Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up

[David Aldrich]

   
Yep, that still applies...and, if you get a Ragnarok and Yggdrasil, you can have another 60# pile on your desk...

 
Only if you'll certify that they can be used as stands for the 25# Apple Thunderbolt display.
 
As an aside, at 120# I'll have a pile yes, I will no longer however has a desk.

 

[ab initio]

  Just a little bump 

I believe you can find this topic covered all throughout their website (specifically throughout the FAQs), and their stance is pretty clear.
 
Out of curiosity, why would you be inviting Jason (and/or the rest of Schiit) to take an all or nothing stance (or even debate) in a public audiophile forum on an inflammable audiophile topic that might alienate or anger half of his customer base?
 
Cheers

 

[David Aldrich]

  Damn, 7.1 192/24 home cinema from Schiit would be a must-have
Damn, 7.1 192/24 home cinema from You guys would have been a must-have

 
I wonder how much headroom the processors on a blu-ray player have after decoding the video from a disk. Enough to add 8 Valhalla-Res audio streams to it?
 
Next thing you'll know the public wants 1kS/s video streams because 24/30/60 isn't good enough for them.

 

[ab initio]

   
At 120# I'll have a pile yes, what I won't have is a desk.

Maybe it's time to upgrade from that Ikea furniture and dip your toes into some real audiophile quality furnishings.
 
Solid silver desk (or at least silver-plated copper) anyone? The silver will really help with the warmth of Schiit's amps!
 
Cheers

 

[Jason Stoddard]

 
Maybe it's time to upgrade from that Ikea furniture and dip your toes into some real audiophile quality furnishings.
 
Solid silver desk (or at least silver-plated copper) anyone? The silver will really help with the warmth of Schiit's amps!
 
Cheers

 
Especially if cryo-treated and damped with various magic stick-on devices. (But only if said devices are at least $300 each.)

 

[LFC_SL]

One if the best posts in a long time btw

I would still have done it, but I wouldn't have announced...that's where the pain comes in. To talk about something that isn't fully worked out yet, and to make assumptions about what it will be when you have a half-done product...not bright.

Since you answered the tube question, will you ever go portable / transportable

Okay, a couple more answers. As noted, Ragnaroks are mass-produced, so we do have some benefit there. However, I think the difference in pricing comes down to two things:

1. We're priced for direct sale. That gives us about a 2X advantage in cost relative to what is sold through dealers. Ragnarok, through a standard dealer channel, would be at least $3K, probably $3500.

2. Once prices reach a certain point in audio (or, well, anything), they become decoupled from reality. This is what I call the "You Can't Sell it That Cheap, They Won't Take You Seriously," assertion. We've been told tons of times that our stuff should sell for lots more. This is entirely BS as far as we're concerned. Do you really think a $13,500 HDMI cable costs $3375 to make, and is worth handing a dealer $6750 in profit (using the old gross margin minimums from the dealer days?) No. Of course not. At that point, it's about shock and bragging rights. Same as the $4750 flannel jacket in Robb Report--it doesn't cost $1200 to make. It's about looking like a 70-year-old guy who shops at Sears for a whole lot more money. Or something. I never figured that one out.

This straight-talk is to be applauded. (This next part is not specifically Schiit per se) The price differential when companies cross over to UK / Europe: can it all be explained by logistics, currency conversions, languages and local taxes and regulations. And yes distributors and dealers need to earn something too. Sometimes there is expecting a hit and sometimes contemplating an alternative plan to purchase direct return flights and bring the toy back on the plane...

 

[TheMadMilkman]

I believe you can find this topic covered all throughout their website (specifically throughout the FAQs), and their stance is pretty clear.
 
Out of curiosity, why would you be inviting Jason (and/or the rest of Schiit) to take an all or nothing stance (or even debate) in a public audiophile forum on an inflammable audiophile topic that might alienate or anger half of his customer base?
 
Cheers

 


You misread him. He's [somewhat] jokingly begging for a job.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

  @Jason Stoddard would a hard-core objectivist have a place in your corp?
 
What do you think about the hypothesis 'If it measures below our hearing threshold, it is inaudible'?

 
Hard-core objectivist? Sure, why not? They can do shipping.
 
