[tincanear]

To get the full 7.5W (into 16Ω), it definitely requires the use of the 4-pin XLR output. But Schiit's specs don't specify what input voltage was used to get the Jot up to it's max output level (clipping point), so I don't know for sure.

But if I had to guess, I would say that the 4-pin XLR max output level was achieved using the XLR inputs at 4V, so that same max output level probably can't be reached with the DAC card's @1.5V.

if the D/S DAC card outputs 1.5V balanced, then using hi gain (8 = 18dB) should be plenty to reach max output level from either balanced (7.5W into 16 ohms ~ 11Vrms) or SE (2.5W into 16 ohms ~ 6.3Vrms).

 

[Racheski]

My thoughts (for what they are worth) are that the Modius>D90>D70 based on price alone. The way I see it is that in the Modius you have an older (cheaper) DAC chip that Jason and Mike took and maximized its performance and sold it at the amazing price of $200. The D90 is a basic (not optimized) implementation of the 4499 chip to reach a certain price point. If some other company would come out with a maximized implementation of the 4499 chip then perhaps it would have a better overall sound. Who knows. This Modius really is a steal. I compared the Modius to the D90 and really couldn't tell much of a difference. I felt the modius sounded better overall but in a blind test could I tell a difference? Doubt it, its that close. I used the same amp (THX789) at the same volume level and just swapped the XLR's between DACS. Input is Unison USB. The D90 was in pure DAC mode with Filter 1 same as you. The D70 I thought sounded good but soft, didn't really hit all that hard. If your satisfied with it, that's all that counts. As far as Schitt's stuff, I do prefer the DACS more than the amps. I have had a magni 2, magni 3, Jotunheim, Lyr3 and a Vali2. Combo I liked the most was the Vali 2 with the Modi Multibit. I like the THX789 just because it doesnt impart any more confusion into the chain, doesnt have a sound of its own. I prefer my DACS to be on the slightly warm side of neutral and my amp just "amps it up" and sends it to my headphones which I can further tailor to the sound I like. Schitts amps do have a tendency to be non-neutral which I don't like (just my preference).

How else could Topping "optimize" the D90? It's measurements are SOTA.

 

[Marlowe]

How else could Topping "optimize" the D90? It's measurements are SOTA.

Because running a test tone through a DAC is not the same thing as optimizing its sound quality for music, no matter what Amir and his ASR cultists believe. See any number of Currawong's YouTube reviews on this issue, including a very recent one on the D90 in which he discusses whether good "measurements" equal good sound.. (FWIW, he thought the D90 was a very good DAC and sounded very well, but was its SQ was not quite as good as the similarly priced Schiit Bifrost 2, which, like many multibit or R-2R DACs, "measures" much worse.)

 

[Asahi Templar]

How else could Topping "optimize" the D90? It's measurements are SOTA.

If you read the ASR review there were some imperfections Amir noted that could be fixed with a better implementation. For example the THD+N versus frequency had strange artifacts. It is also under performing in the dynamic range according to the AKM datasheet considering it is dual mono. There will undoubtedly be a future AKM 4499 dac that dethrones it.

None of that matters at all of course, it is audibly transparent according to science. Of course the modi and modius are also and don't cost $699,so really people should be buying those if they only care about measurements and known science.

 

[Soundmancan]

How else could Topping "optimize" the D90? It's measurements are SOTA.

Please explain to me how measurements translate into sound performance. How is it that my Modius and Bifrost 2 are better sounding DACS to my ear than the D90 (or the D70 which i did have). Please don't use the argument of "transparency" like Amir does because it's baloney. He doesn't review a single DAC, he only takes measurements and recommends DACS off of measurements alone. if your lucky you'll get some sort of snippet at the end on how the DAC sounds. And IMHO, DACS will have their own identity and sound different if their implementation goes beyond just a reference design like the D90.

 

[pinkfloyd4ever]

Put in an order for a Modius and Saga S to go with my TV loud speaker setup. I've been twiddling my thumbs for a while waiting for something to click that would resolve my situation... that being remote volume control and a device that either auto sleeps or doesn't hog power. I originally bought a pair of Elac UB5's and the Emotiva A-100 to pair with my Mimby, hooked up to my TV via the optical out. Guess who didn't do their homework... spoiler: this guy. You can't control the optical-out volume with the TV remote, so as a workaround I fed the A-100 via the heaphone out of the TV via 3.5mm -> RCA (not ideal).

I knew for a while that the Saga S was probably my best bet, short of buying a standalone receiver, but I don't need another power amp and didn't want to compromise sound when I had a good DAC already... well, fast-forward, the Mimby's at the office and I just accepted sub-par sound of my speaker set up for the sake of volume control.

