[Ableza]

Home theater bypass:

 

[JoeWhip]

I agree with liamo. I am very pleased with the sound I get out of the Yggy since the usb 5 upgrade with usb right out of my MacBook Air. No need for a fancy renderer.

 

[AMRoberts]

... Is somebody still listening to CDs in real time?

In a word, "Yes." My wife often walks in with a CD of practice music for one of the groups she sings in, that someone in the group burned for everyone. She just "wants to play it," without any delay for ripping the disc. I got her Dad a network player as a retirement gift years ago, and he enjoys listening to classical music streaming stations with it, but still spends the majority of his listening time spinning sliver plastic.

... I may be missing something but why would I want a high quality transport?

Neither of those need a high-quality transport. My wife's use case is currently being handled by the DVD player, which has 2-channel analog outs that are connected to the preamp. Since the DVD is getting inconveniently obsolete (read: video content being loaned between our friends is now Blu-Ray), I'm considering some of the options that have "CD mode" (seems to power-down all of the video-related digital noise sources when you are just playing audio, Yamaha BD-S681 as one example). Any player with analog audio out would suit my father-in-law if his current player ever dies.

All that being said, if you follow Mike's thread he had some posts recently with his views about the best way to be handling digital data upstream of the DAC. If I was understanding this correctly, some of where he would prefer to be would require that he takes control via product(s) further upstream.

 

[Oveja Negra]

A laptop and JRiver make an excellent network player.

Oh, I know, although I prefer MusicBee over JRiver (for no particular reason other than I've been using it for a long time already).

For me, it's much more practical and also from an aesthetic point of view, much more beautiful to have a dedicated machine controlled by a tablet/smartphone.

As I said, my comment was more in the vein of "ah, it would be nice if Schiit makes [insert a cool device]" and what interest me the most is not to have a product that right now I can't acquire, cause obviously, currently there are plenty of options, but to see Schiit doing a great product at a great price (maybe in this case that's not possible?)

Regards.

 

[Mumbles06]

@Ableza, I don't think a switcher would work for HTB. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'll outline my situation (which I believe an HTB would fix) and is a normal HTB type situation.

I have 7 or 8 HDMI sources that go into a Denon AVR. The Denon then sends the video signal (via HDMI out) to the TV and sends all the audio out to 5 speakers and a sub. It also has my turn table (via my Mani) and my RP3 Flac streamer (via a Mimby) as sources for music. So I pick what source I want on the DVR and all five speakers play it. Simple operation (via a universal remote I programmed) for the wife. But for music, I'd rather just power my front 2 B&W's and listen in glorious stereo.

HTB allows you to route your pre out from your AVR to a seperate pre-amp/power amp or integrated amp, and then have your hi-fi chain powering your main 2 speakers regardless of what you are doing, and only your main 2 speakers for music.

Because your main's are hooked up to a separate amp, a HTB circuit allows you to use them all the time, but a switcher would cut them in an out of the system (unless I'm misunderstanding how to use the switcher).

 

[rlow]

Oh, I know, although I prefer MusicBee over JRiver (for no particular reason other than I've been using it for a long time already).

For me, it's much more practical and also from an aesthetic point of view, much more beautiful to have a dedicated machine controlled by a tablet/smartphone.

As I said, my comment was more in the vein of "ah, it would be nice if Schiit makes [insert a cool device]" and what interest me the most is not to have a product that right now I can't acquire, cause obviously, currently there are plenty of options, but to see Schiit doing a great product at a great price (maybe in this case that's not possible?)

Regards.

I would agree that even for myself, I stream far more than I listen to CDs nowadays for sure. However, when I do listen to CDs, I would love to have a high-quality, compact (e.g. Bifrost size), transport-only that i could feed into my Gumby, that matched my other Schiit gear. Of course also for a great price like most Schiit gear. If Mike wanted to throw in a Modi-level DAC in order to make it a bit more flexible for some folks, sure that's fine as long as it didn't degrade the performance of the transport side or significantly impact the price.

I feel like streamer/network players/renderers opens up a can of worms it doesn't seem like Mike or Jason have a desire to open.

Certainly they do not want to get into building their own control app - that is a terrible idea and most apps from audio companies are crap - likely for a reason (they cost a lot to build and maintain, and are hard to do well for all the various devices etc). -nightmare.

