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

[ScubaMan2017]

Oh I _really_ hope not. Recently went down this road with an Allo device. It's a good device and I'm happy I own it. But, it's so far from plug&play it's a bit comical. These things are still very much on the hobbyist side of the shack when it comes to build and support. I really hope Schiit stays away from that kind of endless/thankless support model and continues to focus on polished products. There are plenty of people in the Pi audio space already. Allo drop ships from India to keep costs at a minimum and I was still surprised at the price of the device. Certainly a "Made in USA" product would be even more. It's really difficult to market the "value" of a $300 product when at its core is a readily available $35 circuit board. If you're interested in a Pi based solution hit the docs and start buying boards to role your own. It's a fun hobby and the results are really good. I'm really not sure a Schiit branded Pi based device would make sense. Maybe, just maybe, if there was benefit to unison USB -> unison USB a USB HAT would make sense but even that is a stretch and I have no idea how they would support it. Also have no idea if the sending USB device makes any difference at the receiving side.

Dammit, you make a valid point. I want to give my money to a company like Schiit for a transport, rather than the existing companies (Sony, Toshiba, LG). I also assumed the Pi platform's more robust than do-it-all-mediocre platforms like my Win7 desktop. Welcome to the thread, @ipeverywhere . You're upsetting the applecart, as it were.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

there's any chance Asgard 3 shows up this year? @Jason Stoddard

I remember Mister Stoddard commenting on the robustness of the existing design (a user asked about the repairability of the Asgard 2, and @Jason Stoddard mused that they rarely return back for servicing). Other than some tweaks, what additional features could they add to that solid state headphone amp?

I'm not trying to be snotty, @Pedro Janeiro . My new toy (Valhalla 2, driving my HD650 clone) is making me very happy. And my trusty rusty Magni3's sits in my listening nook on cold-standby. My tricked-out Vali2 remains primed and ready. What advancements in the Asgard-platform would make it a worthwhile purchase?

 

[scottbrown5271]

Schiit Hel, heh heh heh. Yep! Think Fulla Biceps. Aka Fulla with 4x output and mic input. Also think Fulla 3. Aka Fulla 2 with mic input.

Just playin. Or game on.

More info forthcoming.

I still have my original Fulla and use it from time to time: Garage, airplanes, etc. It works (scratchy pot...) well and supports a few use cases. No arguments from me that this the best sound ever, but it will do nicely for now.

Fulla 2 won't replace Fulla for me because it is simply too big.

Hel on the other hand would allow me to bring more of my office with me: Decent headphones and a quality mic for the hours I find myself on the phone when I'm working. I'm assuming the mic input is going to carry the voltage bias required for electret condenser mics (duh).

The only other thing I would love to see on this device is a mulitibit dac. Yeah, I know, more power, more heat, larger size, and way more expensive. A lot of effort for what could be rapidly diminishing sales after people like me get done buying these thing. Size? It ain't gonna fit in my pocket regardless. Power? Wow, really hard to solve that one and stay reasonably portable. But it might give you guys the opportunity to develop low power consumption dsp solutions. Or not. Just a thought

 

[earnmyturns]

Dammit, you make a valid point. I want to give my money to a company like Schiit for a transport, rather than the existing companies (Sony, Toshiba, LG). I also assumed the Pi platform's more robust than do-it-all-mediocre platforms like my Win7 desktop. Welcome to the thread, @ipeverywhere . You're upsetting the applecart, as it were.

From someone who tried pretty much everything in that space from <$100 to > $1K: unfortunately the plug-and-play devices (from Sonore, SOtM, ...) keep creeping up in price toward $1K as they receive alleged improvements. The cheapest I could find on a cursory look at B-stock Sonore microRendus, $429 without power supply, $569 with a basic LPS. The new Metrum Baby Ambre is a plug-and-play unit for Ethernet>S/PDIF, but it only does Roon AFAIK, not other protocols. Anything else < $500 that I know of needs user involvement in setting up hardware or software.

