[tonykaz]

David Bowie 
 
appeared to me, in a dream, just a few minutes ago.
 
He told me the Asgard 3 will appear this year (2016) as a Single Twin Triode Class A with 3,000 milliwatts, auto biasing, auto heater voltage and 1.5 Amps of heater current available for under $400!   
 
I should'a asked if it'd have a Balance control knob but didn't think of it.  
 
Sooooooo, can I place my order now?  Ser.No. 00001 would be wonderful.
 
Tony in Michigan
 
ps.  I'll want both the LSST & the Stock Glass Tube & another set of PYST cables ( Schiit branded ideally ), probably $500 worth of stuff.  And one of those black T-Shirts with the Power Switch printed on the back. 

 

[AudioMan612]

   
This brings us back to pro gear, though. The Focusrite 2i2 has inputs for 1/4" and balanced mics but no RCAs. It has 48v phantom power for the mics. It includes a headphone amp, and volume control for that. It has USB and 1/4" line level out, but again no RCAs. A kazillion functions, all for $150 - in other words, Mani money. 
 
Eliminate the cost of those fancy inputs and phantom power in favour of RCAs, eliminate the headphone amp and control circuitry, leave off the analog out, and leave out the markup of a middleman and you've got room to put more money into higher-quality ADC circuitry in its purest form - one pair of RCA inputs, input clipping LEDs, one USB output.
 
Level control is provided by your preamp (or a SYS) and the clipping LEDs, monitoring is provided by your computer's output. Most of your money goes into the ADC itself, and not the addons or markups or pro requirements like phantom power.
 
For example:
 
A possible audio chain: turntable -> Mani phono stage -> SYS volume control -> Schiit Entrylevel ADC -> computer + recording software -> [headphones or] -> Modi DAC -> Magni amp -> [headphones] or [powered speakers] or [traditional stereo].
 
I am ignoring issues of latency, because they don't really apply when you're converting an LP, unlike when you need to be syncing a vocal track with instruments in real time. I.e. we're not using this for pro stuff.
 
That is super, super minimalist, of course. Most people would want level control right in the box, eliminating the necessity of the SYS or more accurately, embedding it into the ADC, and some people would want the phono pre in the box too. But see what I did there: Mani + SYS + SchiitADC + Modi + Magni...
 
Would that not be the cutest stack ever?

That could work for sure.  Removing the features that are more for recording music makes sense, such as microphone and instrument inputs.  As far as levels go, you don't need a full volume attenuator, but you'll want some gain control (3 or so gain settings).  For monitoring, just using clipping LED's would be odd.  You'll either want full VU meters or no meters at all and just use software.  Having only clipping indicators isn't enough, so you'll never use them, as you'll always be looking at the VU meters on the computer.  While having a few extra features, the RME ADI-2 is a good example of what we're talking about.  It's not perfect for the average Head-Fi user, but it's very good, and affordable.  It's not cheap, but if I can't make reference quality vinyl rips, I won't waste my time ripping my vinyl at all.

 

[Baldr]

  David Bowie 
 
appeared to me, in a dream, just a few minutes ago.
 
He told me the Asgard 3 will appear this year (2016) as a Single Twin Triode Class A with 3,000 milliwatts, auto biasing, auto heater voltage and 1.5 Amps of heater current available for under $400!   
 
I should'a asked if it'd have a Balance control knob but didn't think of it.  
 
Sooooooo, can I place my order now?  Ser.No. 00001 would be wonderful.
 
Tony in Michigan

 
Unfortunately, it was a special limited edition limited to 3 units which have already sold out with no announcement.  They are lead-lined and come each with 1000 hours of a psychic(psychotic?) medium's personal attention in order to channel music directly from Mr. Bowie.  They sold out in 26 milliseconds for a seven figure price and only work at 3-4AM without AC power on top of the three bridges that Schiit Real Estate recently sold in South Florida.  If you snooze, you lose.

 

[tonykaz]

Snoozing,
 
Hmm,  I'll just have to wait out the A3.2 Sequel and keep my fingers crossed.  I'll stock up on No-doze and not rest till I have mine in hand.  Tube rollers have especially strong dedicative attributes, this may be my test to see if I'm one of em.  
 
I am prepared to accept "Not Dying of Cancer" as a consolation, well, at least, "not yet". (nyet)
 
Tony in Michigan
 
ps.  can I at least get one of those shirts?

 

[reddog]

Unfortunately, it was a special limited edition limited to 3 units which have already sold out with no announcement.  They are lead-lined and come each with 1000 hours of a psychic(psychotic?) medium's personal attention in order to channel music directly from Mr. Bowie.  They sold out in 26 milliseconds for a seven figure price and only work at 3-4AM without AC power on top of the three bridges that Schiit Real Estate recently sold in South Florida.  If you snooze, you lose.

