[DougD]

Look into Emotiva. Affordable speaker amps at multiple price tiers.

 

 
Seconded.

 
Ye-owwwww !!! That, ladies and germs, is the sound of a door being closed very firmly. (Who could not love these guys?)

 

[atomicbob]

<big edit>  
In any case, we have now grown to the point where Stereophile's readers should know about our multibit DACs, so we are beginning an advertising presence there, beginning with the CES issue. It'll be interesting to see how the readers react, when we start lobbing ideas like, "DACs designed for the music you have, rather than the music they want you to re-buy" at them.

Until the multibit DAC series my interest was only average in Schiit products. These three new DACs have changed that for me. The claim about music you already have is very appropriate. I've experienced it first hand multiple times now. Great examples are original CDs of Thelonious Monk Straight, No Chaser or Charles Mingus Ah-Um. Any track on the albums. Have heard these albums many times. Sense of realism much improved with the multibit DACs. I was privileged to know and discuss the recording of many albums such as these, at Columbia 30th St Studio, with the recording engineer, Frank Laico. I am awed at the tremendous sense of musician presence, even with the Bifrost MB. It seems you pick the level of resolution desired going up and down the family. Sense of space, dimension, imaging, depth are remarkably similar among the family.

 

[Jason Stoddard]

   
 
Ye-owwwww !!! That, ladies and germs, is the sound of a door being closed very firmly. (Who could not love these guys?)

 
Well, it may not be firmly closed, but if we get into amps, we have to answer the question, "What can we bring to the party that Emotiva doesn't--without being several times their price?"
 
I use an XPA-5 Gen 2 in my home theater. Along with their XMC-1. Both great products.
 
Oh, and forgot, also have a UMC-500 and UMC-1 downstairs. Like I said, great products. 

 

[jfoxvol]

Since one of your main calling cards has been upgradeability, a modular amp would be cool.  Buy the chassy with say two channels but with space to add more modules up to 5 or so.  Plus, ability to add higher powered or improved modules as time goes on.  That would be neat.  Start with a two channel and scale up as time and budge allow.  

 

[alreadyused]

   
Well, it may not be firmly closed, but if we get into amps, we have to answer the question, "What can we bring to the party that Emotiva doesn't--without being several times their price?"
 
I use an XPA-5 Gen 2 in my home theater.

Tube/SST hybrids.  For 2 channel, not HT.
 
(BTW, Emotiva's Holiday sale is on. Great prices.)

 

[RCBinTN]

  Tube/SST hybrids.  For 2 channel, not HT.
 
(BTW, Emotiva's Holiday sale is on. Great prices.)

 
Yea just checked it out.  The XPA-5 Gen 2 is $799 on Emotiva's site and $999 at Amazon!

 

[tonykaz]

Lets be Fair,
 
Iverson's Bifrost review is dated the middle of 2013, hmm.   Not the current discontinued Bifrost Uber or it's little brother but the "way back in the day" original Bifrost and certainly not the MultiBit version.  Still, it's nice that they're thinking of it, after all this time.  
 
After reading "Big Sound 2015" it might be "Fair" to conclude that Stereophile's reviewing staff might not own sufficiently resolving gear or the ears or the technical expertise to tell any difference in DACs ( my suspicion ) but they can review DACs with their Eyes and price tags.  
 
Record Players can be much easier to review as the sound quality differences can be Vast and easy to point out. ( especially considering the wide range of quality of the recordings in a person's collection). 
 
Pre-Amps for record players can also feature a wide range of performance to easily discover and disclose.
 
Amps are a bit more difficult ( but a person can simply go by the price).
 
Loudspeakers have a VAST range of posssibilities to report ( a reviewer's bread & butter ). 
 
But, Geez, headphone gear is so dam good.  Even the little Modi/Magni sound super, the Odac & O2 sound good, at near FREE prices. Moving up to the Asgard2 and you are solidly into HighEnd levels of beautiful performance.  A person might wonder what the hell is possibly better? ( a kinda scary wonderment, in my case ).  
 
The headphones are gloriously good, it's hard to find a bad one anymore. ( almost don't need Tyll's Wall of Fame to make a good & easy decision ) 
 
Stereophile's 72,000 readership should be thrilled to learn that nearly their entire CD collection ( even the local Library's Country/Western loaner CDs can and will sound from "B" class to "A" class ( using Bob Katz's grading system) , especially if they discover that they can use their Computers instead of a stand-alone CD player.  
 
I think it fair to say that the Analog-Vinyl Press have been keeping these secrets from their readership whilst they promote $50 Vinyl Pressings.  
 
Am I being Fair?
 
Tony in Michigan

 

[nicolo]

@tonykaz
 
I don't like Stereophile and find the choices and price points of the equipment they review obnoxious.
 
