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Schiit Fire and Save Matches! Bifrost Multibit is Here.
Aug 28, 2017 at 1:06 PM Post #2,703 of 2,799
Thought I'd post my question here before I post it in the general "help" thread. Any help is greatly appreciated.

So, my Bimby suddenly stopped working for the past couple of days.
I currently have an AudioGD NFB28 (dac/amp) connected to both my 2008 Macbook Pro, and the Bimby (using the NFB28 as an amp only) via USB. Using the NFB28 as a dac/amp combo has no problems, whereas using the BImby as an external DAC to the NFB28 suddenly stopped working. Btw, I had the Bimby for at least a year or two.

I tried switching USB cables, USB ports and nothing seems to work. Interestingly, the NFB28/Bimby combo works when connected to a different computer (surface pro 4).

At first I figured the USB of my MacbookPro to be the issue, but both USB ports work just fine when using the internal DAC of the NFB28. And the USB input port of the Bimby also appears to be fine since it works when connected to a different computer.

Any ideas?
 
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Oct 14, 2017 at 9:06 PM Post #2,708 of 2,799
Baldr said:
The DS Bifrosts are all Balanced summed back into single ended designs anyway. Most, if not all pieces of DS silicon have balanced outputs.
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Just found this after seeing that the Bifrost has a "fully discrete stage for summing", which surprised me, since it's not a balanced DAC, technically. Interesting.
But, you are talking about "most, if not all pieces of DS silicon". What about your multibit DACs? On another thread I proposed a single-ended Yggdrasil, is that even possible without summing? Summing would presumably miss the point, which is to save on components and space, and therefore price.
 
Oct 15, 2017 at 2:35 AM Post #2,710 of 2,799
Alcophone said:
Just found this after seeing that the Bifrost has a "fully discrete stage for summing", which surprised me, since it's not a balanced DAC, technically. Interesting.
But, you are talking about "most, if not all pieces of DS silicon". What about your multibit DACs? On another thread I proposed a single-ended Yggdrasil, is that even possible without summing? Summing would presumably miss the point, which is to save on components and space, and therefore price.
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As said, ... Most, if not all pieces of DS silicon have .. differential outputs.
The DAC chips Schiit use for their multibit DACs have single ended outputs, the Modi MB and Bifrost MB use a 2 channel chip so only one is needed for single ended stereo (one reason Mimby is so nicely priced - don't know why Bimby so much more).
The DAC chips used for Gungnir MB and Yggdrasil are single channel so they have 4 DAC chips each (2 for balanced x 2 for stereo). So a single ended Yggdrasil, without having to have a summer, could be made using only 2 DAC chips but I can't imagining Schiit would bother making the effort to make a downgraded version of their statement DAC.
 
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Oct 15, 2017 at 3:09 AM Post #2,711 of 2,799
bosiemoncrieff said:
Mike has made two single ended yggies — mimby and bimby. Why do we need him to remove balanced from the flagship?
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Yggdrasil is said to have 21 bits of resolution, Gungnir MB 19 bits, and Bifrost MB 16 bits.
As far as I know the 21st/19th bit are the result of being balanced, so a single-ended Yggdrasil would have 20 bits, not 16. It would also use the same chips as Yggdrasil, just fewer of them. So I don't consider Mimby or Bimby single-ended Yggies.

jimmers said:
As said, ... Most, if not all pieces of DS silicon have .. differential outputs.
The DAC chips Schiit use for their multibit DACs have single ended outputs, the Modi MB and Bifrost MB use a 2 channel chip so only one is needed for single ended stereo (one reason Mimby is so nicely priced - don't know why Bimby so much more).
The DAC chips used for Gungnir MB and Yggdrasil are single channel so they have 4 DAC chips each (2 for balanced x 2 for stereo). So a single ended Yggdrasil, without having to have a summer, could be made using only 2 DAC chips but I can't imagining Schiit would bother making the effort to make a downgraded version of their statement DAC.
Click to expand...
That's what I thought and was hoping to get confirmed. So with a Multibit design it would be possible to avoid summing in order to get single-ended out. Schiit itself seems to consider summers a compromise, emphasizing "the ability to use one side of the topology as a single-ended output, to eliminate the need for summers" for the Jotunheim, for instance (while still mentioning "fully differential, passive summing" for the analog out).
Whether it makes sense for Schiit to do so is obviously up to them, I was curious whether it was possible. Apparently using Yggdrasil single-ended is a bit of a compromise, which means that if you want to make full use of it, you don't just have to stomach its cost, but also the extra cost for going balanced in the rest of the chain. Not everyone will want to do that, but still might be interested in a statement DAC meant for single-ended systems, i.e. a single-ended Yggy.
 
Oct 15, 2017 at 9:50 AM Post #2,712 of 2,799
Nothing is stopping you from using the SE outputs of Yggdrasil.
Yggy-rear-1920.jpg
 
Oct 15, 2017 at 10:04 AM Post #2,713 of 2,799
Ableza said:
Nothing is stopping you from using the SE outputs of Yggdrasil.
Yggy-rear-1920.jpg
Click to expand...
I'm musing about avoiding the summing circuitry used to create those single-ended outs, and the cost for an Yggdrasil that uselessly (in a purely single ended system) creates a balanced signal only to then sum it away.
Unless there is some advantage to that - does balanced, then summed sound better than straight to single ended? Apparently not in an amp, but maybe in a DAC?
 
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