[golfbravobravo]

I would say: get a Raspberry Pi (made in the UK0 with a 502DAC (made in the US) or a Digione (made in India) with coax(or AES), put that next to your DAC and forget you ever used USB from a PC.
You can have a DIY streamer for less than a fancy usb-cable and it will still play better than a pc over usb.
But I think you have to try it before you believe it.

Coming late to this. A Pi with IQauiIO, HiFiBerry (I have all) are good end points and sufficiently affordable that it begs a test! I happen to use dietpi as the base OS but again, any of them will do a good job. DietPi has a simple(r) install for components than the command line. Try it, you may like it.

 

[the finisher]

Nevermind

 

[nicoch46]

How is this different from high bias class A? Do you have an oscilloscope reading to show the difference that continuity is supposed to give over AB? If continuity is just as good as class A, why do you have 10 watts of class A?

watt and little diiference in sound ,this AB have more Volt ie watt end lover bias ( 36V ,1A bias example) ,Class A more bias ( 18V 2A ex.) read a little better sound and lover Volt ie lower Watt

commercial AB can have only 0.1 A .....!!!!

 

[Robert Padgett]

Coming late to this. A Pi with IQauiIO, HiFiBerry (I have all) are good end points and sufficiently affordable that it begs a test! I happen to use dietpi as the base OS but again, any of them will do a good job. DietPi has a simple(r) install for components than the command line. Try it, you may like it.

I will second that. I use two RasPi as end-points. I found that the Raspian Stretch OS is so similar to the GUI from Ubuntu, it was a smoother transition.

Here is the rub-- I tried "Volumio" and "openmediavault" as OS, and could never get either to work on my network. So, I defaulted to what I understand... I use 'OpenSSH-server' and just have to "sign-in" to my server from the endpoints. For me, having a "headless" or Android-based UI is a problem, if it doesn't work. I can see what's going on in Raspian, on a monitor. And if you reboot the server, you just sign back in.

Everything is ethernet, hard-wired, my WiFi router was less than spectacular in the networked Music...lots of drop-out and skips.

 

[golfbravobravo]

On a Sunday, I viewing that YouTube stream. The following is an exercise for me - assessing my understanding of my new-found hobby, as a middle-aged ScubaMan, living in Canada, whose lucky to have enough disposable income to play with toys. I’d welcome your feedback...

My highlights:
Timestamp: 2:16. ....baldr’s comment about the received parts being upside-down and backwards. If he had said it was also inside-out... and it exploded, he’d have unwittingly quoted from the 1999 movie, GalaxyQuest... starring Tim Allen, Sigournie Weaver, and Alan Rickmann. Link.
Timestamp: 4:38 - 5:38. ...inverted bearings being fully erect. Erections. Erections. Erections. Love it! I also found it fascinating that Schiit Audio’s putting “function over form”. This upcoming device will be a ~15lb chunk of sculpted aluminum with a smoooooooth pivot point. And modular arms?! This device might very well upset the vinyl-playing-turntable market.

Timestamp: 10:00. Schiit Floaters. While I was a teenager in the cassette-tape culture, turntable leveling & correction was a few years before my time. The two made a bold statement about this turntable — it’s not designed for the casual vinyl listener. It’s meant for high performance playback @ about $700 USD. Not my interest, but the spin-off technologies will be interesting (next-generation DiscMan/DVDman,...).
Timestamp: 11:55. The Supreme Soviet Of DACs... As a teenager of the 80s, this made me sit up. A soviet of... Who talks like that?! I might even use that saying.... Clever.

Timestamp: 18:40. Dr. Ivanna. Math/Music/Computer-Coder. Good god. Digital processing can do THAT to a song file?! Parse out and re-tone the voice and/or select instruments?! I’d expect that at the music-studio-level.... but if we as listeners can monkey around with the final product (and make it pleasurable to our individual tastes), that’d be amazing. I think there’s software technology available that’ll correct headphones and/or correct for room echo. And there’s something called Auto-Tune used in hiphop. Now, this... this goes further up the stream and allows me to alter the source before it hits my DAC... analogEQ.... amp...speakers. I love it how baldr (timestamp ~23:00) bristled at one thinking music processors as tone control. It’s not about making the musical output more accurate to the original source — it’s about enjoyment & pleasurable listening.
Timestamp 24:15. Wow. If I understand what Schiit has in mind... they’re developing and implementing their own USB protocol that’s designed from the ground up for multibit-DAC technology (I’m in the weeds here and only partially understand it). Schiit-USB-boards that does NOT sound like ass (it plugs in and just works). Christ, they could then license that technology out (hmmm, like Dolby? Like MQA? [like I said, I don’t understand this concept... no put-downs, please]).

Timestamp 26:55. So Schiit might dabble in (host) computer components. Perhaps a stand-alone music streamer or ‘transport’. That translate as a DAP to me. Ah, so that’s how a Raspberrry Pi could be used to feed our Modis, Bifrosts, and such!
Timestamp 27:55. Boom! A SchiitPi instead of customers running out and buying a RaspberryPi to stream tunes. It’s a next generation DAP. The little computer boards would have Schiit-designed-music-centric-USB-friendly-DAC chipsets (as a possible product line in the next 10 years).