But come on, the constant criticism no matter how justified is getting old  and tedious really really quickly. Stereophile is is like an 90 year old man taking Viagra for making the blind man cry. It never turns out well.
 
Instead of focusing on on all the things Stereophile gets wrong, why not talk about the stuff you sold in your decades in the audio industry. Jason and Mike share their views from an entrepreneurial perspective. Your perspective on how the industry, design and technology changed over the years would be appreciated.

 

[bretemm]

But tho, is that something Schiit might look into? A Schiit setup with wired connection type speaker amps? (The Bifrost or another DAC, could then be the source for them)
Thanks for the support you guys have!

Seconded.

 

[theblueprint]

But tho, is that something Schiit might look into? A Schiit setup with wired connection type speaker amps? (The Bifrost or another DAC, could then be the source for them)
Thanks for the support you guys have!

Please. I think Jason has enough on his plate. He's had a strong year with all the goodies we got in 2015. The man should be able to enjoy the holidays.

 

[KLJTech]

But tho, is that something Schiit might look into? A Schiit setup with wired connection type speaker amps? (The Bifrost or another DAC, could then be the source for them)
Thanks for the support you guys have!

 
Have you thought about maybe just picking up an

NAD 3020? That gives you a speaker amp, DAC and headphone amp/jack. It doesn't do 5.1 or 17.4 or whatever home theater setup is popular now, but it does cram a lot of stuff in one small box. 
 
http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=NAD3020

 

[bretemm]

Please. I think Jason has enough on his plate. He's had a strong year with all the goodies we got in 2015. The man should be able to enjoy the holidays.

I know! I'm just wondering if they could eventually do that (great new future product if they want to)

Have you thought about maybe just picking up an [COLOR=484848]NAD 3020? That gives you a speaker amp, DAC and headphone amp/jack. It doesn't do 5.1 or 17.4 or whatever home theater setup is popular now, but it does cram a lot of stuff in one small box. [/COLOR] it's not Schiit tho!

http://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=NAD3020

 

[theblueprint]

I know! I'm just wondering if they could eventually do that (great new future product if they want to)

Do you ever listen what people have to say? He said no. But, there might be a tiny chance.

 

[tonykaz]

Mr.Nicolo,
 
I'll take your advice!
 
I'm trashing the Glossy Press while prodding their Publisher to have them concentrate on 21st Century.  I could easily participate in a Audio Industry that did a respectable job of reporting.  Those Press guys need a sharp pencil to deflate, I may be getting tired of providing that service.  Civilian Audio is a great fun experience, ( for music lovers ).
 
I'll look for another Tower to snipe from, thanks for the hint.
 
I go back to 78s and have plenty of history in the Business beginning with No. 80 & 75  Vacuum Tube Table Radio repair at Poly-tec TV and Radio Repair, 9 Transistor Radios were just coming out. Absolutely nothing sounded good in those days, it was good enough to simply be able to hear a Symphony Orchestra at Home.  Then came Magnavox Consoles with record changers that played 33s & the little 45 Rock & Roll records ( Chubby Checker kind of stuff ).  One big speaker ( maybe 12") with a matching transformer mounted on the speaker frame. It was Heavenly, my Mom was an Opera singing Soprano in the 1930s and could sing along with Madam Butterfly, we never realized or felt there was anything special about that. Mom loved Marylin Horn & Beverly Sills, it was bone chillingly thrilling to be in the same room with a group of these folks rehearsing, the neighbors could hear them two or three houses away, the notes they hit could paralyze a youth like me and my brothers and sister, you'd think the windows would break, they had such intense and effortless power.  I worked to get our Console sounding better, the speaker frame needed flatter mounting ( it's cone rubbed for lack of a flat mounting surface and unevenly tightened mounting fasteners ) repairing that and keeping good vacuum tubes plus up-grading to better phono carts kept us on an improvement curve that took me thru Europe and onto the Glorious Electrocompaniet Electronics, Per Abrahamson, Matti Otalla, Karen Sumner, Koetsu and Jim Thiel's and Kathy Gornicks finest achievements.
  I was Auto Industry, my entire Family were Auto Industry, my father was able to secure (for me) a Co-Op Engineering arrangement where I served a Tool Maker Apprenticeship attached to GM's Experimental Laboratory while attending Engineering School. I built test fixturing for the Electronics Lab I was attached to, it was a dream job and the best job I ever had, I was surrounded with brilliant people that said what they meant and meant what they said and they knew what they were talking about.  Phew, brings tears to my eyes to think my grannies will never have the same chances or experience, yet, looking back, I didn't realize it was anything special. Oh-dear.    
  Generous Motors collected their due and sent me off to be a Production Trouble-shooter in their Engine Manufacturing Buildings ( just after completing my wonderful Co-op ). I spent my 4 Years at that assignment and was reassigned to their Master Mechanic Group ( Tool Makers-Machine Repair-Oilers ) 4 years, then off to the Plant Engineering Group with responsibilities for keeping the Electrical, Piping, TinSmiths, Welder group, Millwright Group and Janitors going nicely, 4 more years Purchasing Non-Productive Tooling and Misc ( 2 Million per Month's worth of material per Plant ) with side jobs of Re-lamping various Plants with 400Watt Mercury Vapor Westinghouse Lamping. The years vaporized. 
  On a European trip to do a small job at one of our Plants, I happened to stop-in a Brittish Hi-Fi Shop. I noticed the Pound-Dollar relationship was very favorable and bought some stuff to bring home (LS3/5a in Teak) which I ended up bringing to work to show-off ( I'm not a Show-Off kind of person ) .  Some of us, one a Brit, started thinking, hmm, this looks interesting………...
 
