[valiant66]

That doesn't sound entirely unlikely

  For now my money is still on an upsampling gadget that makes use of Mike's closed-form bit-perfect algorithm, à la Wyrd but with coax/toslink out, too. This would place the upsampling part outside the Schiit DACs, which could lower the price of the Bifrost. This way you can feed "properly" upsampled source to just about any DAC, thus avoiding the much-maligned Parks-McClellan approximation across the market... I reckon THEN we will see Mike's white paper on DACs and digital signal processing, as well as a more comprehensive account of what happens in the Yggy. We already have a nitty-gritty account in the happenings of Ragnarok, but not quite yet for the Yggdrasil...

 
That doesn't sound entirely unlikely, but I remember Baldr talking about timing (somewhere in the previous 668 pages...). Not that PRAT stuff, but how phase information affects perceived timing; and that poorly-designed DA converters destroy or get the phase information wrong, which we can then sense on playback. He claims that the original Theta gear and the current Schiit multibit gear was designed to preserve phase information and that's part of why it sounds so good.
 
So perhaps the Manhattan Gadget is a device designed to restore phase information using the closed-form bit-perfect algorithm? I'm not aware of anything on the market that does only that, and Schiit have repeatedly said there's nothing like their new product out there - it establishes a completely new category. Perhaps that new category is a Phase Restorator…
 
The Schiit Phazor - set it on "Stun!"

 

[landroni]

  That doesn't sound entirely unlikely, but I remember Baldr talking about timing (somewhere in the previous 668 pages...). Not that PRAT stuff, but how phase information affects perceived timing; and that poorly-designed DA converters destroy or get the phase information wrong, which we can then sense on playback. He claims that the original Theta gear and the current Schiit multibit gear was designed to preserve phase information and that's part of why it sounds so good.

 
So perhaps the Manhattan Gadget is a device designed to restore phase information using the closed-form bit-perfect algorithm? 
 

My approximative understanding is that phase distortion can occur in the process of upsampling when using Parks-McClellan or similar. If you avoid DAC-based upscaling by providing the DAC with the source at the base frequency it works at (say, 768 kHz), then the DAC would have no need for upsampling and would directly use the data supplied by the gadget. That's my working assumption, anyways.

 

[XenHeadFi]

 
That doesn't sound entirely unlikely
 
That doesn't sound entirely unlikely, but I remember Baldr talking about timing (somewhere in the previous 668 pages...). Not that PRAT stuff, but how phase information affects perceived timing; and that poorly-designed DA converters destroy or get the phase information wrong, which we can then sense on playback. He claims that the original Theta gear and the current Schiit multibit gear was designed to preserve phase information and that's part of why it sounds so good.
 
So perhaps the Manhattan Gadget is a device designed to restore phase information using the closed-form bit-perfect algorithm? I'm not aware of anything on the market that does only that, and Schiit have repeatedly said there's nothing like their new product out there - it establishes a completely new category. Perhaps that new category is a Phase Restorator…
 
The Schiit Phazor - set it on "Stun!"

You've articulated my best guess! A way to use their megacomboburrito filter with Wyrd-Regen for any DAC.

 

[kstuart]

 
That doesn't sound entirely unlikely

  For now my money is still on an upsampling gadget that makes use of Mike's closed-form bit-perfect algorithm, à la Wyrd but with coax/toslink out, too. This would place the upsampling part outside the Schiit DACs, which could lower the price of the Bifrost. This way you can feed "properly" upsampled source to just about any DAC, thus avoiding the much-maligned Parks-McClellan approximation across the market... I reckon THEN we will see Mike's white paper on DACs and digital signal processing, as well as a more comprehensive account of what happens in the Yggy. We already have a nitty-gritty account in the happenings of Ragnarok, but not quite yet for the Yggdrasil...

 
That doesn't sound entirely unlikely, but I remember Baldr talking about timing (somewhere in the previous 668 pages...). Not that PRAT stuff, but how phase information affects perceived timing; and that poorly-designed DA converters destroy or get the phase information wrong, which we can then sense on playback. He claims that the original Theta gear and the current Schiit multibit gear was designed to preserve phase information and that's part of why it sounds so good.
 
So perhaps the Manhattan Gadget is a device designed to restore phase information using the closed-form bit-perfect algorithm? I'm not aware of anything on the market that does only that, and Schiit have repeatedly said there's nothing like their new product out there - it establishes a completely new category. Perhaps that new category is a Phase Restorator…
 
The Schiit Phazor - set it on "Stun!"

I was going to post this, but I thought I would read all the replies to see if anyone else had thought of it.
 
(To landroni - no, Mike said it would work with  Schiit multibit DACs, which have no need to be corrected.  So, it would be something that deals with what has occurred prior to the DAC. )
 
Just for the record, if this is true, it would be interesting to process all the PRaT-deficient masterings out there.  Lots of CDs - and some audiophile LPs like "Classic" brand, are PRaT-deficient and so the instruments do not hit the beat at the same moment, and so the group sounds like it has worse timing than on the original releases... seems like phase errors would cause this.

 

[pkolipo]

BIG FAN OF SCHIIT SINCE 2013, GJ!!!

