[Lan647]

Wow leesure, those are some impressive photos. Very, very nice! (and the gear as well)

 

[leesure]

Thanks Lan647!

 

[Defiant00]

Excellent photos leesure, and very cool (real!) reflections.

 

[Uncle00Jesse]

[size=10pt]Question for the die-hard schiit-heads:[/size]
 
[size=10pt]I am very interested in picking up a bifrost but I cant decide between usb/non-usb. For background – I absolutely despise my giant laptop. It works very well but it’s massive and in no way a pleasure to use. I bought a squeezebox touch so I wouldn’t have to touch my pc while using my rig (I love that thing). The question is: Is usb from PC to bifrost using winamp or foobar much better than coaxial/optical from the squeezebox to the bifrost? The $100 extra for the usb isn’t a big deal to me so I might just end up getting the extra connectivity, but I was wondering if hooking it up to the squeezebox would be exactly the same or maybe even better. Thanks guys[/size]

 

[Uncle00Jesse]

[size=10pt]Question for the die-hard schiit-heads:[/size]
 
[size=10pt]I am very interested in picking up a bifrost but I cant decide between usb/non-usb. For background – I absolutely despise my giant laptop. It works very well but it’s massive and in no way a pleasure to use. I bought a squeezebox touch so I wouldn’t have to touch my pc while using my rig (I love that thing). The question is: Is usb from PC to bifrost using winamp or foobar much better than coaxial/optical from the squeezebox to the bifrost? The $100 extra for the usb isn’t a big deal to me so I might just end up getting the extra connectivity, but I was wondering if hooking it up to the squeezebox would be exactly the same or maybe even better. Thanks guys[/size]

 

[Defiant00]

While I haven't tested that exact setup I have used both USB and optical with my Bifrost. Going off of that and what Schiit has said, going through the SqueezeBox should sound at least as good as USB.
 
 
Quote:

[size=10pt]Question for the die-hard schiit-heads:[/size]
 
[size=10pt]I am very interested in picking up a bifrost but I cant decide between usb/non-usb. For background – I absolutely despise my giant laptop. It works very well but it’s massive and in no way a pleasure to use. I bought a squeezebox touch so I wouldn’t have to touch my pc while using my rig (I love that thing). The question is: Is usb from PC to bifrost using winamp or foobar much better than coaxial/optical from the squeezebox to the bifrost? The $100 extra for the usb isn’t a big deal to me so I might just end up getting the extra connectivity, but I was wondering if hooking it up to the squeezebox would be exactly the same or maybe even better. Thanks guys[/size]

 

 

[olor1n]

Quote:

 
Great photo leesure. This would've made me pull the trigger if I didn't already have a Bifrost in transit.

 

[judmarc]

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.  One of them is PeterSt, who makes a NOS DAC by virtue of upsampling everything in software to 768 or 705.6 prior to feeding it to the DAC, where no upsampling is done.  The two pieces of software he likes best for this are his own XXHighEnd on Windows, and Audirvana Plus on Mac (which uses the well-thought-of iZotope for sample rate conversion).  Another is Miska, author of HQPlayer for Windows and Linux, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of DAC chips.  He also is a proponent of software upsampling, and remarked that AKM DAC chips can particularly benefit from it.  This was sufficient to at least make me want to experiment.  I'd previously avoided it from a desire to keep things somehow pristine or bit perfect until the last possible moment.
 
So I did some careful listening back and forth to a few tracks with Audirvana Plus, most 16/44.1 (Down Along the Dixie Line from Gillian Welch, "The Harrow and the Harvest;" 500 Miles from Rosanne Cash, "The List;" Everybody Pays As They Go from Jakob Dylan, "Seeing Things"), one 24/96 (Our Shangri-La from Mark Knopfler, "Shangri-La").  I listened to each with no upsampling, then upsampled prior to the DAC to 192kHz, doing this several times with each track.
 