 

[Robert Padgett]

From someone who tried pretty much everything in that space from <$100 to > $1K: unfortunately the plug-and-play devices (from Sonore, SOtM, ...) keep creeping up in price toward $1K as they receive alleged improvements. The cheapest I could find on a cursory look at B-stock Sonore microRendus, $429 without power supply, $569 with a basic LPS. The new Metrum Baby Ambre is a plug-and-play unit for Ethernet>S/PDIF, but it only does Roon AFAIK, not other protocols. Anything else < $500 that I know of needs user involvement in setting up hardware or software.

I might be missing something here, but I use a RasPi/Allo transport, and it sounds almost exactly like the USB/Wyrd combo feeding the Modi MB, which goes to the Valhalla 2 as a tube buffer for my Sprout100 (speakers) or HPs. There is nothing difficult or esoteric about the assembly of the transport, if you don't try to use it as a "headless DAP", I have found that Audacious is a compact little music player which uses between 1-3% of the RasPi resources to play music. It is a dedicated Music computer, I don't do web surfing on the Pi, it is strictly to "Play Music", and in that limited capacity, I see no good reason to purchase and deploy an alternative that cost more than the $135 for RasPi/AlloDigiOne. If anything, I would buy an EITR and run USB exclusive, but since I have the RasPi/Allo and the coaxial cable...I intend to leave it alone, and use it till it quits or something WAY better comes along.

 

[Ableza]

re: inexpensive but good performing streaming device. Look at Bluesound.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

Prototype of the "Schiit Hel" spotted at High End 2019 in Munich (driving the new Audeze LCD-GX):







Looks like a bigger Fulla 2 with a microphone input and a 3D printed top.

Edit: Hell => Hel

Devil Inc.

?

Schiit did.

?!

Well that clears it up real well. Thanks!

Duck season. Rabbit season. Duck Season. Rabbit Season.

Schiit Hel, heh heh heh. Yep! Think Fulla Biceps. Aka Fulla with 4x output and mic input. Also think Fulla 3. Aka Fulla 2 with mic input.

Just playin. Or game on.

More info forthcoming.

Teasing the animals, eh.

re: inexpensive but good performing streaming device. Look at Bluesound.

It's a nicely-crafted device. I'm intrigued by their BlueOS that powers it. Bluesound appears to have similar customer-satisfaction philosophies as Schiit Audio (no hassle return window [minus nominal % restocking fee]; robust QA; prompt ZenDesk-like customer tracking [?]; direct sale). A Node 2i would cost me ~$600 CDN. Perhaps I'll pick one up next year...

 

[US Blues]

Roon? Moon? Goon?

I want a Schiit transport. For the music I already own.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Sorry, Pietro, Auralic's app is a disaster in usability and reliability compared with Roon. And it does not even do the critical thing that Roon does for me, which is to manage a unified collection with multiple endpoints. Last but not the least, Roon works with a wide variety of endpoints, Auralic only with their overpriced ones. When I got home from work tonight, I fired up the Roon app on my phone and started playing a suggested album on the living/dining room system for dinner (The Bad Plus Joshua Redman if you need to know). After dinner, my wife went to watch something, and I moved to my home office to listen on headphones to a new jazz album, Anna Mette Iversen's Invisible Nimbus. All the music comes from my home NAS or Qobuz. No fuss, just works. I don't need to remember what's where, and I can control play from any handy device (phone, iPad, Macbook). Compared with the cost of the rest of my gear, a Roon lifetime subscription has already paid for itself many times over.

I don't know where you got that experience. You have Auralic?
It's not at all a disaster in usability nor in reliability.
Maybe just keep it at "you don't like it" and refrain from bashing it?
Furthermore. As I already stated how I listen to music, all the reasons you mention for using it are useless (to me).
I am however happy that you are happy with Roon.
Keep up your faith. I'll do the same.

 

[Robert Padgett]

Roon? Moon? Goon?

I want a Schiit transport. For the music I already own.

I agree. If I am given ten more years in this dimension, I have enough Great music in my library to run a stream 24/7/365 for ten years...not to mention new stuff I can listen to on Amazon...