So then you're into something like what Sonore and Sotm already do, which is support 3rd party servers/controllers like Roon, DLNA/OpenHome, Squeezelite, etc. I'm thinking RasberryPi players/renderers already this do as well maybe(not very familiar with those).

The market I think already being flooded with this kind of thing, for all kinds of price points, and really a lot of potential headaches around software and drivers and apps etc etc seems like a dicey venture to me. Unless Mike really saw a potential for improving their sound quality significantly, I don't believe it's likely worth it.

 

[OldRoadToad]

I can not delete. I can only edit.

ORT

 

[438555]

A laptop and JRiver make an excellent network player.

I gave JRiver on my Mac Mini a shot, since I initially liked the idea of being bit perfect across multiple sampling frequencies, etc, without having to change it in the MIDI control panel. But I had too many stability issues where JRiver would either crash or at least become unresponsive to the iOS Jremote app, requiring me to restart it on the PC. Since I wanted to run the Mac headless, this required remoting into it frequently. Since I now prefer just getting everything at 44/16 anyay, I've just reverted to using iTunes as the backend and I just leave the output to Bifrost at 44/16 all the time. This has been pretty stable for months (first with Mimby, now with GenV Bifrost).
Maybe JRiver works better on Linux or Windows...

 

[Ableza]

@Ableza, I don't think a switcher would work for HTB. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'll outline my situation (which I believe an HTB would fix) and is a normal HTB type situation.

I have 7 or 8 HDMI sources that go into a Denon AVR. The Denon then sends the video signal (via HDMI out) to the TV and sends all the audio out to 5 speakers and a sub. It also has my turn table (via my Mani) and my RP3 Flac streamer (via a Mimby) as sources for music. So I pick what source I want on the DVR and all five speakers play it. Simple operation (via a universal remote I programmed) for the wife. But for music, I'd rather just power my front 2 B&W's and listen in glorious stereo.

HTB allows you to route your pre out from your AVR to a seperate pre-amp/power amp or integrated amp, and then have your hi-fi chain powering your main 2 speakers regardless of what you are doing, and only your main 2 speakers for music.

Because your main's are hooked up to a separate amp, a HTB circuit allows you to use them all the time, but a switcher would cut them in an out of the system (unless I'm misunderstanding how to use the switcher).

]

Home Theater bypass is a switch that routes an analog input either to a 2-channel out or to the multi-channel processor of a home theater preamp. It is by definition a 2-channel analog switch that is built into some HT preamps. If it functions after the processor (meaning it switches the analog side of the HT processor DAC) then it is not HT bypass it is simply routing the processor signal to a second output (like a Zone out.) A standard selector switch used to route a 2-channel analog signal to one of two amplifiers or preamp inputs is the same as an HT bypass function.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Home Theater bypass is a switch that routes an analog input either to a 2-channel out or to the multi-channel processor of a home theater preamp. It is by definition a 2-channel analog switch that is built into some HT preamps. If it functions after the processor (meaning it switches the analog side of the HT processor DAC) then it is not HT bypass it is simply routing the processor signal to a second output (like a Zone out.) A standard selector switch used to route a 2-channel analog signal to one of two amplifiers or preamp inputs is the same as an HT bypass function.

...and has the added huge benefit of not having a button on the front of OUR product that could also be labeled "PRESS THIS AND MAYBE BLOW UP YOUR SPEAKERS WHEN YOU SWITCH TO THE NEXT INPUT."

Or, if it's a dedicated "HT BYPASS" input, what happens when someone inevitably connects a fixed-output 4V out DAC to it?

Sorry, I have yet to come up with a simple, elegant, and SAFE way to do HT bypass. Maybe the dedicated thing has some legs. But that's still another button, a different remote, and more relays...so don't expect to see it on a running change.

 

[Oveja Negra]

I would agree that even for myself, I stream far more than I listen to CDs nowadays for sure. However, when I do listen to CDs, I would love to have a high-quality, compact (e.g. Bifrost size), transport-only that i could feed into my Gumby, that matched my other Schiit gear. Of course also for a great price like most Schiit gear. If Mike wanted to throw in a Modi-level DAC in order to make it a bit more flexible for some folks, sure that's fine as long as it didn't degrade the performance of the transport side or significantly impact the price.

