[rutter]

So Schiit is granting me an "exception" in allowing a return of the MM, but none of the shipping involved will be refunded. Furthermore, it seems like they are inclined to apply a restocking fee as well. In essence, my claim that the product is faulty seems to have gone in through one ear and made a clean exit through the other one. Almost like I should be thankful to get to return it. I'm not inclined to put up a big fight but needless to say it will be a big relief to be done with them and get as much money back as I can. The amount of money I have paid in shipping fees, by the way, has piled up. To the tune of over $100, and that might be conservative. Let's see how many restocking fees I eat as well. A painful way to acquire knowledge and experience. Why has Schiit made a prominent name for itself? The availability of cheaper products? I've read that the "Yggy" is supposed to sound very good, I've seen somewhere it's supposed to be competitive against a $15000 product, and the Bimby is supposed to be a "desktop Yggdrasil" according to the imaginary person posing that question on the Schiit product page and the imaginary people having said this elsewhere (I'll refrain from commenting on the actual person writing this stuff), and since in reality the Bimby sounds extremely like the Mimby (to the explicit point that you do not want to be buying a Bimby), and since the multibit card in the Jot is "essentially a Modi Multibit" did you guys know that you have an Yggdrasil inside your "configurable desktop control center" that is different from a DAC/amp insofar as to waste a bunch of sentences trying to be funny? How you guys don't get at least annoyed by this schiit I don't know. By buying the product, I suppose. No one takes these people to task over this nonsense though?

 

[sixstringmonk]

@sixstringmonk What headphones are you using?

I have HD6XX.

I do have an ebtech hum-x somewhere. I also have a couple power conditioning strips I can try out. I'll dig all that stuff out tonight if I have time. Also - I believe the room I am in is on a GFCI or AFCI style breaker, so I'll probably see if I can replicate the humming on an outlet that is on a regular breaker.

 

[MWSVette]

We got it. You are unhappy with your Schiit. You have now arranged to return it. Can we move on now...

I look forward to your comments on the Questyle.

 

[GrussGott]

Maybe there is a problem with the Jot.

Hey Finisher - I see you have a Yggy / Jot combo, wondering if you had the gumby or mimby before that with the Jot and, if so, you're thoughts on improvement

 

[Alcophone]

So all three of us have a bad ground somewhere? We're also talking about pressing it, not touching it.

Not true in my case, touching the volume knob however lightly, or the top of the case makes the noise appear.
Touching the side or back with the other hand makes it go away.
All with nothing plugged in, i.e. in a useless state anyway. No issues during actual use.

Ground loop here too, Oklahoma? And I suppose you think the other two background noises I hear during listening conditions have to do with the my computer's USB ports, so I need to spend an extra like $150 on the Schiit Whatever?

Dude, stop being so hostile. He was trying to help with limited information available. If this hobby upsets you so much, or the notion that in some cases good cables or power conditioners may well be necessary, maybe switch to knitting or something else that is cheap and relaxing.

Yes, Schiit isn't perfect. All of my gear from them has some minor kinks. All of it was still a step forward and I don't regret buying it. Including the Lyr 2 that I sent back (paying for shipping / a modest rental fee). Sorry it didn't work out for you. But you don't have to tell yourself that you're stupid for listening to all these schills out there, or whatever you're so worked up by. It doesn't help you or anyone else. Read the terms upfront and if they don't work for you in the worst case, buy from more traditional sources. Nobody will blame you.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

I get a hum when I touch my Lyr3, but didn't have this issue on my Jot. It's kind of annoying, but my house was built in the 60s and I know the wiring is a bit goofy. I think I have to file this under the old joke: "Doc, it hurts when I touch my knee!" "Then stop touching it!"

 

[rutter]

Not true in my case, touching the volume knob however lightly, or the top of the case makes the noise appear.
Touching the side or back with the other hand makes it go away.
All with nothing plugged in, i.e. in a useless state anyway. No issues during actual use.



Dude, stop being so hostile. He was trying to help with limited information available. If this hobby upsets you so much, or the notion that in some cases good cables or power conditioners may well be necessary, maybe switch to knitting or something else that is cheap and relaxing.

Yes, Schiit isn't perfect. All of my gear from them has some minor kinks. All of it was still a step forward and I don't regret buying it. Including the Lyr 2 that I sent back (paying for shipping / a modest rental fee). Sorry it didn't work out for you. But you don't have to tell yourself that you're stupid for listening to all these schills out there, or whatever you're so worked up by. It doesn't help you or anyone else. Read the terms upfront and if they don't work for you in the worst case, buy from more traditional sources. Nobody will blame you.

I keep seeing the word hobby come up when I bring up questionable performance. This isn't a hobby for me, my dude. I don't buy this stuff to sample and poke at like I'm at a $15 buffet, and when I go to and from the buffet gas isn't tens of dollars. You might as well take up knitting yourself because as far as hobbies go it didn't occur to me that something as passive as listening to headphones could be considered one. Let's not go down this route. I also don't think of people as schills or shills but it doesn't surprise me to encounter this sort of a pedestrian mentality over discourse.

