[valiant66]

I got some of the first Coasters going that were sent out to the public. I have done some Bottlehead just to check them out and the instructions are quite good. Anyone should be able to assemble one of their amps, even @bcowen.

I am merely taking advantage of tools I own on other hobbies. My accountant has threatened to hire a hit man if I add other sources of income so I hope to just gift family and friends with my version of a Santoku, etc.

Good choice! Santokus are my favourite kitchen knife style. I've got a couple in different lengths and weights that both earned a place on my kitchen counter.
.

 

[Paladin79]

Dang. All he sent me appears to have been cut from a rusted coat hanger. It has some purple sleeving which is pretty cool, but the electrical tape securing the ends is starting to fall off. I think it’s WalMart brand tape.

Wait I actually gave you something?? On a good day I am barely lucid but I had no idea I had sunk so low as to give you a perfectly good coat hanger. I should start saving up for the lawsuit that awaits me once you acquire tetanus.

 

[valiant66]

@Jason Stoddard

Bottom line: Schiit is not immune to inflation. Your favorite DAC now costs $150 more but is the same DAC. No A3. No innovation. No Gungnir 2. And Gungnir is still not available in black. Maybe it's time to start looking elsewhere for a DAC.

As Jason frequently says, there's lots of gear out there and if Schiit doesn't have what you're looking for, there are many other choices.
.

 

[OldRoadToad]

Great story! I am unable to hear any differences in cables myself, which saves me a lot of money that I can spend on other things that make life enjoyable.

I have a few low/bottom/in-the-dregs cables. They look nicer than the normal lamp cord I used in my yoot. I am very shallow so in the case of cabling if it looks nicer than zip cord (and what does not?), I may use it for my speakers. Amazon Basic cables I think they are...

I think solid, "clean" power sent to well made speakers, including headphones, are the most important aspects of this hobby of ours. Looks are subjective but I like what I like and will not buy something that looks, to my eyes, F U G L Y.

ORT

 

[ev666il]

I have a few low/bottom/in-the-dregs cables. They look nicer Looks are subjective but I like what I like and will not buy something that looks, to my eyes, F U G L Y.

Word.

 

[valiant66]

Great story! I am unable to hear any differences in cables myself, which saves me a lot of money that I can spend on other things that make life enjoyable.

I always thought that if there was an improvement to be had in interconnect cables, the biggest improvement would be in going from those skinny, moulded black-n-red ended freebies that sometimes come with gear to the lowest tier of a boutique cable company's offering; and that the improvement from their bottom tier to ultimate tier would be incremental and small compared to that first step. So I had a bunch of custom cables of various lengths made up back in the eighties, and those Monster whatevers are in use to this day. (Big shout-out to Darren at K&W Audio (who are still in business and located within walking distance of my new-to-me condo) for a solid job that's stood up to 40 years of pushing electrons and repeated plugging and unplugging.)
.

 

[bcowen]

You wanted solid core, right?

Well, yes. But.

 

[bcowen]

Wait I actually gave you something?? On a good day I am barely lucid but I had no idea I had sunk so low as to give you a perfectly good coat hanger. I should start saving up for the lawsuit that awaits me once you acquire tetanus.

Maybe the rust is what makes it so, um, unique? I knew the $89 shipping charge had to be covering something. Kind of?

 

[Paladin79]

I have a few low/bottom/in-the-dregs cables. They look nicer than the normal lamp cord I used in my yoot. I am very shallow so in the case of cabling if it looks nicer than zip cord (and what does not?), I may use it for my speakers. Amazon Basic cables I think they are...

I think solid, "clean" power sent to well made speakers, including headphones, are the most important aspects of this hobby of ours. Looks are subjective but I like what I like and will not buy something that looks, to my eyes, F U G L Y.

ORT

Some I made for myself for a small rack. Same colors in my larger rack. I like the purple with Schiit silver cases. I did the same mesh in red and black for the Hel just before I donated it to a friend's son.