Long story short, after the Gillian Welch, Mark Knopfler and Rosanne Cash I provisionally felt I preferred upsampling.  Then the Jakob Dylan track absolutely nailed it. Without upsampling it's an excellently recorded, unornamented track. With upsampling, the immediacy and sense of realism of the acoustic guitars, harmony vocals and lead vocals was little short of astonishing. Interesting that the more plainly recorded 16/44.1 material (Gillian Welch and especially the Jakob Dylan) came out sounding more impressive than the more heavily produced 24/96 from Mark Knopfler.  Along the same lines, songs from Jakob Dylan's very good second solo album, "Women & Country," produced by T-Bone Burnett, an excellent producer with a fine reputation, weren't as impressive as songs from the very starkly produced "Seeing Things." Producer of "Seeing Things"? Heh, Rick Rubin of Red Hot Chili Peppers "loudness wars" infamy! (But he did do great raw, plain recordings with Johnny Cash.)

 

[luke99]

Is Schitt pronounced like S#&% as in doo doo?

 

[Austin Morrow]

Quote:

Is Schitt pronounced like S#&% as in doo doo?

Yes, yes it is.

 

[pyramid6]

Any word on new DAC's?  The only information I can find is months old.

 

[hanlk]

The finish on the Bifrost and the Lyr looks slightly different. Is it the photo or are they actually different?

 

[woof37]

Maybe this is just my frustration with getting my own office PC (where my headphone rig lives) to play nicely with the Bifrost via USB, but I would avoid any type of USB connection if at all possible.  I had some experience getting the pops and crackles out of my old USB > DAC setup by playing with ASIO4ALL driver buffers, but I have had no luck with the Hi-speed drivers provided with the Bifrost.  This isn't a knock on Schiit; this is just par for the course with computer audio & USB.
 
Use the Squeezebox...I'm about to do the exact same thing.  Brought my old SB Touch up there and just haven't connected it to my rig yet. 

 

[wushuliu]

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.  One of them is PeterSt, who makes a NOS DAC by virtue of upsampling everything in software to 768 or 705.6 prior to feeding it to the DAC, where no upsampling is done.  The two pieces of software he likes best for this are his own XXHighEnd on Windows, and Audirvana Plus on Mac (which uses the well-thought-of iZotope for sample rate conversion).  Another is Miska, author of HQPlayer for Windows and Linux, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of DAC chips.  He also is a proponent of software upsampling, and remarked that AKM DAC chips can particularly benefit from it.  This was sufficient to at least make me want to experiment.  I'd previously avoided it from a desire to keep things somehow pristine or bit perfect until the last possible moment.
 
So I did some careful listening back and forth to a few tracks with Audirvana Plus, most 16/44.1 (Down Along the Dixie Line from Gillian Welch, "The Harrow and the Harvest;" 500 Miles from Rosanne Cash, "The List;" Everybody Pays As They Go from Jakob Dylan, "Seeing Things"), one 24/96 (Our Shangri-La from Mark Knopfler, "Shangri-La").  I listened to each with no upsampling, then upsampled prior to the DAC to 192kHz, doing this several times with each track.
 
Long story short, after the Gillian Welch, Mark Knopfler and Rosanne Cash I provisionally felt I preferred upsampling.  Then the Jakob Dylan track absolutely nailed it. Without upsampling it's an excellently recorded, unornamented track. With upsampling, the immediacy and sense of realism of the acoustic guitars, harmony vocals and lead vocals was little short of astonishing. Interesting that the more plainly recorded 16/44.1 material (Gillian Welch and especially the Jakob Dylan) came out sounding more impressive than the more heavily produced 24/96 from Mark Knopfler.  Along the same lines, songs from Jakob Dylan's very good second solo album, "Women & Country," produced by T-Bone Burnett, an excellent producer with a fine reputation, weren't as impressive as songs from the very starkly produced "Seeing Things." Producer of "Seeing Things"? Heh, Rick Rubin of Red Hot Chili Peppers "loudness wars" infamy! (But he did do great raw, plain recordings with Johnny Cash.)

 
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. 
 
 
 

 

[juman231]

I'm curious as well. I think I remember reading that they'll announce the new products in January or February but I expected some updates before the actual announcement...