I agree with GoodRevrnd. As I stated before, I'm not sure why you found the disconnected Jot noise to be particularly fascinating. As long as it isn't indicative of anything when the Jot is in use it's academic. I guess that's the hobbyist in you trying to find something to be excited about when I have an actual problem which is going to cost me money. I don't think I was being unduly hostile toward Oklahoma. Three people reported the same occurrence consecutively, and per the quote I singled out you appear to have quite a bit of protection or to have taken multiple measures. Seemed to me like Oklahoma wasn't following the thread closely. Not to mention, again, this noise in particular is not the noise that is heard during operation, so why focus on it so much? I feel like what I'm writing is skimmed over at most, which is fine, but then let's stop pretending we're trying to have a constructive discussion.

As for Schiit, you'd think they are the bees' knees if you go by most of what you read. I think another perspective is important.

I have HD6XX.

I do have an ebtech hum-x somewhere. I also have a couple power conditioning strips I can try out. I'll dig all that stuff out tonight if I have time. Also - I believe the room I am in is on a GFCI or AFCI style breaker, so I'll probably see if I can replicate the humming on an outlet that is on a regular breaker.

Good. I'd like to hear what happens to the noise you experience with everything plugged in. If you want to go the extra mile you could download the Sonarworks trial, apply the equalization for whichever Sennheiser headphone would be closest, and tick off the Lower volume to avoid clipping option. Then you might run into the proximity or overlap I've run into.

PS

I get a hum when I touch my Lyr3, but didn't have this issue on my Jot. It's kind of annoying, but my house was built in the 60s and I know the wiring is a bit goofy. I think I have to file this under the old joke: "Doc, it hurts when I touch my knee!" "Then stop touching it!"

Did you test both in the same house?

 

[MWSVette]

Someone new to add to the ignore list....

 

[GrussGott]

Iin my case, touching the volume knob however lightly, or the top of the case makes the noise appear. Touching the side or back with the other hand makes it go away.

I get a hum when I touch my Lyr3, but didn't have this issue on my Jot.

I had these two exact same issues when I first hooked up my Jot with no source plugged in:

(1.) Had a very low hum at 12 o'clock+ on the volume pot
(2.) Got a much louder hum whenever I touched the volume pot

It was curious because, at the time, I was using the Chord Mojo on battery power as a DAC so probably not a ground loop and maybe my body was acting as an antennae and passing EMI into the Jot's ground plane ... but something.

So I did two things:
(1.) Bought a 1.5 meter 14 awg pangea shielded power cable for $30 and plugged the Jot directly into a wall outlet with nothing else in the other plug
(2.) Bought shielded input cables/interconnects (audioquest forest $25)

These two things gave me 100% silence on high gain full volume with no input connected no matter what I touched - EMI was being routed out and/or never getting in. Then:

(3.) I bought an Eitr, Mimby and pangea USB cable and blue jeans digital coax cable

I plugged the digital components (i.e., their powerbricks) into a power strip that's plugged into a separate outlet, validated there was no ground loop, and now I've got 100% silence and great input quality (as the Eitr electrostatically and electromagnetically isolates the source from the DAC)

 

[sixstringmonk]

Ok - I got a bit of testing in:

TLDR: No change on the USB side. Filtering on the GFCI breaker helped a little with the analog hum but not white noise. Running on the regular breaker sounded better but still had some noise regardless of filtered or non-filtered.

First off - I can say that as Alcophone said, the humming on the RCA input is present pretty much regardless of where I touch the case. Making a second contact point quiets the hum quite a bit. It more or less goes away if the 2nd point of contact is one of the RCA jacks. I also noticed that the hum on the RCA input is there faintly with the volume up high even without touching anything, it just gets much louder as soon as I make contact with the Jotunheim. I also want to reiterate that I do not have a source plugged into the RCA jacks. Anything I could scrounge up over here to plug in would undoubtedly be noisier anyway (NES, C64, Sega Master System, old VCR).

I tried the following configurations with the volume maxed out:

• Outlet on GFCI breaker -> power cable from Schiit = white noise on usb & white noise + hum on RCA
• Outlet on GFCI breaker -> ebtech hum x -> power cable from Schiit = white noise on usb & white noise + reduced but present hum on RCA
  
• Outlet on GFCI breaker -> thicker power cable = white noise on usb & white noise + hum on RCA
• Outlet on GFCI breaker -> ebtech hum x -> thicker power cable -> = white noise on usb & white noise + reduced but present hum on RCA
  
• Outlet on GFCI breaker -> Monster Pro 100 power conditioner on the analog filter side -> thicker power cable = white noise on usb & white noise + greatly reduced but present hum on RCA
• Outlet on GFCI breaker -> Monster Pro 100 power conditioner on the digital filter side -> thicker power cable = white noise on usb & white noise + greatly reduced but present hum on RCA
  
• Outlet on regular breaker -> ebtech hum x -> thicker power cable = white noise on usb & white noise + greatly reduced but present hum on RCA
• Outlet on regular breaker -> Monster Pro 100 power conditioner on the analog filter side -> thicker power cable = white noise on usb & white noise + greatly reduced but present hum on RCA
• Outlet on regular breaker -> Monster Pro 100 power conditioner on the digital filter side -> thicker power cable = white noise on usb & white noise + greatly reduced but present hum on RCA

So my takeaway is that I might want to swap out the breaker my home office is on or use a filter. Either way, there will be a little bit of noise at volumes I won't be using anyway.

