2025, Chapter 1
This Crazy Biz
I stopped at Aerodrome Distilling this last Friday.
Nathan, the proprietor, grinned and waved as I came in. It had been a while, so as I walked up to the aircraft wing that served as a bar, he asked:
“How’s business?”
I paused for a moment, then blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “Weird.”
Nathan laughed and nodded.
“How’s it going here?” I asked.
“Weird,” he replied.
And we both laughed.
Because weird is a good word to describe what’s going on, even though the word is vague and somewhat foreboding. But that’s what’s happening: things are weird.
In our little world, sales are fine, but the mix is totally different. Internally, we’re more zen than we’ve been in a long time. No more disruptions of moving, no more frenetic ramp-ups. The product plan is big, but it’s better worked out, better planned, and, well, just better than ever before. Even though there are some seismic things coming as we move forward into a software future, things are calm.
In the bigger high-end space, things are weird, too. But there’s no calm. Instead, there’s a ton of nervous energy, a seemingly desperate rush to introduce stuff newer and bigger and more expensiver and screenier and at never-before-seen price points doing maybe-irrelevant functions. Super stressful! Couple this with the ongoing tension between the aforementioned Princes of Pricey and the Drones of Measurement, and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of zen going on.
Here's the thing: people don’t deal well with stress and tension.
Especially in a biz that should be fun!
This is about music, right?
Of course it is. But even that can get contentious. Is the music serious enough? Is it a good recording? Is it the Right Music (sometimes being defined as “music I listened to while in high school and college, because music should never change and evolve,” or “music created by people long-dead for large groups of instruments which were super high-tech for their time, but have now ossified into something largely out of touch, oh and let’s argue about the interpretations of same by our favorite conductors.”)
Aaaand…I’ll say it: it’s also about gear.
And that’s perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of retail therapy now and again (well, unless you’re seriously considering things that could affect your current ability to pay for, like, food, shelter, retirement, etc—especially if those things are in the “maybe doesn’t matter” category—in which case yeah, maybe not so fine.)
So yeah, gear nervosa can be really bad. Which is why you may get this feeling some people are standing at the brink.
At the brink of saying, You know, wireless earbuds are good enough, and never coming back to high-end audio.
At the brink of re-thinking, re-evaluating, and downsizing their stacks of megadollar stuff to something more in-line with reality.
At the brink of realizing that there won’t be some New Magic Format so they can rebuy their music yet again, that the reality is doods in garages can release 24/192 PCM all day, and that’s a heckuva change, and there’s a heckuva lotta change all over the place, and what does that mean for the—
—weird—
—industry that we’re in?
I mean, consider the irony of these recent happenings:
We won Budget Product of the Year…for our most expensive product. Yes. Tyr won the top category for budget products in The Absolute Sound’s recent year-end wrapup. That’s super-cool, and we’re flattered, but does this suggest we need to start thinking about the definition of “budget?” Because Tyrs ain’t cheap. Especially when you’re looking at even more money in if you want a preamp and DAC.
We were banned from recent awards submissions…because we win too much. At another site, readers were admonished against recommending anything from Schiit for their annual awards, because we had dominated previous awards by winning too much. And yeah, I get it, they don’t want to seem like Schiit shills, but I gotta thank them for handing me this Best. Marketing. Ever. Moment.
And it’s not just us. In the absence of some clear Newer Better thing, the industry sometimes seems a bit adrift.
I mean, in the 1980s and 1990s, new audio DACs came out every year, driving from 14 to 16 to 18 to 20 bits. There were clear technical differences between them, and manufacturers raced to keep up. Delta-sigma became a thing in the 1990s, and manufacturers scrambled to incorporate that technology too, because it was far less expensive than multibit. Things changed fast because the industry was changing fast. And it was a huge engineering task to improve performance—heck, even measuring it was difficult, the first Stanford Research and AP machines didn’t have the resolution we have now.
Today, an inexpensive delta-sigma chip and good engineering will get you a DAC that measures, steady-state, near the limit of what we can achieve, limited by actual physics. As in, -12XdB THD+N.
