[Puma Cat]

  I'm in the same boat too with the M/G/LCD-X stack.
 
It's my first foray into headphone listening and is fantastic. I use a late 2012 Mac Mini running Pure Music to 176.2 upsample 16/44.1 AIFF from a 2T WD  hard drive. I can output to the M/G stack for HQ headphone listening or click on my Bose Companion 3 controller to output via an Audioquest Dragonfly 88.2 for general listening in my computer room.
 
I know- Bose. Don't be hating on me. The Dragonfly 2 and Pure Music was a significant lifestyle upgrade for my general desktop day to day use. Been using the Dragonfly for about a year.
 
But- I got the bug for a really nice headphone system after reading Arnie Nudell's review of the LCD-X in The Absolute Sound a couple of issues ago. Days of research led me to Headfi (I didn't know it existed since I had no interest in headphones previously) and then to Schiit. I originally thought about the Rag since it was soon to be released, but I just didn't see a use for the extra bling of the inputs and especially the speaker outs since I had no plans or room to put in a near field speaker rig. I love what I have. I was done for eternity....
 
Then eternity bit my ass when I discovered the KEF LS50 and figured that my present nearfield Bose system just wasn't good enough anymore for general listening. Now I needed sound quality equal to that of my headphone system.
 
I figured out a way to get the LS50s into my computer desk footprint. Headphones are great in their own right, but sound in the real world never just comes into one of my ears and not the other. On some recordings, a nearfield experience to me is better and just more natural. Sometimes I want the ability to move around my room or be able to feel the presence of someone else in the room enjoying music with me.
 
I thought about using the pre-out from the Mjolnir to feed a power amp and sub combo and then started to go crazy trying to figure out ways to simply and safely switch from nearfield to headphone systems as I can do now. Each scenario ended in failure because the cost was too high or the components weren't balanced or they were too big for my desktop or I risked blowing up the headphones or various other reasons. I was getting further and further away from the simplicity and phenominal cost/performance of the M/G stack.
 
So now the Rag is back in the picture with Yggie likely to compliment it and a REL T7 or JL e110 to round out the sub duties. I just have to get the Rag now because it's the only thing I can see that can do economically what now I need to do. Even if it doesn't sound any better than the Mjolnir.
 
I'm like you, Shembot. I jumped too soon, but I'm so glad I made the jump when I did because it showed me what high quality sound from such relatively inexpensive equipment I have been missing all these years. Contrary to what the guys at TAS had me believing, I don't need to spend 20 billion dollars on esoteric monsters with zero WAF in order to experience The High End, especially with Schiit and Headfi on the scene. Thanks everyone for the guidance.
 
 
The G/M stack? My son graduates college in May. What to give him as a graduation present? Hmmmm...... A new Headfier is born!!!

DSNORD,
If you like listening to your KEF LS50s near-field, you really should try to hear some Harbeth 30.1s sometime! I will be buying a pair of those someday...for the time being, I have to content myself with my big Dynaudios. 

 

[purrin]

@Shembot: Concerning the glare issues on M/G stack. Try leaving it on for for a day or two and see if it mellows out.

 

[Puma Cat]

 

Better yet, leave it on for a week or so streaming music continuously, then re-evaluate. That's what I did with my Bifirost. 
 
These burn-in times are pretty reasonable; it took me over 1000 hours to fully burn in my C-J CT-5 preamp with it's Teflon capacitors; about 2 years of use. It wasn't even listenable until it had about 11 months of burn-in time on it. Now it sounds fantastic. 

 

[johnjen]