I feel like streamer/network players/renderers opens up a can of worms it doesn't seem like Mike or Jason have a desire to open.

Certainly they do not want to get into building their own control app - that is a terrible idea and most apps from audio companies are crap - likely for a reason (they cost a lot to build and maintain, and are hard to do well for all the various devices etc). -nightmare.

So then you're into something like what Sonore and Sotm already do, which is support 3rd party servers/controllers like Roon, DLNA/OpenHome, Squeezelite, etc. I'm thinking RasberryPi players/renderers already this do as well maybe(not very familiar with those).

The market I think already being flooded with this kind of thing, for all kinds of price points, and really a lot of potential headaches around software and drivers and apps etc etc seems like a dicey venture to me. Unless Mike really saw a potential for improving their sound quality significantly, I don't believe it's likely worth it.

About the bolded part, yep, I agree that's a reality and that's why I wrote "maybe in this case that's not possible". Regarding the other reasons you listed, I think they were covered by Jason in that mentioned chapter.

Personally, I couldn't care less about a CD transport (from Schiit or from any other manufacturer). I still buy CDs cause sadly, a lot of the artists that I follow don't release their catalog as digital downloads (flac or equivalent), but as soon as I receive the CD, I rip it using my laptop and then I throw it into a box that I have in an attic like room filled with crap.

I know CD is a dying format and that puts a big smile on my face, but man, its death is not coming fast enough.

 

[Mumbles06]

Home Theater bypass is a switch that routes an analog input either to a 2-channel out or to the multi-channel processor of a home theater preamp. It is by definition a 2-channel analog switch that is built into some HT preamps. If it functions after the processor (meaning it switches the analog side of the HT processor DAC) then it is not HT bypass it is simply routing the processor signal to a second output (like a Zone out.) A standard selector switch used to route a 2-channel analog signal to one of two amplifiers or preamp inputs is the same as an HT bypass function.

Ok. So if I take my analog pre-out from my AVR that I have running to my powered sub right now (it has L and R RCA, so that should be a 2-channel analog out), and plug it into an analog in on the Saga-->Vidar-->B&W, would that function, or would that over amplify and distort? If I went AVR analog out --> Switch --> Saga --> Vidar --> Speakers, I don't get how that would step it down?

Or maybe is it Analog out (should be processed and preamped already)-->SYS --> Vidar
Saga (music sources)-->SYS-->Vidar

In that case I'm using a SYS as my HTB? I'm thinking that's the logic on using a switch, am I correct?

 

[Mumbles06]

Sorry for so many dumb questions (I'm just a dumb old pilot), but if a HTB is just a switch, couldn't I just use the SYS as a HTB as long as I'm running RCA and not XLR?

HDMI source -->AVR pre-amp out --> SYS --> Vidar
Music source --> Saga --> SYS --> Vidar

I feel like I found a Schiity solution for HTB. Somebody shoot holes in this idea, please.

 

[Ableza]

Ok. So if I take my analog pre-out from my AVR that I have running to my powered sub right now (it has L and R RCA, so that should be a 2-channel analog out), and plug it into an analog in on the Saga-->Vidar-->B&W, would that function, or would that over amplify and distort? If I went AVR analog out --> Switch --> Saga --> Vidar --> Speakers, I don't get how that would step it down?

Or maybe is it Analog out (should be processed and preamped already)-->SYS --> Vidar
Saga (music sources)-->SYS-->Vidar

In that case I'm using a SYS as my HTB? I'm thinking that's the logic on using a switch, am I correct?

What is your HT receiver (make/model)?

HT bypass is (analog source) - (switch) - (out1 to HT analog input, out2 to 2-channel analog input.)

 

[Ableza]

Sorry for so many dumb questions (I'm just a dumb old pilot), but if a HTB is just a switch, couldn't I just use the SYS as a HTB as long as I'm running RCA and not XLR?

HDMI source -->AVR pre-amp out --> SYS --> Vidar
Music source --> Saga --> SYS --> Vidar

I feel like I found a Schiity solution for HTB. Somebody shoot holes in this idea, please.

If you source is HDMI then you are stuck using outputs from your receiver. In no case will it be the same as HT bypass. Does your receiver have a zone out?