Tony in Michigan

 

[tonykaz]

Mr.Nicolo,
LS3/5a continued.
 
My Brit co-worker and I toured all of our Michigan Audio Dealers : Almas, Absolute Sound ( a chain of Linn Dealers ), the Gramaphone, Audioland ( the largest of all of em ), Audio One ( ken Mavereck & nick Ferrar ), the Audio Research/Magnapan dealer ( Audio Dimensions ), Audio Threshold ( I think ), plus all of the lesser shops.  We were on Recon., reading the industry, getting our bearings.
  Within a month or two, my new partner and I decided to take a brief Visit to England to see if we could buy a few hundred pair of KEF 103.2 loudspeakers that we'd sell from the back page Advertising Section of Audio Magazine.( Laura Lovechio was our contact, she works for Stereophile today, my wife still has a gift that Laura sent her ).  My partner and I flew to England and had a nice meeting with Raymound Cooke, managing director of KEF, we got a nice tour of the facility and turned down!, we tried for KEF's new Codas, still NO!.  However we did learn the names and locations of all the Distributors in the UK!  We discovered the UK distributors to be quite helpful, the first one we visited gave us a tour of his warehouse.  We saw his pile of KEF 103.2s and asked, he said sure, we bought every pair he had on hand, every finnish, cash on the barrel head, his eyes went big as eggs, he offered anything he had on hand, he had every British Hi-Fi item seen in the USA and he had piles of them, we bought a Air Container Full which we had shipped to us at Metro Airport (dtw) via British Air.  JVCarr was our Importer to clear US Customs.  We were in the Audio Business. Phew
  We started out rather small, little classified ads. : great prices, free Air Shipping ( customer had to pick up his stuff at the Local Airport Freight counter, we used Republic/Continental/NorthWest Air Line for all our Air shipping.  We would ship you a "Fresh", Factory Sealed pair of anything from B&W 801s, Quad 63s down to a pair of Linn Kanns or LS3/5a's, we had every turntable made in England ( even the rare Pink Triangles).  As time went on we picked up USA outfits like Conrad-Johnson.   We had early alerts to products that we're about to get super hot reviews in The Absolute Sound ( like Monster's Alpha 1 Phono Cart which we bought every single one Monster would let us have and sold every one within a one week period) .  We did this for 3 Years.  It was Wild and Crazy to the Extreme.
  After just a week or two of this we realized that we'd have to refine our System, get it running smooth as butter which took us a couple of months to figure out and implement.  After that it smoothed out, it was a bit hectic on Arrival Day ( Mondays ), the girls in the office struggled to keep up, our volume kept increasing, our cash BOH got large, then larger, than too dam large. We had no time to enjoy our success, it owned us.  
  We created a System that turned over product in one week!, that's 52 Turns per year. That is Breathtaking to any in My Peer Group.
  The day we saw a CD player on the Front Cover of the Glossy Mags we knew our Audio Business was over!  CD, Front Cover, $1,000 MSRP.  And we had no access to CD Players. We immediately realized the world is going digital. Our Audio is kaput. 
  We closed up our Audio Operation, I returned to the Transportation Industry , my partner went on to become the CEO of Brunswick Corp. in Chicago and then to CEO of 3M Corp in Minnesota ( he just retired and lives in England, his natural home).
 Since that time long ago, my efforts have been in refining turnover cycles for my lovely Benevolent Motor Corp. Since developing the 52 Turns theory, I've worked as a Fee Base Consultant instead of a Salaried Employee.  I love my freedoms.
 
Well, that's my Audio Story or a tiny bit of my Audio Story.
 
Today, I feel, Audio is huge compared to those turntable days.  Now a person anywhere in the World can have higher Quality musical reproduction that anything we did in Analog and I see it as pervasive, it's everywhere anyone looks: little white wires!  Annnnd, this is only the beginning!  
 
Tony in Michigan