[valiant66]

 
One minor thing, though, antibiotics would not have done anything against a virus, only against (some) bacteria. For a viral infection, there's very little that can be done after you catch it, except for a few antivirals in extreme cases (as were used against Ebola virus for infected healthcare workers). 

 
Ah. True. I may have misreported. I was speaking with the hearing loss technician - what she said was that they could have treated it within the first 3 days. I need to make another doctor's appointment for next week.
.

 

[captkirk]

With all those changes it will no longer be a Ragnarok. Tubes =/= solid state. Circlotron =/= pivot point.
.

Very true.

 

[BagelJoe]

Good thing I have a large desk. Ragnarok sits on the Yggy behind my iMac(21" screen) successfully out of view of my wife

. KEF LS50's sit on either side of the iMac on small desk top stands. Sound is too good and I rarely put on the phones. No kids left, no neighbors to bother so just me and my tunes!!

 

[sublime9]

  And eh...
Don't you all think it's really quiet in California at the moment?

Yeah, toooo quiet...

 

[earnmyturns]

  Yeah, toooo quiet...

Tick tock, tick tock, ...

 

[Timoteo80]

Yeah I was stoked at how quick my Modi2 & Magni arrived. Then I saw that Schiits headquarters is in Valencia!!....bout an hr from me

 

[Eric510]

Good thing I have a large desk. Ragnarok sits on the Yggy behind my iMac(21" screen) successfully out of view of my wife:wink_face: . KEF LS50's sit on either side of the iMac on small desk top stands. Sound is too good and I rarely put on the phones. No kids left, no neighbors to bother so just me and my tunes!!

Hah - As a new member of the "Husbands who hide audio gear" club, I can't tell if my wife simply doesn't notice the random new pair of cans and/or new stack of Schiit, or if she's just banking this knowledge for when she needs to use it against me.

 

[catspaw]

Concerning Schiitr I like the Granpa Style interior.
Best of Luck, too bad I live on the other half of the planet (sideways, not hemisphereways).

 

[darkarn]

   
I got a surprise call this morning asking if I was coming to my appointment this afternoon. When I asked if they could reschedule they said sure, next appointment last week of May. So I rearranged things and went.
 
Turns out I (probably) had a viral infection the first week of March that chewed up some of the cochlear hairs in my left ear. While my hearing is about normal for someone of my age who spent far too much time around live music, the virus knocked the sensitivity in my left ear down by 20-25 db, and they won't grow back. The recommendation is to get a cheap hearing aid ($1700!). Perhaps my career of spending far too much on stereo gear is winding down...
 
The takeaway for me was that if I had called the doctor the first morning I noticed the hearing problem, they would have been able to treat the virus with antibiotics and prevented the hearing degradation. Instead I just waited until my next scheduled doctor's appointment, by which time it was too late - damage done.
 
Caveat auditor.
.

 
Oh dear, that's terrible! And whoa, didn't know that viruses can do that too, scary.

 

[darkarn]

Now this reminds me of the story I'm supposed to share with ya all!
 
I started audiophile way back in say, 2011? Had a very good friend who introduced me to all these gear and soon I, being a budget conscious college student then, began to play around with budget-fi like like Fiio's products, Sandisk Clip Zip and Stoner Electronics' UD100. I gotten some headphones too, like the Beyerdynamics Custom One Pro which still stayed strong today. I dabbled in DIY audio too, starting from modifying a Bravo V2 tube amp (which sounded amazing until it burnt up lol) and then building a Fred's 12AU7 tube amp.
 
Heck, soon after that, I started out in Head-Fi, Rock Grotto and also hung around in Hardwarezone's audiophile forums. I even managed to get quite a few of my fellow countrymen interested in the Fiio X1 World Tour (14 Singaporeans out of 70 applicants lol, one of the highest groups if I am not mistaken)
 
But one day, I just... lost steam, to put it gently. I found myself lost in this audiophile thing to say the least. I am unsure why; maybe it's due to other life issues affecting me then? Or maybe seeing how much money people are spending into gear vis-a-vis music itself seem illogical? Either way, I quietly vanished from the scene.
 
Then I slowly recovered somehow and was slowly heading back when when one fine morning in 2015 I woke up and found out that I have lost my right hearing. I felt unbalanced too; I kept slanting to the left due to the vertigo caused by this. I dashed to my college and saw my GP there even though it was the summer holidays (yes, we do have a clinic here).
 