Seriously, though, it's not like we test anyone to see if they are objectivists, subjectivists, or some kind of admixture. Nor do we serve kool-aid. However, the three most objectivist engineers (me, Mike, Dave--especially Dave, he lives with an AP and a Stanford and megadollar scopes, literally) are all subjectivist-leaning. In fact, Dave is often the first to bring seemingly insignificant tweaks to the designs we come up with...but he can always point to the mechanism, and measure changes.
 
The hypothesis of "it measures below the hearing threshold," is a complete canard. Who's hearing threshold? What are we measuring? Who determined the objective standards that we're shooting for, and how did they qualify them among a statistically significant sample of listeners?
 
I've said a lot of things about measurement in the book here, and most of it boils down to (in my opinion), we are not yet measuring all the right things. We've made some progress with complex multitone tests which provide some additional insight, but I don't believe that measurement is the be-all, end-all of the audio world. Especially when audio is treated as a "non-problem" by the vast majority of scientists and engineers--the same people who will expend years of effort trying to solve some previously unknown "voodoo" glitch in GHz spread-spectrum communications.

 

[wnmnkh]

 Especially when audio is treated as a "non-problem" by the vast majority of scientists and engineers--the same people who will expend years of effort trying to solve some previously unknown "voodoo" glitch in GHz spread-spectrum communications.

 
They all know there are plenty of problems in audio. It is just audio does not make enough money for vast majority of them anymore.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

The price differential when companies cross over to UK / Europe: can it all be explained by logistics, currency conversions, languages and local taxes and regulations. And yes distributors and dealers need to earn something too. Sometimes there is expecting a hit and sometimes contemplating an alternative plan to purchase direct return flights and bring the toy back on the plane...

 
Much of it, yes. When you add $30 shipping and 20% VAT onto a $100 item, it starts looking a lot like distro prices. However, we're working on that, and I expect, in Europe at least, that you'll see much more attractive prices, with a local service center. Same as US? No. Significantly less than buying and shipping from us? Yes. 
 
Asia is a much more fragmented situation...still thinking on that challenge.

 

[BydoEmpire]

   
Especially if cryo-treated and damped with various magic stick-on devices. (But only if said devices are at least $3000 each.)

Looks like you missed a zero, I fixed it for ya.

 

[David Aldrich]

You know, slabs of Phenolic resin for bench tops isn't that expensive at McMaster, I'm in driving range.
 
Anyone in California want to help me get a 72x30" 125# table top up to a second floor? At least it's good for a 1,500# distributed load.

 

[swspiers]

  irtuallyThose of you who keep wanting schiit speaker amps should slow down and take a good look at the situation.  Of course you schiitheads (

) would buy them, but take a look at the market as a whole.  I have a feeling that the Ragnorak, sans remote control, will still perform very well against the other 1500 dollar integrated amps, Krell, Peachtree, NAD, etc....  That said most all of those options are actually manufactured overseas.  And none of them will have as good headphone performance.  Realistically though there is no way that Schiit can take on the likes of Emotiva(manufactured overseas) in the 'bang for the buck' category as far as speaker amps go, and lacks the brand recognition to sell a whole lot of anything in the $1,000 dollar and up price point.
 
Basically I agree with what Jason said about that in order to grow as a brand, they need offer us something we didn't yet know we needed!  Boutique high end products of any variety are definitely not the way to go.  So many options already out there and very flavor of the month, much money must be devoted to advertising, pay-per-review, and trade show pandering.  As already noted these business practices go directly against the founding principles of Schiit.

For myself, and for selfish reasons, I diagree.  The market for reasonable speaker amps, to Schiit quality and spec, built in the USA is virtually non-existent.
 
I just bought a 2-channel Emotiva UPA-200, and while it punches well above its weight class, it ain't Schiit. I would send it back in a heart-beat if Schiit had something capable of driving a 4-Ohm load with about 150 watts.  Boutique amps, built in the USA, are horrendously over-priced.  But the solid aluminum chasis looks swell....

 

[Jones Bob]

Asia is a much more fragmented situation...still thinking on that challenge.

Try selling on Tmall (formerly Taobao Mall)?

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Try selling on Tmall (formerly Taobao Mall)?

 
Yep, and on Rakuten, and places where Amazon has a good presence. But that leaves the service center(s). I expect we'll be able to get that worked out in 2015. The goal is a world-spanning, direct-as-possible sale network (with local service), not feeding the current distribution network. We'll see how close we can get.