Timestamp 29:55 ...USB sounding like *** ass... USB 2, 3 ~ what’s my favourite prostate exam? (SPIDIF) > (pre-Schiit-USB protocol). Awesome!
Timestamp 30:50... the beta-Schiit-USB is now on-par or better than SPDIF (so, [SPIDIF] < [USB-Schiit]). I appreciated how they both know digital transport (from host to DAC) shouldn’t matter... bits are bits... And yet, there’s a phenomena at work that they just don’t understand (it’s quantum?! ). Another balder zinger: it’s chickenschiit, chicken-salad better than SPDIF. I can’t make this up.

Timestamp ~31:00. I’m pleased to see that these 2 guys are using consumer-grade audio sources. PCs.... MacBooks... dinosaur-aged rigs... I’m sure that might come and bite them in the ass eventually — GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Meh, maybe it’ll only punish cheapscapes like me who use old gear.
Timestamp ~34:55. I appreciated how the reviewer drilled our guys on the SchiitPi (a highly modified RaspberriPi). This is going to become a very delicate dance for Schiit — they have to allow others to develop an operating system that liase with the dumb-yet-Rainman-brilliant, Schiit-DAC-chipset on the Pi’s motherboard. Schiit won’t make their own user interface on the SchiitPi (or RaspberryPi). Got it. I’ll run some kind of Linux distro.

Timestamp ~38:00. Their proprietary USB-100%-Schiit card’s coming out next year (2019). Meh... beyond my needs. Now, the SchiitPi... THAT’S WHAT I WANT.
Timestamp 39:00. It’s worth going through the interview just to see their looks on their faces wrt the state of DSD and MQA. Totalitarian sheep ***?! Yep, that’s another image I can’t get out of my mind (and can wait to use it at my next beer-BS-session).
Timestamp 42:00. Jason asks yes-and-no questions to Mike. It’s worth a listen. If for no other reason to hear Mike growl how future-Schiit-made-electrostatic headphones users should sit in a bathtub full of water. Damn! As my students would say, that’s savage, sir.

Timestamp: 45:50. Both of them boil their success down to a simple, phrase: their gear is simple... their gear is reliable... their gear is cheap (they make money selling it be the 1000s).
Timestamp: 47:00. Schiit and Massdrop similarities. Get more quality audiophile gear to people for cheap.

I urge newcomers like me to watch this interview. It’s educational, it’s coherent, and they use elegant swear words. Mr. Darko, thank you for this content, eh.

I just loved this interview, thanks to all who provided links. And for this timeline.

I would note that the rush to "Ooooo SchiitPi" delight seems a little premature to me. The way I hear them describe both the Pi and the "transport" are misunderstood. The SchiitPi first: I hear them describing a totally embedded SoC (system on a chip) a la RPi, BUT it will be totally inacessible to all except the Schiit implementors. The need is for a couple (or more) orders of magnitude of processing power for some of the new toys they want to develop. So in my mind, no rush to get rid of our RpI end points )

The thing that was - in some ways - more troubling was the "transport" discussion. I Do hope that SChiit DO NOT develop their ownn proprietary transport. For example, I've committed to Roon which doe indeed use its own transport Roon Adavanced Audio Trasport (RAAT) which is the protocol used between the "server" and the end points. I do hope that we are not getting into protocol wars. OTOH, they both made clear some of the areas where they will NOT play. And it seems to me that both a Pi-style endpoint and a transport protocol (as I've painted it) would be in the 'not our circus' arena for Schiit. They also emphasised a number of times that e.g. SPi would sit between the input and output connectors on any box. That is smart and, to me reasuring. Use industry standard i/o and protocols and innovate inside that boundary.

Am I smoking something? (I AM in Arcata where you cannot get away form secondary inhalation - seriously).

 

[Robert Padgett]

watt and little diiference in sound ,this AB have more Volt ie watt end lover bias ( 36V ,1A bias example) ,Class A more bias ( 18V 2A ex.) read a little better sound and lover Volt ie lower Watt

commercial AB can have only 0.1 A .....!!!!

Was it not Nelson Pass who first termed, "the first Watt is the most important"?

10w of Class-A may very well drive just about any efficient Loudspeaker system and if I understood, this will be a variant of the Vidar chassis, so if 10-w Class-A is not to your liking, the Vidar is Class-AB is 100-w into 8-Ohms. We each have our loves, and our dislikes, so it looks like Schiit is trying to make Everybody happy. Thanks, Schiit.

 

[Robert Padgett]

Am I smoking something? (I AM in Arcata where you cannot get away from secondary inhalation - seriously).

Braggart North-wind Blow you Bluster

https://books.google.com/books/cont...YzcaUfIzATnVNg2u9JQ&ci=12,1060,942,372&edge=0

 

[nicoch46]

Was it not Nelson Pass who first termed, "the first Watt is the most important"?

yes! this schiit will make all happy 10w is perfect

 

[bagwell359]

We seek solace in food after the trauma inflicted by the thread being locked.