 

[OldRoadToad]

Some I made for myself for a small rack. Same colors in my larger rack. I like the purple with Schiit silver cases. I did the same mesh in red and black for the Hel just before I donated it to a friend's son.

That looks sooooooo COOOOL! It really it does! Shallow Toad, I know. Stuff like this on the rear of the equipment gives one reason to have to actually look back there in stead of just doing the "Schiit ReachAround". I hate doing the Schiit Reacharound. But I crack up every time I say it!

I have difficulty of late rationalizing buying some thing I merely want and not need as i am getting older and older and need to consider the future of my family when I am gone. I have less trouble doing so for family and friends. I am rambling again. It is but one of the signs of a weak mind, I know. At least that is what my wife tells me.

Be well, brother and never forget that it is the so called "little things" that often make the biggest difference in the lives of those we love.

ORT

 

[Mr Rick]

I consider myself fortunate to be unable to hear differences between DACs. It allows me to enjoy my Gungnir OG and live happily ever after.

 

[earnmyturns]

@Jason Stoddard

Bottom line: Schiit is not immune to inflation. Your favorite DAC now costs $150 more but is the same DAC. No A3. No innovation. No Gungnir 2. And Gungnir is still not available in black. Maybe it's time to start looking elsewhere for a DAC.

I pay a bit of attention to higher-end DAC goings-on. I own Yggdrasil A2 and other comparably priced DACs, have owned several others. Schiit is sticking to multibit chips made by instrumentation vendors, for good reasons, but that limits their options a lot. Other vendors (such as Holo, Rockna, Denafrips, Sonnet, Metrum, ...) build their own discrete circuitry, which may or may not lead to improvements, but tends to be significantly more expensive. My experience of Schiit, Metrum, Holo, Sonnet, Soekris is that we are dealing mostly with sideways difference, not consistent improvement. As it is, my two faves now are the "old" standard Yggdrasil A2 and the Holo Spring 2 KTE.

TL; DR: you may look elsewhere, but be prepared to pay substantially more for uncertain gains over Yggdrasil A2.

 

[bcowen]

Some I made for myself for a small rack. Same colors in my larger rack. I like the purple with Schiit silver cases. I did the same mesh in red and black for the Hel just before I donated it to a friend's son.

Of all the colors out there, green is one of them.

(and you'd already patented purple)

 

[ScottFree]

WARNING! CABLE COMMENT FOLLOWS!! PREPARE YOUR HIGH-END CABLE RELIGION SHIELDS FOR IMPACT!

Back when I was working in the audio testing and certification industry I had many opportunities to test and evaluate high-end cables from nearly every manufacturer including many of the mega-dollar per foot name brands. I was never able to measure nor hear any significant "improvements" from any of these cables over that provided by the lab-standard cables we made ourselves from reels of bulk Belden and Carol cable, using basic bulk connectors (usually not even gold-plated!) No matter the signal path or what was used to get input to output (even routing through patch bays and (egad) ICs running in parallel with power cables) as long as signal out = signal in, with acceptable losses, it was all the same. Indeed I was surprised when some of the mega-dollar cables we tested actually degraded the signal in significant ways, such as severe attenuation or even adding phase distortion due to cable impedance.

So here I am at least 30 years distant from that work experience and I was given a set of multi-thousand-dollar XLR interconnects made by a high-end manufacturer and touting exotic gold-plated silver coax conductors and exotic monocrystalline polymer insulation, with rhodium-plated phosphor-bronze connectors and mysterious ferrite filters encased in plastic. These promised to bring out the "magic" in the sound - and were sent to me from a friend who is a high-end audio dealer in the New York City area with a note reading, in effect, "Try these, you damn cable skeptic." So I did.

