Schiit Gungnir DAC

[feelingears]

I've compared SE output of GD-19, GMB, and Yiggy at home on my NAIM/Dynaudio system. The GD-19 was the distant third of the three. Both pieces of Schiit were fabulous in different ways. I've never heard any of them balanced.

 
Hi, Schneller
 
Excuse me if I missed an earlier post of yours, but what was your impression of the Gungnir MB w/ your Naim system? (I've decided I like listening to my Naim rig better than headphones--I know, sacrilege... Sorry.) I've heard mostly positive impressions (and purchases).

 

[ToTo Man]

I currently have 4490 and Gumby demo units in my possession (I still can't lay my hands on Bimby and Yggy) and I've just spent an interested evening comparing them.  Being demo units, both DACs are assumed to be burned in, however I only gave Gumby 3hrs warm up time, so I'll happily revise my findings if its sonic character develops further over the coming days.  The following impressions were formed using my main system with loudspeakers and not my headphone rig.  4490 connected to my A-S3000 single-ended, and Gumby connected to my A-S3000 both single-ended and balanced.
 
Caveat: 
In my system all three DAC outputs differ in level, confirmed by the watt/VU meters on my A-S3000.  The difference is very small, but audible nevertheless.  The single-ended 4490 is the loudest, followed by the balanced Gumby (my A-S3000 automatically attenuates balanced input signals down to normal line levels), and the single-ended Gumby is the quietest.  It's impossible to objectively evaluate DACs unless the output level is equal, so I tried as best I could to equalise levels further when switching between them.  
 
Comparison #1 - 4490 single-ended vs Gumby single-ended:
Gumby sounds smoother and more relaxed and natural than 4490.  It's not any less detailed or duller - in fact I was pleased to discover Gumby still has nice crisp highs - but everything seems more grounded and focused.  Instrument locations are easier to pinpoint, and transients are cleaner and shorter.  Gumby's overall presentation is smaller in size.  4490 sounds larger, more floaty and more dazzling, but it also sounds more 'digital' (strained/strident/etched) during busy passages.  4490 has some kind of digital 'ringing' or 'haloing' going on that I didn't notice until hearing Gumby, a bit like a 'hall' ambience/reverb effect.  In simple terms, Gumby sounds like the positive effect you get from adding some acoustic absorption panels to your room.  
 
Comparison #2 - Gumby single-ended vs Gumby balanced:
After level matching, I struggle to hear much if any difference between Gumby's single-ended and balanced inputs on my A-S3000, which is surprising because I heard a clear difference when I listened to a Mjolnir2/Gumby/Ether setup last year (the soundstage and imaging became more 3D/holographic, especially in the mids, through balanced)  My A-S3000 is apparently a "full floated and balanced circuit design that achieves complete symmetry and permits full balanced transmission", therefore I was hoping to experience a similar effect.  Perhaps the difference will reveal itself more once Gumby has been on a few days.

 

[ToTo Man]

I would be grateful for album recommendations that head-fi'ers feel really highlight the advantages of multibit and limitations of d/s.

 

[joeexp]

All of them! 

 

[RCBinTN]

  I would be grateful for album recommendations that head-fi'ers feel really highlight the advantages of multibit and limitations of d/s.

 
LOL at @joeexp comment above, but it was true for me.  A couple notes:
 
 - The upgrade from Gungnir to Gumby was the best $500 I've spent on this hobby.
 - All my quiet music like piano jazz, small ensemble jazz, acoustic guitar/voices became much more clear with better instrument resolution and definition - the music sounds way more real.  Not to mention classical - just over the top.
 - My rock and blues music took on more depth with better bass punch and faster decay than the Gungnir - actually filled out the bass and lower mids of the HD800 that made them quite good for rock and blues (the MB upgrade was the only change that I made at that time).
 
If you want specific album ideas, try these:  EC Unplugged, Allen Toussaint The Bright Mississippi, 3 Doors Down Greatest Hits 2014.  For vocals, anything by Melody Gardot.  You will not be disappointed!
 
Hope this helps,
RCB

 

[theveterans]

  Comparison #1 - 4490 single-ended vs Gumby single-ended:
Gumby sounds smoother and more relaxed and natural than 4490.  It's not any less detailed or duller - in fact I was pleased to discover Gumby still has nice crisp highs - but everything seems more grounded and focused.  Instrument locations are easier to pinpoint, and transients are cleaner and shorter.  Gumby's overall presentation is smaller in size.  4490 sounds larger, more floaty and more dazzling, but it also sounds more 'digital' (strained/strident/etched) during busy passages.  4490 has some kind of digital 'ringing' or 'haloing' going on that I didn't notice until hearing Gumby, a bit like a 'hall' ambience/reverb effect.  In simple terms, Gumby sounds like the positive effect you get from adding some acoustic absorption panels to your room.  