Yeah, bagged... I'm so hungry for news of the two new HFM's and this Schiit magic amp - that frustration and passive/aggressive tactics to somehow pull more data out of those in the know that I've fallen to the default level of all old people - food...

Either that - or I want to get to 1k posts + likes that I've thrown audio aside.... Or egads - it's both - in the voice of Sylvester Jr - "...ohhh father..."

OK, I know it's hard - but don't like my non audio posts.... hey I HATE BOSE 901's - see how I did that?

 

[Ripper2860]

I just loved this interview, thanks to all who provided links. And for this timeline.

I would note that the rush to "Ooooo SchiitPi" delight seems a little premature to me. The way I hear them describe both the Pi and the "transport" are misunderstood. The SchiitPi first: I hear them describing a totally embedded SoC (system on a chip) a la RPi, BUT it will be totally inacessible to all except the Schiit implementors. The need is for a couple (or more) orders of magnitude of processing power for some of the new toys they want to develop. So in my mind, no rush to get rid of our RpI end points )

The thing that was - in some ways - more troubling was the "transport" discussion. I Do hope that SChiit DO NOT develop their ownn proprietary transport. For example, I've committed to Roon which doe indeed use its own transport Roon Adavanced Audio Trasport (RAAT) which is the protocol used between the "server" and the end points. I do hope that we are not getting into protocol wars. OTOH, they both made clear some of the areas where they will NOT play. And it seems to me that both a Pi-style endpoint and a transport protocol (as I've painted it) would be in the 'not our circus' arena for Schiit. They also emphasised a number of times that e.g. SPi would sit between the input and output connectors on any box. That is smart and, to me reasuring. Use industry standard i/o and protocols and innovate inside that boundary.

Am I smoking something? (I AM in Arcata where you cannot get away form secondary inhalation - seriously).

That's how I understood it, as well.

 

[Robert Padgett]

Nah.. Let the girls have their communal toilet run.

Alsjeblieft,
Veel dank
Geen wc-papier in het toilet

 

[riffrafff]

You should come over to KC and try our Joe's...

Decent BBQ, for sure. But OMG...the LINES! Oy!

 

[golfbravobravo]

Braggart North-wind Blow you Bluster

https://books.google.com/books/content?id=IkQlAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA1195&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U1felefKtGYzcaUfIzATnVNg2u9JQ&ci=12,1060,942,372&edge=0

Very relevant. But I read some of those words very differently )

Cheers

 

[Paladin79]

Sorry mate, it is call rebounding. After a hearty spat, and Moderation, we got sidetracked to Pork& Beef BBQ, Tallness, and let's get back to Head-Fi, business as usual...any cute cats?

This photo is not up to your standards Robert, (I check out Ugly Hedgehog on occasion) but this 20 lb fellow is usually around when I am tinkering with electronics at home.

 

[ScubaMan2017]

@golfbravobravo ...
I would note that the rush to "Ooooo SchiitPi" delight seems a little premature to me. The way I hear them describe both the Pi and the "transport" are misunderstood. The SchiitPi first: I hear them describing a totally embedded SoC (system on a chip) a la RPi, BUT it will be totally inacessible to all except the Schiit implementors. The need is for a couple (or more) orders of magnitude of processing power for some of the new toys they want to develop. So in my mind, no rush to get rid of our RpI end points )

Re: SoC...RaspberryPi... and a future SchiitPi. The first thought that came to mind was a miniaturized SoundBlaster(tm) card on a RaspberryPi. Honestly, I have no idea how they’ll accomplish this without teaming up with a software company that provides updates and a Schiit-specific user interface (UI?). Meh. I’ll figure a way to abandon my bulky laptop (that acts as my source & link to the mother computer containing my FLAC/ALAC/MP3/ACC files) and go Pi small.

@golfbravobravo ...
...{snip}...They also emphasized a number of times that e.g. SPi would sit between the input and output connectors on any box. That is smart and, to me reassuring. Use industry standard i/o and protocols and innovate inside that boundary.

Re: ShiitPi (SPi [nice abbreviation, btw]). I think I understand what you're saying... Schiit will have to communicate exactly WHAT their Pi... or box... will do to the music... to the customers. Schiit will need to clearly direct HOW to use it... WHY the customer might want to use it. I get the feeling that their marketing campaign might have to be different with this new line of devices -- their smart-ass, irreverent, and quirky FAQs might alienate potential SchiitPi purchasers.

I do understand Schiit's desire to deflate the over-hyped audio market. I appreciate now having good sound, without spending thousands of dollars on it.

...{snip}...Am I smoking something?...{snip}...
If you live here in Canada, we're going that way in private places and licensed dispensaries. As a high school teacher, my board just has to enforce existing laws about underage smoking & alcoholic beverages. I'm not worried. I really appreciated you taking the time to look at my musings, @golfbravobravo . I learned something. That makes this a GOOD Monday.