Oh yeah, and that inexpensive delta-sigma chip is a derivative of a delta-sigma chip that has probably been around for more than a decade, and, with good implementation, would measure about the same.
So are DACs “solved?” No. One measurement doesn’t give the full picture.
Are they dead, because there are few new DACs? Also no. Pretty much every megadollar DAC doesn’t use audio DAC chips.
But it’s not just DACs that are affected by “no-newer-better-thing-it is.”
It seems there can be no discussion of amps that doesn’t have some true believer declaring the Only Choice is the One True Named Platform because it tops the steady-state numbers games, and other options shouldn’t even exist. (You’d expect these guys not to need any discussion, because they have it figured out, but somehow it seems they always have plenty of time to go and crap on “lesser” stuff. Huh.)
It also sometimes seems that half the discussion in total revolves around streamers, which are basically fancy single-use computers. Nothing wrong with that, but when you have to start wrapping silly words around it to justify car-like prices, then maybe it’s gone a bit too far.
Another significant aspect of discussion is resampling, which has been similarly shinified as “upsampling.” While this implies “making things better,” it also means “completely changing the original,” which a whole lot of the industry doesn’t seem to have a problem with anymore.
And resampling—whether done with hardware or software—is a significant source of stress and tension. When discussions revolve around “well, did you use Filter 23 and the optical output isolated through the proprietary LZRBeem interface, because if not you’re missing out,” or “I’m not sure if my Core Ultra 9 can handle the reSyncSampleX algorithm with ArxV768 without going over 75%,” all the while interspersed with various bug reports, please let me know what this has to do with music.
“So is this just Stoddard Shakes His Cane At Audio?” someone asks. “Or is there a point to all of this?”
Good question.
Let’s see why we are calm when everything around us seems to be crazy—and let’s see if we can help you get there, too.
Bathe in Music
Today, you have no excuse to be stuck in your musical past.
Because streaming.
This is the biggest change in the biz since Schiit started. A decade ago, we could run unironic ads showing a guy lounging in front of a wall of CDs with the title, “For the music you have, not the music you have to buy.”
Because, at that time, the industry was still in the grips of “if you have a better format, you’ll get people to (re)buy all their music (that they have been re-buying since high school).” High res streaming wasn’t a thing. The focus was on physical media, or files you owned. Hence, we were saying, “We have a DAC that is really made for the stuff you already have—CDs—no need to go out and buy DSD or MQA or whatever.”
Now, there are several high res streaming services, including Apple and Amazon.
The format wars are over. PCM won.
And now, even small bands can produce high res PCM themselves.
Aaaaaaaannnnd…most importantly, you have access to all of this for about the price of one old-style CD per month. You are free to explore and decide what you like.
We are sooooooooo far from the era of music scarcity that it’s actually hard to describe. Paying almost $100 for my first 4 CDs (two were imports). Reaching 100 CDs after much money in. Wondering if what I was buying would be as good as I thought it might be, because a lot of what I liked got limited play on the radio. Waiting for something on the radio. Making tapes of my CDs to use in the car, because CDs weren’t practical. Eventually, getting up near 1000 CDs, then going to 2x that when I met my wife. Then ripping those, first to MP3 then to FLAC.
To today, when 90% of my listening is high res streaming.
To today, when I can see what other bands might be similar to what I’m listening to.
To today, when I can search for a dimly-remembered band that never quite made it.
It’s a totally different world. If you don’t have streaming, you’re missing out. Pick a platform, give them some money, and explore. If you find something you want to buy, you can certainly pick up a file, CD, or record. If you find you don’t like some kinds of music, that’s fine too. This is not about judging your musical taste (mine is terrible). This is about being open to new things, actively exploring and discovering, not being stuck in the same old, same old, same old songs.
Because music is far more than you remember.
Take a bath.
Start at the End
Spend most on your transducers.
As in, no matter the budget, spend most on your headphones or speakers.
“But I heard source first is best,” someone says. “And what about total system synergy?”
