products--using unique technology, and/or offering unparalleled performance, especially in their price range.
 
Q: So, is this going to be another "preorder and wait forever" deal like Bifrost?
A: No. That's one reason we're so late. Our preorders will be much shorter and more certain in the future.
 
Again, sorry for the delays. It was a heck of a 2011, but 2012 will be even more interesting!
 
All the best,
Jason

 
Just one thing, when you say Q1, do you mean it will be available in Q1 or announced in Q1?