Damn why did I blink my eyes, the utter horror, I would had mugged a corporate lobbyist to come up with the reasonable 7 figure price. I salute the 3 that got the special limited edition Schiit Audio swag.

 

[tonykaz]

Mr. Reddog,
 
No worries, those 3 guys covered the development costs.  
 
You'll get your's, maybe even in Black Powder Coating by Spectrum in Colorado.
 
Patience, dear man.
 
Tony in Michigan

 

[disastermouse]

Unfortunately, it was a special limited edition limited to 3 units which have already sold out with no announcement.  They are lead-lined and come each with 1000 hours of a psychic(psychotic?) medium's personal attention in order to channel music directly from Mr. Bowie.  They sold out in 26 milliseconds for a seven figure price and only work at 3-4AM without AC power on top of the three bridges that Schiit Real Estate recently sold in South Florida.  If you snooze, you lose.

Mr. Sennheiser! Coded message received! Please mention Italian marble in your next message if you're okay. Don't let those philistines at Schiit break your spirit. An agent will be dispatched to rescue you shortly. Stay strong.

 

[DougD]

 
While having a few extra features, the RME ADI-2 is a good example of what we're talking about.  It's not perfect for the average Head-Fi user, but it's very good, and affordable.  It's not cheap, but if I can't make reference quality vinyl rips, I won't waste my time ripping my vinyl at all.

 
Same reason I never had many MP3s ... why spend a lot of time making junk that's usually not worth listening to? 
 
The RME ADI-2 and some of the other pro-grade gear you listed does not have lowly RCA inputs ... how are you getting the signal from the phono pre-amp to the ADC ? Or do you have/recommend a phono-preamp that has balanced XLR outputs ?

 

[disastermouse]

Same reason I never had many MP3s ... why spend a lot of time making junk that's usually not worth listening to? 

The RME ADI-2 and some of the other pro-grade gear you listed does not have lowly RCA inputs ... how are you getting the signal from the phono pre-amp to the ADC ? Or do you have/recommend a phono-preamp that has balanced XLR outputs ?

I wonder how much of this has to do with age and/or exposure. I grew up with cassette tapes on crappy boomboxes, sometimes hi-speed dubbed copies. Then CDs, but on crap equipment (usually a boombox again). Finally, iTunes. I used to laugh at my girlfriend (just my friend at the time) when she'd tell me she could hear the difference between Amazon mp3s and iTunes AACs.

When I discovered head-fi, I had to re-rip most of my favorite music and old tracks from Napster days just had to go away completely. I wonder if you save money or lose money when you discover hi-fi early.

 

[jimmers]

With all this talk of an "affordable", high sample rate, true full multibit ADC; does anyone have any idea how to make one?
 
Just wondering about the fantasies.

 

[bigro]

  With all this talk of an "affordable", high sample rate, true full multibit ADC; does anyone have any idea how to make one?
 
Just wondering about the fantasies.

I sure as hell don't. And you are spot on. They are Fantasies at this point.

 

[ToTo Man]

 
Having only clipping indicators isn't enough, so you'll never use them, as you'll always be looking at the VU meters on the computer.

Looking only at the VU meters on the computer won't indicate if you are overloading the Schiit ADC, or will it?

 

[AudioMan612]

I think it would, though you might have some latency issues depending on the software setup.  I'm not positive on this though.  I can ask people at work tomorrow .

 

[jimmers]

 
I sure as hell don't. And you are spot on. They are Fantasies at this point.

In the past I have made an 8 bit low sample rate ADC all in hardware using the output of a binary counter to feed an R-2R DAC whose output was compared to the analog signal voltage sample (using a sample and hold circuit) and when matched, the count was shifted out; and then wait for the next sample clock - rinse and repeat. But sampling at a few hundred KHz at 20+ bits, even with a smart algorithm to load the binary into the DAC you start counting the nanoseconds in propagation delays and settling times, and so on - well that's my first level, no smarts, wondering ...

 
Has anyone of the Vinylistas tested the recording on something cheap and handy (for PC folk) like the Essence STX?
Does that not capture the non linearities and noise of LPs sufficiently well?
I also wonder if Sigma-Delta might not actually do a better job of it 

 
 
It's late here, I wander, time for sleep.

 

[Billheiser]

Has anyone of the Vinylistas tested the recording on something cheap and handy (for PC folk) like the Essence STX?
Does that not capture the non linearities and noise of LPs sufficiently well?
I also wonder if Sigma-Delta might not actually do a better job of it h34r:  .

I used a cheap Teac CD recorder to record vinyl to cd's and then ripped those into my computer music library. Worked quite well, until the Teac died a couple years ago.