 
Thanks for your Gumby's impression against 4490. I didn't expect that Gumby's presentation is smaller than 4490. I found that Bimby's presentation is wider than 4490 with same natural and relaxed sound of the Gumby. Also, Bimby doesn't present digital "ringing" or "floating details" that sounds metallic during busy passages. But Bimby is less resolving than the 4490 to my ears if you take away the digititus factor.

 

[schneller]

   
Hi, Schneller
 
Excuse me if I missed an earlier post of yours, but what was your impression of the Gungnir MB w/ your Naim system? (I've decided I like listening to my Naim rig better than headphones--I know, sacrilege... Sorry.) I've heard mostly positive impressions (and purchases).

Schiit pairs very well with NAIM. Absolutely stunning really. A couple people over at the NAIM forum have reported the same.

 

[ToddRaymond]

That's cool (and I could see that being a good match). For what it's worth, I'm enjoying the Schiit out of my 'Gumby' feeding my Ayre pre and power amp. Speakers are Totem's 20th anniversary 'The One' monitors. It's really, really magical. I am curious to try either Totem's newer Element Fire, or Focal's Sopra No. 1 though. For now, I am well beyond content though.

 

[ToTo Man]

   
Thanks for your Gumby's impression against 4490. I didn't expect that Gumby's presentation is smaller than 4490. I found that Bimby's presentation is wider than 4490 with same natural and relaxed sound of the Gumby. Also, Bimby doesn't present digital "ringing" or "floating details" that sounds metallic during busy passages. But Bimby is less resolving than the 4490 to my ears if you take away the digititus factor.

Thanks for the comparison of 4490 vs Bimby, that's very useful.  We all hear things differently, but [size=x-small]perhaps my description of a "smaller soundstage" isn't the ideal terminology to use.  What I meant was that the Gumby produces a more focused and intimate sound with a blacker background, like the performance was recorded in a smaller space with less reflections to distract from the direct sound, not that the soundstage has been dimensionally squashed with less space between instruments.  The 4490 by comparison sounds more diffused and the reverb tails do not fade to black as cleanly or quickly as Gumby.  To complicate things, it's difficult to say how much of these perceived spatial differences are influenced by the tonal differences I'm hearing between the two DACs, as the 4490 sounds more forward in the mids than Gumby to my ears.  I [/size][size=xx-small]guess that's why this hobby is so subjective!...[/size]

 

[feelingears]

  Schiit pairs very well with NAIM. Absolutely stunning really. A couple people over at the NAIM forum have reported the same.

 
Cool, thanks @schneller! Yes, I had seen the same but it's always nice to exercise my confirmation bias! ;^)

 

[McClelland]

  Got the Gumby last week. I didn't like the sound at first and preferred the Bimby (burned-in). After burn-in, the Gumby is clearly superior especially over balanced cable (solid copper Anticables).
 
Only one issue I had was an ear shattering blast due to a missed sample switch. I was using Jriver to stream my collection from a media server and upsample to 176.4 in integer mode. When Jriver is in exclusive mode, it changes your mac OS sound output from Schiit to something else like internal speaker. Jriver crashed and closed but continued holding onto the exclusive access to the Schiit. I wasn't able to change the system sound output back to the Schiit even though Jriver wasn't open. I opened Amarra for Tidal which gives direct access to the Schiit without going through CoreAudio system. This was a big mistake.
 
Seems like Amarra for Tidal tried sending through a 44.1 sample into the Schiit which was stuck on 176.4 from Jriver gaining exclusive access and crashing. What came from the output of my amp was the most unholy, horrid, digital noise I have ever heard. I don't think I've ever moved that fast to turn it off.
 
Beware... if your Gumby seems stuck in place, don't play around... 

I experienced a similar volume blast one evening that left me with ringing in my left ear and a deficit between 4-8kHz on audiology exam. In my case I am pretty sure the extreme volume burst was music and not static.  Earlier in the day there had been three episodes when the music suddenly shifted from the headphones to the computer speakers.  I now understand that points to something gone awry in the USB signal path. These shifts occurred when the amp/dac was connected to two different Macs.  I was listening to a well-regarded solid state amp/dac  and the manufacturer has not been able to replicate the problem, nor have they suggested that the USB module might be implicated.  There is no evidence of any power surge, or anomaly in my electrical circuits and it has never happened before in 40 years of listening.
 
I plan to purchase the Gumby/Mjolinir combo and want to do everything possible to keep this from happening again. One recommended solution is to use the toslink connection and avoid USB altogether. Both of my macs support 96/24 only, via optical output at the headphone jack.  I have come from room speaker systems and am new to these variables, listening largely to CD's, Tidal hifi, and a few HD tracks. I don't know if the sampling rate differences will make a difference in my subjective SQ.  I've thought the stellar quality of the HDTracks recordings of Amber Rubarth have come from the binaural recording and not the 192/24 sampling rate, but I'd be helped by other opinions.
 