Yeah, source first is a neat idea. I bet it was promulgated by a company that made mainly source components. And don’t get me wrong. I wish it was real. Because that would definitely make a case for you spending money on an Yggdrasil over a Bifrost.
(Please note we make no transducers, so for us to say, “Spend money not on us,” is either (a) stupid, (b) truth, or (c) both very stupid and absolutely true.”)
In short, get the headphones you really really want, or the speakers you really really fell in love with. Amps and preamps and DACs matter less. Not that they’re unimportant—especially when you’re talking about headphones and speakers that are very difficult to drive—but it’s better to start with the transducers, because they make the most difference.
Doubtful?
Try a blind level-matched A/B of two amps or DACs. You’ll have to listen hard on familiar music to tell a difference.
Try a blind level-matched A/B of two headphones or speakers. You’ll hear the difference instantly.
Transducers first.
Resist Nervosa
Another thing that’s changed since we started is direct sales. When we began, it was a big decision for us to sell direct, rather than go through dealers and distributors. Now it’s a proven strategy.
Selling direct has several huge advantages, but it also adds complexity. It means that many dozens of companies are advertising at you, or forum-ing at you, or PR-ing at you, or influencer-ing at you, or selling-on-a-marketplace at you, wanting your attention, wanting the relationship, wanting that sweet sweet Customer Lifetime Value…
…sorry, went all CMO-y there for a moment.
The point is, things are a lot more noisy. In the past, you’d go to a dealer and they’d probably have some curated systems at certain price points. You’d be able to listen to them and make a decision. The dealer might even set up the system for you.
(Of course, dealer items also meant much higher prices, and don’t get me started on margin influence on recommendations—basically, there were some good dealers, and there are still some good dealers, but there were bad ones as well.)
Now, you’re buying blind in a noisy market. You’re hoping the product you pick will make a significant change, because it’s a pain in the rear end to return something.
And there are so many things to pick!
I mean, hey, yeah, there are amps and DACs. But there are ones that measure well and ones that don’t measure well and there’s ones that are lauded and ones that aren’t and ones with tubes and ones without tubes and ones that are priced like a steak dinner and ones that are priced like a car.
And then there are other mysterious boxes with mysterious names and mysterious capabilities. And cables. And fuses. And a dozen other tweaks, from some with a good basis for actually helping (like connector cleaning, etc) to those that are, well, less physically realistic (like tuning the Earth’s fundamental resonance.)
And then, if you want to venture out into the more, ah, sketchy corners of the internet, you can pick from any number of “clone” products, if you want a taste of car-priced gear on a budget.
All of these things are instantly available, so it’s tempting to try a bunch of them. For some people, this can be nervosa central. So many things you can do with your system! What new wonders might appear?
Here’s the thing: maybe nothing might appear.
Maybe it’ll end up being worse.
Maybe you’ll just end up with nothing more than days wasted fiddle-****ing everything to death, with a pile of half-baked things sitting on your desk (or piled behind your rack) that you don’t really need, and don’t want to deal with sending back.
There’s nothing wrong with being happy with your system.
The Path to Certitude
So what’s the point of this long, rambling, not-bullet-pointed, no-photos chapter?
Maybe nothing. Maybe this is just the result of a random exchange at a South Texas distillery that cemented “weird” in my mind as a good way to describe how things have been feeling for a while.
Or maybe it’s just a way for me to put some framework on this year. There are a ton of things we can say about new products, about new technologies, about, heck, the fact that it’s our 15th anniversary.
(And we don’t even have a 15th anniversary logo. Maybe I should do one.)
Or maybe it’s a way for me to think through our advertising and outreach this year, which will be more active than in the past. You’ll see me at the NYC CanJam, for example, and we’re actively trying to see if we can do whole-line headphone shows and meets, as well as full-GigaStack speaker events.
But hopefully it’s more than that. Hopefully it helps you cut through the noise a bit as well. If it does, then I’m happy to have helped.
If it doesn’t, well…there are more chapters coming. Next up, Stjarna.