Enter the Modius. This thing's seemingly perfect for my set up. I plan to use it the Saga S in passive mode and just leave them both on all day (The A-100 auto-sleeps). As a bonus, I can even use the balanced outs of the Modius to feed back to my PC in the other room. I've got a powered USB hub under the TV that's connected to my PC, so I can connect the modius' USB input via that too while using optical from the TV. Perfect.

Then when the roommate's not home and I wanna get some more out of the speakers, I can hit that JFET stage button on the Saga and we're good to go!

I've read over and over that the Elac UB5s need a LOT of power to sound their best. So you might also look into either a different set of speakers or a more powerful amp.

 

[pinkfloyd4ever]

Please explain to me how measurements translate into sound performance. How is it that my Modius and Bifrost 2 are better sounding DACS to my ear than the D90 (or the D70 which i did have). Please don't use the argument of "transparency" like Amir does because it's baloney. He doesn't review a single DAC, he only takes measurements and recommends DACS off of measurements alone. if your lucky you'll get some sort of snippet at the end on how the DAC sounds. And IMHO, DACS will have their own identity and sound different if their implementation goes beyond just a reference design like the D90.

YES YES YES thanks you! Finally some sanity! I'm going to lose my mind if I see another idiot talking about how great (or crappy) a DAC (or whatever piece of gear is), then link to the ASR "review" of it as their evidence of how good or bad it is.

Equipment can measure identically and sound very different. Measurements do not describe how something sounds when listening to music. Do you listen to sine waves and frequency sweeps or to music? I listen to music!

 

[thebkt]

I've read over and over that the Elac UB5s need a LOT of power to sound their best. So you might also look into either a different set of speakers or a more powerful amp.

Nah, the amp powers them just fine, it's the fact that I was using the 3.5mm headphone-out from my TV that caused the issue. That's a low voltage output of whatever crappy DAC is in the TV. They sounded great using the analogue out of my iDSD BL, but that means no remote volume control.

 

[bigbenrfan99]

I'm probably a victim of expectation bias (it wouldn't be the first time), but my initial Modius impressions are definitely favorable. I was hoping to slightly smooth the treble with my Grados, and it seems like that's exactly what I'm hearing (compared to my Modi Multibit). I think I'm hearing better imaging as well, but I will reserve judgment until I actually do a side-by-side comparison.

 

[jkpenrose]

YES YES YES thanks you! Finally some sanity! I'm going to lose my mind if I see another idiot talking about how great (or crappy) a DAC (or whatever piece of gear is), then link to the ASR "review" of it as their evidence of how good or bad it is.

Equipment can measure identically and sound very different. Measurements do not describe how something sounds when listening to music. Do you listen to sine waves and frequency sweeps or to music? I listen to music!

When I first got into hifi, I was lucky to talk to Richard Vandersteen. His focus was always on natural reproduction of live music and taught me that phase, transients and timing were essential parts of 'real sounding' music that didn't show up on frequency response graphs.

Almost all dac measurements that I have seen focus on frequency, distortion and signal to noise ratio - certainly an important part of reproducing sound. But in my experience actually listening,there are subtle but important components missing. And those cues, though subtle, play a role in how our brain processes sound.

There may be others, but I only know of two companies that are as focused on time domain reproduction as they are with frequency: Schiit and Chord.

They both use proprietary filters to correct for time and frequency.

In theory, there is enough information in 16/44.1 digital signals to completely reproduce the original analog signal - in practice, this is very difficult.

Delta Sigma dacs produce a tremendous amount of noise and distortion when they decode signals - this is corrected for with noise shaping filters - which are quite complicated and tricky to implement well and usually built into the DAC chip - the interface to analog out is also difficult to do well and is often the primary difference in sound, even when vendors use the same chips.

R2R dac implementations tend to do better with timing, but less well with frequency response.

Both chord and schiit have unique methods to get around the challenges of delta sigma and R2R designs...

The article referenced on this page digs into the technical details of sampling theory and does a better job explaining what I referenced above...

https://chordelectronics.co.uk/news/explained-rob-watts-filter-technology-in-chord-electronics-dacs/

Now, not everybody believes this OR hears it, but it makes tons of sense to me.

Interestingly neither schiit nor chord eschew the importance of measurements - they just believe that what we measure doesn't tell the whole story. Both Rob and Dave have been at this game for a LONG time - trying to solve the same underlying problem - though in somewhat different ways.

For the record, tap count is important in Dave's design of multibit too - the original yiggy had a tap count of 16,000... Compared to the few hundred in most delta sigma designs...

I'm not sure this is true, but I believe schiit tap counts scale differently due to multibit decoding compared to chords approach, so I don't believe they are directly comparable - but what I find interesting is that they seem to point to the same underlying theory about what is missing from basic delta sigma design.

And it ties back to the same thing I learned all those years ago from Richard Vandersteen - whose speakers are renowned for smooth, accurate, 'real sounding' music reproduction.

There is much more to good sound than precise frequency and low distortion.