 
Shambot, you will need to let your gear burn in before making any final decisions about how Gungnir and/Mjolnir sound. My guess is it's Gungnir needing burn-in that your hearing. My first Schiit product, the original Bifrost required about 400 hours of burn-in before it reallty came into it's own...that was about four months of playing time for me. The first week I had Bifrost, it damn near drove me out of the room, but after 100 hours of burn in time, it really smoothed out, any at 400 hours it was a completely different animal; smooth, liquid, detailed, velvety, and not glare-y at all. So, I would give it some time. Keep the gear for a year and see what you think per someone else's advice. Also, the suggestion to do some power conditioning would also really help. Personally, I am a big fan of Shunyata's products, and they make a power cord specifically designed for digital source devices to dramatically reduce the noise level from high-bandwidth processors, like those found in DACS, which operate in the gigahertz range, and cause all sorts of electronic hash problems. I have a full Shunyata loom on my 2-channel speaker-based system, as well as a Shunyata Venom 3 source power cable on both my Gungnir and my Mac Mini. I'm not going to enter in to a power cables don't matter debate, but I'm a scientist by profession, and I go by what the data tells me, and adding the Shunyata power cables and distributor to my 2-channel system paid huge dividends in sound quality, particularly with all the grunge and hash that is there that you don't notice until is it GONE. 

+1
I too use Shunyata cables which took many hundreds of hrs. before they fully 'blossomed'.
 
And yes the Alpha-Digital cable does work rather well on my DAC as well.
Which takes even longer to fully break in…
 
What I noticed were veils (as in many of them) being lifted, allowing moar inner details and definition to be heard.  But the real test for me was if the bass could match or be improved over my previous cables.
 
And yes the cables I'm running do scale rather well.
 
JJ

 

[Puma Cat]

  +1
I too use Shunyata cables which took many hundreds of hrs. before they fully 'blossomed'.
 
And yes the Alpha-Digital cable does work rather well on my DAC as well.
 
What I noticed were veils (as in many of them) being lifted, allowing moar inner details and definition to be heard.  But the real test for me was if the bass could match or be improved over my previous cables.
 
And yes the cables I'm running do scale rather well.
 
JJ

Couldn't agree more, John. I need to get an Alpha Digital power cable for my Gungnir sometime soon. I will get the less expensive Viper version instead of the full-blown Zitron model. I have a Zitron Cobra on my Shunyata Triton and Black Mamba power cables on all my other components, and they made a very large difference in my ability, as you say, to hear more INTO the music. They make the entire system so QUIET that it transforms the listening experience. They also impart what I can only describe as a "listening ease" that you have to experience to understand. Clearly you know what I am talking about here. It is also interesting how the bass response is always improved, too. More detail, control, texture and nuance. Really remarkable products backed by hard scientifically-based engineering. 

 

[Shembot]

My G/M stack has been running continuously for 15 days playing music for several hours a day and pink noise whenever I'm not listening, including overnight. There was some improvement in glare since it was fresh out of the box, but I still feel like the stack is a bit bright and a bit thin in bass. I don't feel that imaging or sound stage have improved with burn in so far, and resolution and detail if anything have deteriorated slightly.

I will try inexpensive power conditioning and see if it improves things.

 

[johnjen]

 
Couldn't agree more, John. I need to get an Alpha Digital power cable for my Gungnir sometime soon. I will get the less expensive Viper version instead of the full-blown Zitron model. I have a Zitron Cobra on my Shunyata Triton and Black Mamba power cables on all my other components, and they made a very large difference in my ability, as you say, to hear more INTO the music. They make the entire system so QUIET that it transforms the listening experience. They also impart what I can only describe as a "listening ease" that you have to experience to understand. Clearly you know what I am talking about here. It is also interesting how the bass response is always improved, too. More detail, control, texture and nuance. Really remarkable products backed by hard scientifically-based engineering. 

 
Yes! :thumb
Hearing INTO the music is something that, once experienced, seems to become a 'must have trait' and it does seem to 'require' a well balanced system to achieve.
 
I refer to the 'listening ease' as LFF or (Listener Fatigue Factor) such that when LFF is reduced all the music takes on an effortless quality which further enables moar inner details and C3 (Cohesion, Coherence, Coupling) to be experienced.  I figure because as the system is improved and gets out of it's own way, moar of the 'original' musical signal is 'allowed' to be presented.  Or put another way, there is less 'inaccuracy' of the re-assembled signal which tends to mask or obscure the original signal.
 
