Portable amp or DAC/amp. Hmm. This is one I spent a lot of time on last year and ended up abandoning, mainly because I couldn’t answer Question #2 well enough—that is, how do we do it better or cheaper? This is something I could still get behind, though, if we figure out a way to make it unique enough. And we have some ideas…but those ideas point towards a relatively large device with very high power output and some unique takes on power supply and topology (discrete.) So we’ll keep playing. Which is where I’d ask…would you be interested in a larger-than-normal portable amp/DAC that provides truly stellar performance? I’d assume that iOS and Android connectivity (self-powered USB input) would be a must, but let me know what you think.
It depends a lot on how much bigger than normal we're talking about. What I'd like to see is something like the Fulla, but with battery power and iDevice compatible (no CCK). If it has to be, say, twice or three times the total volume of the Fulla, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. If it has to be much bigger than that, well, that's a bit of a challenge.
Edit: Also, no, I most definitely do
not want it to be bus-powered. I want battery power. In fact, I'd want it to be able to recharge my phone in a pinch, not drain it faster.
DAC upgrades. Mike already said that customers who’ve purchased our upgradable DACs will be rewarded with technology from Yggdrasil at some point in the future. As will new purchasers, of course. I can’t set a timetable for these product/upgrade introductions, nor can I set prices…but I can say that Yggy isn’t the last superburrito product you’ll see from us.
If I could turn my Bifrost Uber into an R2R DAC without breaking the bank, that would be AWESOME. Yes, please. I won't hold my breath for R2R in that form factor, of course, but upgrades here would be great.
Combined desktop DAC/amp. We still get asked about this all the time. We actually have tons of DAC/amps. They’re called Magni 2/Modi 2, Asgard 2/Bifrost, etc, etc. This separation of DAC and amp allow you to choose a combination that best fits your needs, to avoid the obsolescence of an embedded DAC inside an amp. If we come up with a solution that sidesteps the obsolescence problem and doesn’t have problems with digital noise in the analog amp section, sure, maybe there’s something there. What do you think?
Meh. They're fine separate. I don't see being interested in this.
Speaker amps. The hardest thing here is doing something meaningful…for a non-eye-bleeding price. Do we shoot above Emotiva (in price) with big, heavy, impressive boxes filled nifty circlotron designs and intelligent amp management? Or do we try to go head-to-head with this behemoth price-wise, but with smaller and more efficient amplifier designs (think small Class AB, not D, think fan)? Neither approach is particularly appealing. Above Emotiva, there’s about ten billion small manufacturers, all with their own spin…and some with very compelling products. At Emotiva, well, there’s Emotiva. Would something that doesn’t look big and impressive sell well against their iron? I don’t know. If you have thoughts, I’ll be glad to listen.
Dunno, you make really good points here. The bottom of Emotiva's line goes all the way down to $219, but then they don't have another stereo amp until $500 and the NAD D3020 also comes in around $500. If you could do something really meaningful in the sub-$500 world that'd be great. Heck, if you could make something for $100 that's better than the class-T amps that dominate that end of the spectrum, that'd be great, but I'm not sure you want to go there. If there was a $400 Schiit speaker amp, I'd probably buy it. Whether you want to be making such a thing, though, I'm not so sure.
Preamps. Okay, now we’re talking. I can see opportunities for remote-controlled, relay-switched stepped attenuator preamps—passive, active, tube, etc. There’s a shortage of good affordable products at this price point, and I think we can really make some cool stuff here. But do they fly without amps? Is the remote a BLE module and smartphone app, or old-skool proprietary RF? (No thanks on IR, not huge fans here.) Still a lot of stuff to work out, but there’s something here. What would you like to see?
Yes, this flies without an amp. A hundred times yes. I'd love to see a 5 or 6-in, 3-out single-ended preamp for less than $1k. Ideally one of the outs would be line-level that bypasses the volume control (this is to feed back to my computer—I'm still digitizing bootlegs on cassette from the 80s and 90s. Yes, I'm old), then the other two outs would go to speaker amp and headphone amp, respectively. I don't even need a remote here, but I suspect other people would want one.
Of course, you also
could pair this with an amp. A nice integrated amp would be excellent, but I'm OK with separates here.
Music server. Argh. Yeah, I know, some of you want a non-computer-style server that still takes USB drives and SD cards and Wifi audio and stuff. But do you know what you call that? A computer. No matter how you slice it, a modern music server is a computer. It may have a lot of computer-y stuff hidden, but it’s still either an embedded Linux or Windows box. This means software development, support, maintenance releases, software/firmware upgrades, etc. That’s a big undertaking to do it right. We’re currently glancing in the direction of these things, but that’s about it. Would it be better to simply do a super-uber-mega-USB-reformatter that “perfects” the USB packets and timing (which vary significantly from platform to platform, and even computer to computer) that could be used with any computer?
Not something I'd be interested in, no.
Wireless audio. Bluetooth, nope. Not until it’s capable of uncompressed streaming. WiFi, hmm…but we’d need RFID to allow easy pairing…lots of questions here. Let’s just say we’re playing at the moment. But is it really so hard running some cables?
Seems like there's already stuff in this space, like Sonos and Apple AirPlay. I'm not really looking for anything here that I can't already get/don't already have.
What’s the one thing you dislike most about your current audio system?
I have more than one audio system, so the answer here depends on which one. In my HT system (which does its fair share or just music), the thing I dislike most have to do with limitations of the Apple TV and the Fire TV. I don't think there's anything you could do in that space for me, unless you want to get into multichannel A/V receivers, but even there I'm not unhappy with my Denon.
For my portable rig, the thing I dislike most is that I'm still on the iPad's DAC and the cabling for the LOD is dumb (using the Lightning to 30-pin adapter, ugh). Like I said above, what I'd want there is something I can just plug a regular Lightning to USB cable into that would be the DAC/amp. I could just buy an Oppo HA-2 for this, but I haven't been able to convince myself that this is a $300 problem yet. If Schiit came in here at $200 it'd be a done deal immediately.
For my study rig, which is both a speaker rig and a headphone rig, the one thing I dislike is controlling all of it. Right now the nerve center is a NAD receiver (which is silly, it's not like I ever use the tuner) which lacks the number of ins and out I'd have in an ideal system (though it's not bad, just don't ask about how I'm using Tape outs, really). Were there a nice Schiit preamp option I'd definitely consider it, and probably go buy an Emotiva amp for it (unless Schiit made one of those, too).
