Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

The thing that immediately popped into mind when I read this: Would it be feasible to build a forkbeard controller? Something with a volume control knob, a instant mute button and a/or a few customizable buttons? Maybe the knob could control volume in when one button is pressed, and control EQ when another is pressed? A separate controller device could make the features of FB more accessible without having to pick up the phone, open the app and select the proper stack etc.

Something like that has been on my mind since the day I came up with the concept for Forkbeard.
We have to work through a bunch of other stuff we want to do for y'all first, though.
But yeah. Eventually. Maybe.

 

[adydula]

Alot of all this depends on "YOUR" use case.

I have two use cases:

1. Dedicated Headphone Listening Space
2. Dedicated 2ch Listening Space.

For the headphone space, I dont really care about all the Forkbeard stuff. Also being a non Apple fan.
In this space I have all my stuff laid out close in front of me and have access to all the connections, knobs etc.
KISS, easy to change and swap out stuff. No need for another interface on a phone.

But in the 2 ch setup where we are 15 ft from the gear all this Forkbeard newness really is a nice thing to have!
To remote control stuff is nice. No streamer. Just a nice long cable from a laptop with the flacs and music player.
Use Schiits remote to control volume to my Freya N. Simple. Dont like the long cable from the PC to the Dac.

Most of my time is spent playing the headphone space. I tend to be more interested on how the dac really "works".
How well is the digital to analog "stuff" done....Gosh played with numerous dacs and filters with the most part
straining to hear and real world differences. More often that naught I hear none. Yup. None.

When I reviewed the G2 a few months back I really did hear differences and was pleasantly surprised. Enough so to tout that
IMO G2 is the best dac Schiit has made to date with my ears!. Will really enjoy testing this new Mimir with G2 and see if I get that
@ArmchairPhilosopher "experience"!

:>)
Alex

 

[artur9]

... Of course, most in the IOS universe want as few options as possible - completely KISS oriented. For me, this is the difference.

I don't know that "want" is the right word here. More like, "don't care" about those sorts of options. Me, I'm in the "don't care until I do" camp. iOS works out-of-the-box well enough for 90% of what I need to do. When I hit that 10%, it's incredibly frustrating and I feel like chucking it out the window. Then I do something linux-y for true choice.

That "true choice" ends up taking days of experimentation to ultimately get an extra 5% of utility and I'm still stuck with 5% that neither do what I want. So, it's a ROI thing: do I want to spend that time getting that first 5% knowing that ultimately I still won't get 100% of the way there? Depends.... I'm getting less and less willing to spend that time, I must say.

...The blatant anti-consumer stance and the successful gaslighting of their consumers...

I don't get this. I like that the contract between Apple and myself is: I buy their hardware and they don't spy on me. That way I can enjoy viewing @Ripper2860 Barbie collection without shame... oops! did I say that outloud?

...
Turns out: The kind of filter you build into your DACs is actually important. Like, very important. Who knew?!

Also, interesting. Sounds to me like the Mimir's comboburrito filter is upsampling to DSD to use ESS's delta sigma modulator.
I imagine that DSD rate is proprietary information y'all are not willing to share?
Alternatively, you could still be feeding the ESS PCM but then you'd be using "some" of the ESS's filters, which I hear isn't something Schiit wants to do...

(edit) if the DSD thing is true that may be a hint as to how Singularity(tm) works and will sound...

... sandpaper-based posts ...

Not familiar with the term?

...higher bit-rate inputs (so you lose less data as you go down -10 or -20db) ...

Oh, a real reason to use 24/32b recordings!

... Would it be feasible to build a forkbeard controller? ...

I just have on old iPhone/iPad that I just keep on that one app. I don't know that Schiit can build cheaper? As long as the hardware volume keys on the iPad can work Forkbeard....

@ArmchairPhilosopher can/will Forkbeard control a Mac Mini? That is, add an app to my Mac to Forkbeard enable it?

 

[DACattack]

Great! Yesterday mine was shipped - expected arrival April 30.

My current status is expected to ship between 4/25 and 4/27… getting there.

Mine is still resolutely at "Order Received" but it's encouraging that yours are moving forward. Eventually mine should too.