 

[Asahi Templar]

Please explain to me how measurements translate into sound performance. How is it that my Modius and Bifrost 2 are better sounding DACS to my ear than the D90 (or the D70 which i did have). Please don't use the argument of "transparency" like Amir does because it's baloney. He doesn't review a single DAC, he only takes measurements and recommends DACS off of measurements alone. if your lucky you'll get some sort of snippet at the end on how the DAC sounds. And IMHO, DACS will have their own identity and sound different if their implementation goes beyond just a reference design like the D90.

There are always going to be limits to how effective any objective measurements will be in a hobby that is subjective. Inevitably some people are going to prefer devices which measure "worse" than others. Perhaps even most people will prefer the "worse" stuff, we really aren't going to know until we have had a lot of preference based blind tests between something like a Bifrost 2 and a Topping d90.

There is also the possibility that we are not measuring every aspect of what gives a dac its sound or that the things we are measuring interact with each other in a way we don't yet understand.

There is also the definate reality that we don't have anyone out there who throughly and repeatedly measures every device enough to ensure consistent results. I appreciate the work Amir does but he does not have time to do deep dives into one device which leads to things potentially being missed.

Take the Topping D30 for example which got very high praise. Atomic Bob has been trying to measure one for some time now and he has found it to have some real flaws. The most serious one being that it appears to be unable to reproduce a sine wave accurately. Every time he feeds it a sine it has errors and the errors are inconsistent. Basically it is adding random information. That is not good stuff.

Could it be a flaw that was missed, or does he have a defective one? How common are these defective models? These are questions we can't answer currently. I can say that I had the Topping d30 and thought it was disappointing subjectively regardless of the measurements saying it is audibly transparent.

There is a lot more work to be done in audio science, it is still a young field and I am not convinced that it is "solved".

My advice for people in the hobby is to actually try different gear, find one you like and be happy regardless of what others say. Or alternatively decide you don't want to go through the hassle and just buy a Magni/modi or Asgard/Modius if you want Moor powa and be happy knowing you have a setup that is "audibly transparent" according to science and you didn't need to spend 1200 to get it!

 

[cgb3]

I've connected my Modius by coax, optical, and USB. I'm auditioning inputs nightly, but so far, USB is winning.

One niggle, I don't necessarily blame the DAC. I constantly loose sound (with USB) on the computer's wake-up from sleep (win 10, fairly new highesh end system). I un-plug, and reinsert the USB plug, and all is well.

My Asgard 3 is running much cooler than when connected to my previous DAC. My Asgard sits on the Modius, unlike my previous Dac/Amp setup. Without direct contact, I don't think the Modius is acting as a heat-sink. Probably more resistance from my previous Chi-fi DAC.

I'm in the slow ring, but running the latest (2020) Win10. Many hours spent trying to find why my Modius stopped (USB) working after sleep. Many iterations of settings, drivers, registry changes, cables, ports.

No Joy.

Resort to logic (surrender). Change sleep time from 15 min. to 3 hours. All is well.

 

[j0val]

I'm probably a victim of expectation bias (it wouldn't be the first time), but my initial Modius impressions are definitely favorable. I was hoping to slightly smooth the treble with my Grados, and it seems like that's exactly what I'm hearing (compared to my Modi Multibit). I think I'm hearing better imaging as well, but I will reserve judgment until I actually do a side-by-side comparison.

Which Grados are you using? I have the GH4 and I feel the same way. However, I also upgraded to the Asgard 3 at the same time so it could be that as well. I'm getting much better imaging and less fatiguing highs (they weren't too bad before though) than I did with the Magni 3/Modi 3 stack.

 

[Ninadada]

I want to pull the trigger on this...I just need a pair of 6inch XLR cables...which is proving quite hard to find on Amazon for me...

Schiit sells 9" xlr pyst cables.

 

[mykeldg]

I leave my Mimby on 24/7 but I turn my amps off. IMO, multibit DACs always sound their best when they are fully warmed up, which depending on the DAC, can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days!

What you hear as 'grain' I hear as 'texture'. Maybe the best analogy (last one, I promise) is that a MB DAC is more like a 35mm or 65mm film camera, while a DS DAC is more like a 4K or 8K digital cinema camera. They are both capable of capturing stunningly beautiful images, but for a lot of directors, DPs and cinema purists, there is something that is just so 'right' about the way a film camera captures reality, that as good as digital cameras may ever get (and some of them are incredibly good now), they will never quite be able to fully emulate what a great film camera can do. And even though the filmed image may have some visible grain in it, it’s that grain that gives the image it's 'life'.

I totally get you. I actually just borrowed a friend's Chord Mojo which is supposed to be much better than the mimby and off-the-shelf Delta Sigma DACs but I still feel the mimby sounds less processed, more pure, more rhythm (albeit slightly grainy). The Mojo sounds so clean and smooth that some microdynamics manages to appear smoothed out.