 

[Armaegis]

 
They are as complementary as a bicycle and a fishtank......   

 
http://imgur.com/gallery/KqxwbWH

 

[landroni]

 
(To landroni - no, Mike said it would work with  Schiit multibit DACs, which have no need to be corrected.  So, it would be something that deals with what has occurred prior to the DAC. )
 

 
Technically, it would still work with Schiit MB DACs --- it would only be redundant for now. But an external gadget would allow to remove the DSP from the cheapest of 'em all, Bifrost MB, further reducing its price. It might also, I'm not sure, improve Schiit's DS DACs by providing the DS chipset with a source at the expected frequency, removing the need to oversample in DS designs, too. Strategically, this could allow Schiit to prove that their closed-form DSP algorithm is really a thing, and will improve things when used in devices relying on approximative-iteration algorithms.
 
This is not an approach unheard of. For instance one of the main selling points of the Bottlehead DAC is that it works around the DS chipset's internal filter using an FPGA:
http://bottlehead.com/bottlehead-dac/
"One of the most significant aspects of the DAC is the oversampling reconstruction filter that John has designed. We actually turn off the filter that comes in the DAC and use John’s instead. Here’s John on filters:
 
 
“For those few that haven’t heard my thoughts on digital filters, a quick synopsis: As far as I know all digital filters inside DAC chips use special DSP “tricks” to get really good spec sheet numbers at low cost, BUT these tricks wreak havoc with the “musicality” of the sound. This is why people like NOS DACs. BUT with a NOS you still have the aliases which cause a “dirty” sound. So what I am doing is relaxing the requirements of the filter, so it doesn’t have to meet those insane numbers in the DAC spec sheets, the result is I can implement a simple filter that fits in an inexpensive FPGA.
 
 
The result is something most people have never heard, the musicality of NOS without the “dirty” sound of the aliases. It’s simply stunning. Listening to your favorite music with this filter is a whole new experience.
 
 
There HAS to be a filter, if you just send a 44.1 or 96 or whatever, the DAC chip will use its own. The only way to turn it off is to upsample to 352 or 384."
 
 
A device out there that can do such a trick for ALL available DACs would truly be revolutionary, in line with the signals coming from Schiit HQs.

 

[hekeli]

  A device out there that can do such a trick for ALL available DACs would truly be revolutionary, in line with the signals coming from Schiit HQs.

 
Umm how do you prevent 3rd party DACs from doing internal upsampling etc crap? Surely that will mess up things some? Even Gumby only accepts 192khz, while internally upsampling it to 384khz. Surely a box before that would result in "double processing"? What could the box do anyway if you feed it native 192khz hires stuff?

 

[kstuart]

I don't thinking fixing other DACs would make sense.  " The new Iphone 8S - use with your Samsung 8 Edge to fix what is wrong with it" ??
 
Such a DAC-fixing gadget would only make sense for a company that does NOT make DACs.
 
Otherwise, what still makes sense - for Schiit Multibit owners - is fixing the incoming data's timing and phasing relationships before it enters the DAC.

 

[landroni]

Even a gadget that would "only" exactly upsample redbook material to 192 kHz would be nothing to sneer at. It would have the potential to transform mountains of 44.1 kHz material into "high-res", putting a whole industry in check. And while the filter and the gadget could presumably drive sampling rates up to 384 or 768 kHz, in terms of other DACs they would only be limited by input receivers and transport throughput. Once technology catches up and DACs can boast input rates equivalent to internal rates, then such a gadget would be all the more relevant.

 
Mike on several occasions has made it clear that he has taken a lot of flack for spending several years of his life developing the closed-form algorithm now used in Yggy, while many disbelievers still handwave this as marketing. I take this to mean that he has a point to prove to the industry, and sticking up a finger or two to the industry wouldn't be a first for him... The 21 bit end-game DAC was no doubt partly intended as mockery of all those "32 bit"-boasting DACs out there. So I can definitely see Mike putting out a device that takes a swing at Parks-McClellan and can prove on non-Schiit devices that approximative vs closed-form algorithms really is a thing...

 

[mtoc]

I think Manhattan is a VR thingy.
 
Yap. Virtual Reality.

 

[soundman414]

What if, Manhattan was lossless digital volume control that slotted between the source and DAC and eliminated the need for a pre-amp?

 

[gevorg]

What if, Manhattan was lossless digital volume control that slotted between the source and DAC and eliminated the need for a pre-amp?

Nothing revolutionary there, some software players already do that by zero padding:

http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/SQ/VolumeControl.htm

 

[wink]

I'm waiting for Jason to talk about all the stillborn concepts that did not even make it to the prototype stage.   

 
He can call them Unobtanium Mk1, Mk2. ....etc because nobody can get a sample to try.    

 
I would suspect that the [REDACTED] has well and truly passed the prototype stage.  

 

[ScottFree]

I'm waiting for Jason to talk about all the stillborn concepts that did not even make it to the prototype stage.   

 
He can call them Unobtanium Mk1, Mk2. ....etc because nobody can get a sample to try.    

 
I would suspect that the [REDACTED] has well and truly passed the prototype stage.  

Why not do an Ocean's 11 on the Schiit building. Just need to work out who will be who.


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