Roon. Tidal. Qobuz. Deezer. Betamax, HDCD, MQA --- each has its fanboys and detractors. None of it has anything to do with Schiit, Schiit Products, or discussion of Schiit.

If you like it, Good for you. If you abhor all of it, Good for you.

I do not foresee Schiit Audio being involved in any of that. And quite frankly, how an individual likes to hear the Music is of no concern to me.

I am Happy as Schiit with my Modi MB feeding my Valhalla 2, feeding my Massdrop 6XX headphones.

 

[earnmyturns]

I don't know where you got that experience. You have Auralic?
It's not at all a disaster in usability nor in reliability.
Maybe just keep it at "you don't like it" and refrain from bashing it?
Furthermore. As I already stated how I listen to music, all the reasons you mention for using it are useless (to me).
I am however happy that you are happy with Roon.
Keep up your faith. I'll do the same.

I owned an Auralic Aries Femto for quite a while. Worked fine as a Roon endpoint. I also played with its native software to access my NAS-based music library, I found it much less effective, and prone to weird failures in indexing and accessing my library. Glad it works well for you. Some people have similar complaints about Roon. Unfortunately, these networked digital music systems are very sensitive to the details of the rest of one's network, servers, and audio devices. In the end, part of what makes Roon easier for me is that both server and endpoints are just Linux boxes. I've been a Unix/Linux geek for decades, so I can debug and configure gear to achieve maximum reliability. A totally closed system like Auralic does not give me that option. But of course this is an extremely narrow niche...

 

[earnmyturns]

I might be missing something here, but I use a RasPi/Allo transport, and it sounds almost exactly like the USB/Wyrd combo feeding the Modi MB, which goes to the Valhalla 2 as a tube buffer for my Sprout100 (speakers) or HPs. There is nothing difficult or esoteric about the assembly of the transport, if you don't try to use it as a "headless DAP", I have found that Audacious is a compact little music player which uses between 1-3% of the RasPi resources to play music. It is a dedicated Music computer, I don't do web surfing on the Pi, it is strictly to "Play Music", and in that limited capacity, I see no good reason to purchase and deploy an alternative that cost more than the $135 for RasPi/AlloDigiOne. If anything, I would buy an EITR and run USB exclusive, but since I have the RasPi/Allo and the coaxial cable...I intend to leave it alone, and use it till it quits or something WAY better comes along.

That's a fine way to go, but it is not plug-and-play. I agree there's nothing esoteric about assembly and setup in those systems, but not everyone has the experience with hardware and Linux that you (and I) have.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

I owned an Auralic Aries Femto for quite a while. Worked fine as a Roon endpoint. I also played with its native software to access my NAS-based music library, I found it much less effective, and prone to weird failures in indexing and accessing my library. Glad it works well for you. Some people have similar complaints about Roon. Unfortunately, these networked digital music systems are very sensitive to the details of the rest of one's network, servers, and audio devices. In the end, part of what makes Roon easier for me is that both server and endpoints are just Linux boxes. I've been a Unix/Linux geek for decades, so I can debug and configure gear to achieve maximum reliability. A totally closed system like Auralic does not give me that option. But of course this is an extremely narrow niche...

I have no idea how big the Roon market is. I tried it and saw no plusses for me. It worked fine.
My Auralic Arius G2 and Lightning DS works extremely well in my system.
My knowledge of and about any linux thingy is limited to the installment of an Odroid HC-2 (Music)NAS with Linux. It was a hell for me and I'm very glad it works now.
I know there are a lot of linux specialists here but I'd rather do another 149 (my prof score) child births. Much much easier although the sound quality can be a spot of bother.

 

[noseyparkerkiller]

Go to ebay
Search for schiit AND reprocessor
Scroll down and what are those for.
How did they do that? ALL THOSE GADGETS? BALDR IS THE DIGITAL GUY. SOMEONE MESSING WITH EBAY SEARCH OR JUST WEIRD coincidence.

 

[noseyparkerkiller]

Now go to ebay and put in margules reprocessor. Instead of one end. reproccessor, there are many endo reprocessors Weird gadgetry@