What steps could I take to protect against USB instability if I wanted to try USB?  Would adding a Wyrd to the G/M combo prevent these USB problems?
 
At the time of the events I was unsure if it was related to my sound source. I was logged into Tidal but was listening to a VLC playlist. The amp/dac I was using did not disable the Mac volume controls. I've used other Schiit products and understand from them that all their DAC's disable the Mac volume controls, but the controllers in applications like Tidal, VLC, and JRiver still work. 
 
Is there a way to disable all the volume controls whether in the Mac or the application so that the Schiit is the only controller?
 
I've now come across four members with similar stories, without the persisting hearing deficit, and I wonder how many others there are.  I'd like to find out if there are more members who have had these experiences. What forum would be the best place to start a thread for gathering that data, where the most people might come across it? 
 
Thanks, McClelland

 

[McClelland]

  Even something like the Bose Mini Soundlink speaker can benefit from the lineout of this wonderful dac.  The soundlink serves conveniently as a speaker bar for my pc monitors and it's satisfying.

Have been using my Soundlink III in the same way, playing through the Chord Mojo with notable improvement and I am looking forward to seeing what the Gumby will do.  McC

 

[Ttenu]

 
At the time of the events I was unsure if it was related to my sound source. I was logged into Tidal but was listening to a VLC playlist. The amp/dac I was using did not disable the Mac volume controls. I've used other Schiit products and understand from them that all their DAC's disable the Mac volume controls, but the controllers in applications like Tidal, VLC, and JRiver still work. 
 
Is there a way to disable all the volume controls whether in the Mac or the application so that the Schiit is the only controller?

 
You won't get any volume controls with a Schiit DAC. That's good, you want to do volume control in the analog stage (headphone amp potentiometer). What you can do, if available as a feature, is give an audio application exclusive access to the DAC so that Apple's CoreAudio isn't trying to mix other streams into it. I gave up on Amarra for Tidal not because of its incredibly sluggish and unintuitive interface, but because it still allowed CoreAudio to mix system sounds and audio from web browsers into what I intended to be a bitperfect, exclusive connection from application to DAC.
 
I've just installed Roon and find that it is stellar for my needs. It can easily do sample rate switching between 44.1kHz Tidal and local hi-res tracks of various sample rates. It can be configured to use exclusive mode which "kicks out" any other audio from getting into the stream, booting them to some secondary audio output like Internal Speakers or whatever else you choose. I would recommend this setup if you are concerned about ghastly sample rate errors, as Roon in exclusive mode dances wonderfully with the Schiit DAC from what I've experienced.

 

[earnmyturns]

 
What steps could I take to protect against USB instability if I wanted to try USB?  Would adding a Wyrd to the G/M combo prevent these USB problems?

The real problem here is that general-purpose computers (PCs or Macs) have too much going on in them concurrently, with apps and drivers fighting for I/O supremacy. That's one more reason the teeny dedicated Linux gadgets mentioned in the latest Schiit Happened are so attractive. I started withg a Cubox with Volumio ($100 for the hardware, $0 and a bit of my time for the software), although I'm now using somewhat more polished hardware and software (Sonore Sonicorbiter SE for one system and microRendu for another). These custom Linux distros minimize non-audio cr*p to provide reliable transfer from network and/or storage to USB audio. I use my general-purpose computers for general-purpose computing, and a NAS to store all my FLAC.

 

[Astral Abyss]

  The real problem here is that general-purpose computers (PCs or Macs) have too much going on in them concurrently, with apps and drivers fighting for I/O supremacy. That's one more reason the teeny dedicated Linux gadgets mentioned in the latest Schiit Happened are so attractive. I started withg a Cubox with Volumio ($100 for the hardware, $0 and a bit of my time for the software), although I'm now using somewhat more polished hardware and software (Sonore Sonicorbiter SE for one system and microRendu for another). These custom Linux distros minimize non-audio cr*p to provide reliable transfer from network and/or storage to USB audio. I use my general-purpose computers for general-purpose computing, and a NAS to store all my FLAC.

 
I've got a tiny little Intel NUC with a Skylake i3 processor in it running Windows 10 off a 1TB SSD installed in it.  As a bonus it has built in gigabit NIC, Bluetooth 4.0 and wireless ac.  I've got all my music on the SSD as FLAC files running through JRiver.  It's connected to my other computers via gigabit wired home network.  USB to my Wyrd, Modi2U (soon to be Yggy), and Ember, and Bluetooth to my wireless speaker (sitting on my workbench) when I don't feel like headphones.  Zero issues.  Runs great, sounds great.  As a bonus this little NUC handles 4k output to my monitor and plays Netflix perfectly.  So, don't be afraid to build a tiny Windows box for music.  It's more expensive, but it does more.
 
...oh and it has an IR receiver built into it for remote controls...