Is it just me, or have the last couple of days brought out more sandpaper-based posts, and outright trolling, the we usually see here?

I suspect there are some folks who generally don't appreciate the banter and camaraderie here--who consider it "noise"--and have their Head-Fi settings configured such that they are alerted whenever Jason posts. When that post is a chapter which is about something in which Schiit stretches audio boundaries, conventions, or simply does something really cool and unexpected, they pop in to the thread, say their piece if they wish, then fade away until the next chapter lands which interests them enough to post. Of course, with that influx there are sometimes a few trolls in the mix, or those with an axe to grind.

All that said, the ignore button can be a useful feature.

Happy Friday all. Can't wait to hear the upcoming Mimir impressions, beyond Martin's cautious "It's great!" that is. (We appreciate you @ArmchairPhilosopher.)

 

[artur9]

Mine is still resolutely at "Order Received" but it's encouraging that yours are moving forward. Eventually mine should too.
...

Worth the wait!

I have both Vol 1 and Vol 2. I don't think Vol 2 is worth the wait, fwiw.

 

[ArmchairPhilosopher]

@ArmchairPhilosopher can/will Forkbeard control a Mac Mini? That is, add an app to my Mac to Forkbeard enable it?

Eventually. Maybe. Definitely not soon.

 

[DACattack]

I have both Vol 1 and Vol 2. I don't think Vol 2 is worth the wait, fwiw.

That's good to hear, actually. If I ever get Vol. 1, and end up enjoying it as much as I think I will, that I would contemplate getting Vol. 2 too. If it doesn't measure up to 1, I can cross it off the list. My wallet thanks you.

 

[Ripper2860]

Sometimes it takes a teeny bit of drama to remember and fully appreciate how good we have it here compared to other forums/threads.

 

[Katysax]

Best place to start would be Jason's chapter on Forkbeard:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...able-start-up.701900/page-11342#post-18406336

Pages and pages of incomprehensible verbosity. Seriously this is so pretentious and affected it is impossible to read if you dont drink the kool aid.

 

[Ableza]

Pages and pages of incomprehensible verbosity. Seriously this is so pretentious and affected it is impossible to read if you dont drink the kool aid.

I am sure there are all flavors of Kool Aide available. If this one is not to your liking, try another one. I hear a lot of people like the red gak, as we used to call it on the ustaboat.

 

[Ripper2860]

Pages and pages of incomprehensible verbosity. Seriously this is so pretentious and affected it is impossible to read if you dont drink the kool aid.

I'm sure there will be independent reviews of FB products eventually. They may put its capabilities in a more understandable context for you. Good news is you don't have to buy into the FB system if you don't understand it or want it.

 

[roderickvd]

I can't understand why a flac ripped CD is clearly 14xx at 16 bit, but the same stream from Qobuz is ~1000/16bit.

Go rip a CD to FLAC and you’ll also see it’s not 1411 kbps. That’s just a worse case figure. The rest is the magic of compression.

 

[sickmonkey]

Pages and pages of incomprehensible verbosity. Seriously this is so pretentious and affected it is impossible to read if you dont drink the kool aid.

It may not be your cup of tea. I can't think of many niche products where you can get so much detailed information directly from the source. A bit of insight to their direction and thinking. Maybe that does create a Kool aid mentality. So be it. I find it quite refreshing. It seems to be Schiit's style.

You may find appealing PS Audio's folksy grampa presentations. Not knocking it, but different strokes for different folks.

 

[roderickvd]

That's actually crucial to maintain as much audio quality as possible, as I've yet to hear a single operating system's mixer that would not sound like crap. You just lose way too much detail in the process.

Actually Core Audio isn’t too bad. It’s 32-bit floating point with dither.

I'm actually not sure if there's a way to have a given operating system's volume buttons or sliders control not the OS's own mixer but the connected sound target's own volume level through USB commands.

ALSA does that as hardware mixer control.

Edit: Core Audio too, I believe. It’s why you can’t control volume on Mac with a Unison DAC as output.

 

[sam6550a]

Pages and pages of incomprehensible verbosity. Seriously this is so pretentious and affected it is impossible to read if you dont drink the kool aid.

Read "Using Forkbeard" on the Schiit website under "Guides". It has videos and screenshots.