As for the bass, that was my most important criteria to meet or beat.
It took much fussing to get that dialed in.
But the results are most sublime.
I can now hear the musical note of the bass along with its related harmonic series of acoustic subtleties such that it isn't just a whump or thud etc. but can hear the actual instrument that produced the bass note, including it's acoustical space.  
This being able to hear and feel the acoustical energy, properly re-assembled and presented tends to make each 'voice' more real.
But what is most interesting is once the bass can be properly re-assembled, this capability of the bass to fully couple, applies to all other 'voices' as well, which lends 'realness' to all the 'voices" as all the acoustical energy is also moar fully coupled to their 'parent'.
 
My next series of experiments are aimed at this particular attribute of coupling, with respect to ac power delivery.
 
JJ 

 

 

[OddE]

  There is always gear out there that is "more transparent"...you just have to pay the big bucks to get it. Go listen to some DarTZeel gear some time....

-I guess this is where we'll have to agree to disagree.
 
Once noise and distortion are below audible levels (Which they are, by orders of magnitude, in most competently designed equipment), an amp is an amp is an amp and a DAC is a DAC is a DAC. 
 
Not that I do not appreciate the non-tangible joys of owning high-end equipment. For instance, my Benchmark DAC2 HGC is massively overkill by any objective standards, but it is a well-engineered product built to very high standards and backed by a service organization which is nothing short of extraordinary, all of which are valuable - to me, anyway - attributes.
 
Anyway, back on track (sort of!) - if everything goes according to plan, my office stack will be upgraded from a nuForce uDAC (Which is a surprisingly capable device, though with its flaws - channel imbalance at lower listening levels being the most prominent in my book) to a Bifrost/Lyr 2 stack sometime during January. Primarily as I am eager to try some Schiit out, but also to reintroduce some tube gear to my music enjoyment - I really, really like the -cough- distortion exhibited by tube amplification.

 

[superjawes]

 
There is always gear out there that is "more transparent"...you just have to pay the big bucks to get it. Go listen to some DarTZeel gear some time....

-I guess this is where we'll have to agree to disagree.

Once noise and distortion are below audible levels (Which they are, by orders of magnitude, in most competently designed equipment), an amp is an amp is an amp and a DAC is a DAC is a DAC. 

Electrical designs are about more than noise and distortion. Frequency response is important to make sure that it's wide enough for human hearing, but one thing you might not think about is what it actually looks like. We assume something relatively flat, but the reality is that there will always be some "not flatness" in the response. This means that some frequencies will be louder than others. Will you notice it? That's a bit harder to say, but you can always add more components to get this to be "more flat".

And keep in mind that "frequency response" rarely cites phase as well. Some frequencies might get a different phase shift than others.

In general, yes, you do approach a point where things are "good enough" for most people, and additional improvements may or may not be audible, and different listeners may or may not be able to hear it, and some of these listeners may only think that they're hearing a difference, and others will be desperately trying to hear a difference. I'm just trying to point out that--objectively--there are always tweaks that your electrical designers can make to improve the transparency of the equipment, and yes, they can be as neurotic about electrical perfection as much as high end audiophiles are about audible perfection.

And just to be clear: I still agree that past a certain point, you want to look at additional features in better audio gear rather than chasing those audio unicorns.

 

[45longcolt]

Shembot -
 
FWIW, since I got Ragnarok my Mjolnir hasn't been touched.
 
BTW, using LCD-3, Gungnir (until Yggy goes on sale,) Shunyata conditioner and power cords.
 
Rag does run hot, suggesting it's a power hog, so I wouldn't leave it on far a week unless I owned stock in the local utility.
 
Happy New Year.

 

[Puma Cat]

 
-I guess this is where we'll have to agree to disagree.
 
Once noise and distortion are below audible levels (Which they are, by orders of magnitude, in most competently designed equipment), an amp is an amp is an amp and a DAC is a DAC is a DAC. 

Okay, we can agree to disagree!

 A DAC is not a DAC, and an amp is most definitely not an amp; in fact I've found power amps often make the biggest difference in systems. Noise and distortion were responses that the stereo magazines like Audio and Stereo Review of the 60s, 70s, and early 80s were measuring and effectively saying that all amps sound the same, which was clearly not the case. The Crown DC300 measured beautifully and sounded like crap; a tube-based Conrad-Johnson Premier 5 didn't measure as well, and sounds wonderful. Actually, even a Dyna Stereo 70 sounds better than a Crown DC300. 
Quote:

  Not that I do not appreciate the non-tangible joys of owning high-end equipment. For instance, my Benchmark DAC2 HGC is massively overkill by any objective standards, but it is a well-engineered product built to very high standards and backed by a service organization which is nothing short of extraordinary, all of which are valuable - to me, anyway - attributes.
 