 

[Oklahoma]

Well this took a turn before I was able to get back. Unfortunately without actually being able to see and try things it is rather hard to see what is going on. I have had my issues with some of my Schiit products as well. I was getting interference in my Lyr2 when I first set it up and through pretty much the same process I put up was able to find that it was picking it up on the rca cables that ran to it. Quick swap of cables to ones with better shielding and I was good to go again. After setting my computer up for a large event and running things there when I brought it back home the crap-tastic power in the facility had done something to my computer and now was getting noise when doing things on the computer. Only difference was that I had removed the computer and taken it to the event and plugged it all back in as it was before, but now there is noise. It had started outputting dirty power through the usb and that was creating the noise. I added a wyrd to isolate the usb and all the noise went away. Many times things that one person sees can manifest differently in different setups and only through trying things and eliminating possibilities will it work itself out. You think tracking down noise in a home system is hard try tracking it down on a large event main stage running balanced cables and thousands of watts of speakers. If there is a hum it won't be that quiet. We have ended up having to run power for the speakers on completely different power banks on a power distributor than some of the other equipment as it was adding interference into it just by being on the same power bank, not even the same circuit. Also, at the same show all audio cables running from a satellite room where broadcast and video was ran to the sound booth in the main stage room we had to make sure the cables were at least 10 feet from the power distro due to the cables picking up interference from it. You would be surprised how much interference a 480v 100A 3phase power distributor can create just sitting there along the back wall.

Now, none of this changes rutter's experience and his experience doesn't change mine with Schiit. Is Schiit perfect? NO. People have bad experiences with products all the time and this being a Schiit product thread people are going to try and defend it; is this right or wrong, I don't know. Everyone has an opinion on this and I don't have to share yours for both of ours to be valid. Rutter you said they sound like they are being gracious by letting you return the Modi and in reality they could have told you; sorry it is outside the return period, and they would have been well within their rights to say so as you had exceeded the stated return period. They also could say send it in and we will look at it and repair it if needed or offer a full refund if found defective. The reality is they agreed to take the return outside of the stated return period and even if returned within the 15 day return period it is stated that they will take a 15% restocking fee as it now has to be sold in the B-Stock which is typically 10-15% under the regular price; so it minimizes risk of being stuck with lots of B-stock from returns that now get much lower margin for the sale. This is how they have decided to run their business; whether right or wrong in your eyes.

I wish you the best on finding something that works for you.

 

[the finisher]

This is great news.

Will the DAC still receive an input and output via the SE outputs while I have the amp set for inputs from the "SE inputs"?

No, with inputs you have 3 choices only. The add on card, the single ended, or balanced.

 

[the finisher]

Hey Finisher - I see you have a Yggy / Jot combo, wondering if you had the gumby or mimby before that with the Jot and, if so, you're thoughts on improvement

No, I tried some somewhat expensive Sigma/Delta dac/preamp combos and heard a negligible improvement over my cheap dac in my Outlaw 2160 receiver with a LS50, dual sub speaker system, and the LCD X's

So I bought some Schiit! Yggy and Jot and compared to a RME ADI-2 DAC, and a PS Audio Stellar GCD, the Schiit kicked ass so I kept it.
No regrets on Yggy, I would have only wondered if I got Gumby.

I bought the Focal Solo 6 Be's to replace the LS50's in the nearfield system so balanced was a requirement.
The most impressive thing in my system is the Jot really, at only $400 and it's not really holding this system back.
It's an incredible value IMO. I will upgrade it, but not anytime soon.

 

[rutter]

Well, looks like I have some crow to eat. Got the Questyle CMA400i. Volume turned all the way up has white noise. There is a big difference in that my LCD-X is driven well before it becomes at all detectable, which allays my fears about what will happen with HD800S and/or balanced. The bigger problem is the 400i did not make a positive first impression in comparison to the MM + Jot. Maybe it needs to run for some time. I may walk so far back on my words as to try to upgrade to a BM- Bifrost Multibit. As the USB connection might be the issue in addition to tackling that I'd get whatever benefit the BM has over the MM, if virtually any but I'd like to be certain. Rough impression is the MM + Jot is more energetic. There is also something grainy to the 400i, don't know if that's music getting exposed, the 400i needing time to warm up or break in, or it just not being very good. Might have more separation, better imaging, and a better soundstage though. Yet the Schiit sound somehow appears cleaner or clearer. Initially I thought the Schiit stack crushed the 400i. As I've been switching back and forth the gap seems to be narrowing, certainly something I'll keep doing. If I stick with Schiit I think the ground loop will be the last thing I address, first would try to get a Bifrost Multibit. Except that thing has been backordered to two weeks from now for as long as I've been looking...

This might end up being rather close, actually.

 

[the finisher]

With Schiit you need to just order to get on the list for back orders, you can always change your mind before shipment.