[eclein]

Do any of the folks with a Bifrost currently in their system have any more early impressions???

 

[Argo Duck]

And indeed, how many have theirs? Has the trickle stopped?
 
Edit: Oops, I should check my personal email more often...received paypal request to reauthorize expired payment earlier today.
 
We're up to order #101, non-USB. Guess I'll see it in about a week if it's not held up in customs

 

[Maxvla]

Do any of the folks with a Bifrost currently in their system have any more early impressions???

Still sounding great. Some orchestral recordings I really didn't care to listen to before because they sounded too rough with the Dacmagic are nice and clean now and I'm loving them once again. Quite a difference with the Bifrost.

 

[agisthos]

My order was non USB in the mid 200's and is almost shipping (got paypal confirmation link)

 

[Kremer930]

So still no USB units received?  My Lyr is at risk of rusting since I sold my DacMagic. 

 

[yeemanz]

Just got my Bifrost today yay!
 
First impressions from a person with no audiophile speak....
 
My setup is in my sig.
 
Coming from no external DAC I was quite eager to hear what kind of difference having one would make. After a bit of effort setting up and panic when there was no sound...I realized that I hadn't push the coax fully in...doh...
 
Anyway, my music sounds more 'polished' with more clarity. For some songs I am also hearing a few extra layers that wasn't present before.
Still only a few hours into checking out the Bifrost, will have to update after listening to it some more.
 
So overall, very happy with the Bifrost

 

[dyl1dyl]

 
Quote:

Just got my Bifrost today yay!
 
First impressions from a person with no audiophile speak....
 
My setup is in my sig.
 
Coming from no external DAC I was quite eager to hear what kind of difference having one would make. After a bit of effort setting up and panic when there was no sound...I realized that I hadn't push the coax fully in...doh...
 
Anyway, my music sounds more 'polished' with more clarity. For some songs I am also hearing a few extra layers that wasn't present before.
Still only a few hours into checking out the Bifrost, will have to update after listening to it some more.
 
So overall, very happy with the Bifrost

Thats great, nice impressions.
 

 

[45longcolt]

Hey guys, what are these Lorentz tubes, and where does one get them? (Almost afraid to ask about cost.)
 
As to the Bifrost, and the question of how much one spends on a DAC, you must keep in mind that the chip is only the beginning. You can have the hottest IC on the planet, but if the power supply, circuit layout and quality aren't up to snuff, the sound will be compromised. Not to mention the design choices that can be legitimately argued either way.
 
For example, lots of DACs upsample. (As I understand it, oversampling looks at the data more often that 44.1, i.e. 96 or 192 hz., where upsampling also converts the signal to an an approximation of 24 or even 32 bits from the original 16.) Jason viscerally condemns this practise. Other DACs go even more old school, using "antique" NOS chips and omitting filters and such that most consider mandatory. Yet some listeners feel these "stone age" units have something special. (See the vintage DAC thread elsewhere on head-fi.)
 
I'll be comparing my Bifrost (c'mon, c'mon Fedex) to the PS Audio (upsampling) and the built-in DAC of my player (Marantz 8004, pretty new) which also accepts other inputs including USB. Marantz apparently feels pretty confident in their DAC, and I can hear why. Right now, I go back and forth, with the PSA sounding more "analog" while on some tracks the built-in seems to have an extra edge on attack. Looking foward to seeing what the Bifrost will bring to the table.
 
 
 

 

[judmarc]

(As I understand it, oversampling looks at the data more often that 44.1, i.e. 96 or 192 hz., where upsampling also converts the signal to an an approximation of 24 or even 32 bits from the original 16.)
 
Almost, not quite.  Both oversampling and upsampling relate to the sampling rate (44.1 and 48kHz and multiples thereof) rather than the bit depth (16, 24 or 32 bits).  The bit depth has to do with dynamic (loudness) range.
 
As for what the difference is between oversampling and upsampling, there is a tremendous amount of confusing discussion, because not even engineers agree on the proper terms.  As a layperson's definition, subject to the provisos that this is just my opinion and I don't have any expertise on the subject, I've seen "oversampling" used more often to relate to a whole-number multiplication of sampling rate at an earlier stage of the analog-digital-analog conversion process, and "upsampling" used more often to refer to an arbitrary (not necessarily whole-number, used to raise various input sampling rates to a particular output sampling rate) multiplication of sampling rate at a later stage in the process.  Both are done, I believe, with the intent of allowing filters to be used (particularly with 44.1 and 48kHz material) that will help achieve a better-sounding analog signal at the end of the process.  The use of what I've chosen here to call "upsampling" seems to be more recent and more controversial than what I'm calling "oversampling."  "8x oversampling" was virtually a standard in DACs for a couple of decades.
 
My guess is that the Bifrost doesn't do what I'm calling "upsampling," but I'd be extremely interested to hear from Jason/Mike more definitively.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Hey all,
 
To answer the above question, we do *not* do asynchronous sample rate conversion, or "upsampling." We're philosophically opposed to it, since it destroys all the original samples in the recording. Of course, so do successive-approximation D/A converters (aka delta-sigma--pretty much every major converter on the market today--Sabre, Wolfson, AKM.) Although we cannot do anything about the converter, we choose to preserve the original samples as far down the chain as possible. 
 
However, the AKM D/A does perform oversampling. Oversampling is done by the digital filter preceeding the delta-sigma modulator, and the amount of oversampling varies by sample rate.  
 
All the best,
Jason
 
 
 
 

 

[Wedge]

Jason, any better of an idea when the USB units will ship?

 

[Butler]

Jason, any better of an idea when the USB units will ship?

Hasn't this already been said multiple times? So many people are frothing at the mouth about this. Don't get me wrong, I have a USB one ordered too, but people just need to sit back a take a breather. We're lucky to have this personal relationship with industry insiders, but we have to be conscious of being … well… annoying.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

USB? We're finally getting boards in tomorrow, so if they test well . . . Friday!
 
We may have *all* non-USB preorders shipped by then, too. Friday, that is. Things are moving much faster now--thanks for your patience, and apologies again for the delay.

 

[Wedge]

Quote:

Hasn't this already been said multiple times? So many people are frothing at the mouth about this. Don't get me wrong, I have a USB one ordered too, but people just need to sit back a take a breather. We're lucky to have this personal relationship with industry insiders, but we have to be conscious of being … well… annoying.

For the record I have not bothered Schiit during all of this.  I prepaid in full at the pre order.  I've asked once, when it was coming.
 

 

[Butler]

For the record I have not bothered Schiit during all of this.
 

And how is another person asking going to change the outcome of an question that has been asked and answered multiple times different?