I inserted them between my Yggdrasil and my AudioValve Solaris amplifier. I let the amp warm up then put on my Voce electrostatic headphones and fired up some Van Morison. I expected magic. I got none. I could hear no difference between these ICs and the sub-$100 set made from basic copper I had been using before. Maybe it's my near-70 year-old ears, maybe it's my bias, maybe I used the "wrong music", maybe it's the phase of the moon. But there was no big "wow" moment. Not even a little "wow." It was a complete and solid "meh."

I share this story not because I'm trying to stir Schiit on this forum, but because hopefully it might help someone else realize that there are more important parts of the audio chain to spend your money on than cables. Like transducers, amps, and DACs. But like I always say, "Dowhatchulike" and if you want it go for it. Just don't expect to be blown away by veils being lifted and unicorns appearing from the ether. Just enjoy the music.

Scott's Guide To Choosing Cables

1. Determine what type of cable you want and/or need
2. Pick a cable manufacturer you like the sound of and/or based on what flowery, psychobabble marketing bull*&^& you like the most (e.g AudioQuest, Crystal Cable, Nordorst)
3. Buy the cheapest cable that the manufacturer sells in the type/line of the cable you want/need
4. Wait for cable to arrive (if you've ordered online), or wait to arrive home with cable.
5. When you have the cable, insert cable into system and prepare suitable testing material
6. Perform a few comparison tests between your previous cable (if you have one) and see if you notice a difference in your system. If so, go to Step 8, if not, go to Step 7
7. Be glad you didn't spend that much on a really expensive cable and buy yourself some whiskey and/or cigars with the money you still didn't spend.
8. Repeat to yourself 500 times, It's only in my head, Here be dragons, buyer beware. Then ignore these mantras and over the next few months/years, spend a few hundred/thousand dollars on cables trying to find the perfect alchemical audio combo until you've run out of (choose whichever is appropriate) will/money/morals/household items to sell. Then go to Step 9
9. Realise the futility of chasing your dream of the ultimate cable that will make your system reach audio nirvana. Then having reached the stage of acceptance, immediately sell your cables on Craigslist/eBay to the next poor person who's following the same dream and try to reclaim your dignity, soul and whatever possessions you sold to fund your cable habit
10. Discover Schiit and the price/performance ratio and that great audio doesn't have to cost that much
11. "These go up to eleven"

P.S These steps are determined from third-party experience and may not reflect the author's actual experience.

 

[zstokes]

Scott's Guide To Choosing Cables

1. Determine what type of cable you want and/or need
2. Pick a cable manufacturer you like the sound of and/or based on what psychobabble marketing bull*&^& you like the most (e.g AudioQuest, Crystal Cable, Nordorst)
3. Buy the cheapest cable that the manufacturer sells in the type/line of the cable you want/need
4. Wait for cable to arrive (if you've ordered online), or wait to arrive home with cable.
5. When you have the cable, insert cable into system and prepare suitable testing material
6. Perform a few comparison tests between your previous cable (if you have one) and see if you notice a difference in your system. If so, go to Step 8, if not, go to Step 7
7. Be glad you didn't spend that much on a really expensive cable and buy yourself some whiskey and/or cigars with the money you still didn't spend.
8. Repeat to yourself 500 times, It's only in my head, Here be dragons, buyer beware. Then ignore these mantras and over the next few months/years, spend a few hundred/thousand dollars on cables trying to find the perfect alchemical audio combo until you've run out of (choose whichever is appropriate) will/money/morals/household items to sell. Then go to Step 9
9. Realise the futility of chasing your dream of the ultimate cable that will make your system reach audio nirvana. Then having reached the stage of acceptance, immediately sell your cables on Craigslist/eBay to the next poor person who's following the same dream and try to reclaim your dignity, soul and whatever possessions you sold to fund your cable habit
10. Discover Schiit and the price/performance ratio and that great audio doesn't have to cost that much
11. "These go up to eleven"

P.S These steps are determined from third-party experience and may not reflect the author's actual experience.

#8

When you've said it 500 times, say it 500 more times. Do not wake the dragons.