Anyway, back on track (sort of!) - if everything goes according to plan, my office stack will be upgraded from a nuForce uDAC (Which is a surprisingly capable device, though with its flaws - channel imbalance at lower listening levels being the most prominent in my book) to a Bifrost/Lyr 2 stack sometime during January. Primarily as I am eager to try some Schiit out, but also to reintroduce some tube gear to my music enjoyment - I really, really like the -cough- distortion exhibited by tube amplification.

 
Ha! You're too funny.....yeah, tubes are great. My loudspeaker system's amplification is all tube-based. I really, really like that "distortion" too! 

 

 

[Puma Cat]

My G/M stack has been running continuously for 15 days playing music for several hours a day and pink noise whenever I'm not listening, including overnight. There was some improvement in glare since it was fresh out of the box, but I still feel like the stack is a bit bright and a bit thin in bass. I don't feel that imaging or sound stage have improved with burn in so far, and resolution and detail if anything have deteriorated slightly.

I will try inexpensive power conditioning and see if it improves things.

Still need more hours on it....check back with us in three or four months if you decide to keep it and let us know what you find. I've been down this "burn-in" road a number of times, it's not fun, but the results at the end are worth it. 

 

[Ableza]

Simple method to tell if "burn-in" is real:  Purchase two identical amps (or headphones or speakers or whatever.)  Give both unopened boxes to a friend.  Instruct the friend to take them home and place one unopened box in a closet, and to open the other one and use it or "burn it in" by whatever method you choose, but that your friend must do this without telling you which one they "burn in."  After the prescribed time, your friend should unbox both units and place them side by side.  Have a second friend go get them both without knowing which is which and bring them to your house.  Your friend must now set them both up in as identical a method as possible while you are out of the room.  (this is where A/B switches can come in handy.)  Now listen to identical tracks on them both.,  If the "burn in" process made any difference you should be able to immediately determine by ear which is which.  If not, then, well...

 

[Puma Cat]

  Simple method to tell if "burn-in" is real:  Purchase two identical amps (or headphones or speakers or whatever.)  Give both unopened boxes to a friend.  Instruct the friend to take them home and place one unopened box in a closet, and to open the other one and use it or "burn it in" by whatever method you choose, but that your friend must do this without telling you which one they "burn in."  After the prescribed time, your friend should unbox both units and place them side by side.  Have a second friend go get them both without knowing which is which and bring them to your house.  Your friend must now set them both up in as identical a method as possible while you are out of the room.  (this is where A/B switches can come in handy.)  Now listen to identical tracks on them both.,  If the "burn in" process made any difference you should be able to immediately determine by ear which is which.  If not, then, well...

Yeah, you could do this, but it's not a statistically valid data set with an N of 1 to perform a 1-proportion test. 
 
Or, one could rely on the experience on the community of real-life users here who are sharing their experiences honestly for the benefit of the community-at-large. So, when I posted that my rev 1 Bifrost took about 400 hours to fully burn-in and stop improving in it's sound quality, you can rest assured that those comments were shared honestly and in good faith and without any agenda. Other folks can take that for whatever they think it is worth, and use that intelligence to make a more informed decision about whether a product represents a value proposition for them or not. If it does, great. If not, they can move on to something else. Horses for courses.
 
That's one of the real benefits of a community like this; folks can share their experiences and sensibilities! It's all good!  

 

 

[Ableza]

You are correct about my simple test lacking statistical validity, but so too does a single user proclaiming how much "burn in" helped his Whammo Widget Mark 3.  As both an engineer and a person who has done statistically valid group testing, the idea that electronics (especially solid state electronics) "improve with age and use" is a myth, one perpetuated by reported subjective perceptions by people who desperately want to believe it.  Your perceptions may indeed change with time, but that does not mean the gear has.