My short review of the Gungnir. I ordered this thinking that it must be pretty damn good to garner the acclaim it has here and elsewhere in the high end press. I was hoping that the newer technology it carried would propel it over my 2002-era DAC, albeit one that cost much more initially, and had also been modified some years ago by Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio (Electrocompaniet ECD-1, with Turbomod).
The Gungnir is amazing, for its price point. I must admit, after reflection, perhaps I asked a bit too much of it - pitting it directly against the ECD-1+. Here's the lowdown:
Gungnir significantly improves bass response and slam over the ECD-1+, especially through the big Maggies and Velodyne F15 servo-sub. It also at least equals the musical soundstage as presented through either the Maggies or the Stax Omega IIs, with slightly better placement of sonic components along the horizontal and front-to-back axes. It does so many things so frickin' well, I was almost ready to say it was THE budget replacement for the old Electrocompaniet. For most of a week it just kept impressing me.
Then, I kept listening, and... it finally ran up against its match. This happened when it came to Lisa Gerrard's subtle vocals (kind of buried under the percussive mix in "In The Beginning Was The Word' ("Departum" album)) I A/B'ed the two DACs with the Stax Omega IIs in very near real time. To put it bluntly, Lisa just kind of disappeared when I switched in the Gungnir. All the rest of the tracks of this complex mix were fine, but she just kind of lost her sense of palpable 3d within the vocal mix there. Sort of an upper midrange suck-out. I could hear something of her voice track in there, but it wasn't really fully present, properly rendered, as it was through the ECD-+. The only way I can describe it, it was kind of like a paper doll cut-out rendering of Lisa's voice, to be brutally frank. The bass still was a bit better and tighter through the Gungnir, but the presence was definitely missing in that vital upper midrange. If I just listened to the rest of the mix, the Gungnir actually held its own, or even bested the old Electrocompaniet. There are some absolutes this Gungnir gets so very right. But it just didn't quite deliver the full package. So this isn't so much a slam of the Gungnir, as it is my affirmation that the Schiit folks really do have their schiit together, missing only that very narrow band of female vocal rendering in this mid-priced DAC - and now - - I can't wait to hear the Yggy!
Really, in case this sounds harsh against the Gungnir, I'm saying this DAC pretty much rocks most of the bandwidth of most music (and, honestly, it took me more than a week to parse this weakness out.) For most users, listening to most music, it would be difficult to improve upon the sound of this DAC without spending a helluva lot more money.
I, however, will wait for the Yggy. From what I hear, I expect that it will not disappoint me. I would give the Gungnir a solid B+ overall. Truly a great effort at this price point.