My GP often jokes around with me and is still a pretty chill chap (especially for his age!) whenever I manage to see him for my medical needs, but this time round he took a look at my condition and was dead serious. He quickly prescribed me some antibiotics to take while explaining that somehow the blood vessels in my right ear canal burst, creating blood clots that blocked my right ear. I had to clear the course of antibiotics and then return to him ASAP for further evaluation; if the issue did not resolve, I would have to be operated on ASAP to save/salvage my right hearing. I went back home with the prospect of not being able to hear my music properly from a young age hanging over me. Even when I tried to sleep, it was pressing down on me. It was scary, so bad that I teared up on my bed once.
 
Thankfully, my hearing recovered. But there were random times when my ears get blocked like how anyone's would, but except often than not it was mostly the right ear and serious enough to throw me off-balance briefly. It somewhat affected my studies I think, but then again, I was (and still am) unsure about this.
 
This incident was one heck of a wake-up call; I realised that somehow or another I will lose my hearing, so I should start to listen to my music better as much as I can while my hearing is still around! And of course, take better care of my ears and not be bone-headed about them. All of these got me back into audiophile, refreshed and ready to move on while tying up any loose ends (if any, like that Fiio X1 review...).
 
So how does Schiit come in? (Hey, I need to make this post on-topic ya'know )
 
Some time after getting my full-time job in late 2016, I looked at my desktop setup and felt that I should improve it in the following ways:
1. Need to be able to handle at least three inputs
2. Sound better than what I have
3. Doesn't give me random static shocks (which was coming from my amp due to impending failure as hinted by one of the members in Hardwarezone)
 
This meant that I needed a better DAC and amp. I looked around and asked around, and Schiit Modi 2 was one of the recommended DACs. I didn't think much about it but decided to just poke around this thread, and damn, I learnt so much from here in so many ways from you guys. It helped greatly that Schiit believes in getting good audio out of reasonable pricing, something that is slowly being less believed somehow. So as my way of giving thanks to the company and also to see if Schiit puts its money where its erm, Schiit is, I went ahead and gotten the Mimby instead. Let's just say that this is indeed one of my best tech decisions ever! The reasonably cheap R2R implementation helped too!
 
So here's how I got into Schiit and also why I am quite concerned about my hearing! Thanks!

 

[R2RDAC]

Some experiences with HT bypass.
 
Last year I was experimenting with the Lyr 2 as a preamp for my loudspeakers. It sounded great, so I decided to buy a stereo power amp (it was before vidar was announced) and replaced my integrated amp with the lyr/power amp.
 
I use the loudspeakers for music but also for tv and my wife and children hear their music with it.
 
I needed a way to bypass the lyr because I didn´t want to use my vintage tubes for playing children songs or tv. It was before the freya and saga, so I build a passive remote controlled preamp by myself. In the first version, it had one input which was bypassed for the lyr, the other input is connected with the bimby over a motor poti. After some listening I changed the input for the lyr. Now this signal goes also over the motor poti. I have now two identical inputs.
 
The design decision shiit made is correct in my opinion.  If you have a passive mode in the preamp you don´t need a ht bypass.

 

[FLTWS]

   
With all those changes it will no longer be a Ragnarok. Tubes =/= solid state. Circlotron =/= pivot point.
.

 
At most my guess would be a 128 step remote controlled volume control. If the SE (or Balanced) circuits sound could be improved in any meaningful way at reasonable cost and relatively easily that might be a possibility. Redo the power supply? That sounds like the whole board would have to be replaced, that doesn't sound like reasonably priced and relatively easy to me.
 
I don't know exactly what the pivot point actually brings to the table in the way of sound improvement compared to the circlotron, but I have both types and prefer the Rag and MJ2 with HD800, and Utopia with both and the Jot. It's about the synergies for me.
 
In what way does pivot point sound superior to circlotron? I thought the plus with pivot point was the ability to do a more sophisticated SE circuit bringing it closer to Balanced in (perceived) SQ.

 

[Letmebefrank]

Now this reminds me of the story I'm supposed to share with ya all!

Great story! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

  The takeaway for me was that if I had called the doctor the first morning I noticed the hearing problem, they would have been able to treat the virus with antibiotics and prevented the hearing degradation. Instead I just waited until my next scheduled doctor's appointment, by which time it was too late - damage done.
 

 
Uh... they told you that?
I am a doctor and believe me... There's no way to threat a viral infection effectively with AB's
So in my humble opinion you just fell out of luck.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

   
Ah. True. I may have misreported. I was speaking with the hearing loss technician - what she said was that they could have treated it within the first 3 days. I need to make another doctor's appointment for next week.
.

 
No way they could have.
The only chance you would have got was a systemic attack with an anti virus canon, something like (oral) famciclovir.
And that only works if you feel the slightest mishap coming.