[gdhal]

IMO, regardless of whether or not one places any credence in measurements, and regardless of whether or not Amirm's measurements are good, bad, true or false, **Schiit** should offer into evidence measurements of their own. Clearly they must have something to offer.

 

[stalepie]

Once upon a time, in the USA there were 2 or 3 big audio magazines, perhaps a few others that don't matter, and 2 underground magazines who took no advertising money. The big 3 had one reasonably honest publication, Audio, but they still knew that the money was in mid fi and advertising. The "underground" magazines were in search of audio nirvana, but had decidedly different taste, and were competitive. Julian Hersch was the king of measurements, every time I listened to him, I screwed myself, after enough of those experiences I learned not to trust electrical engineers with agendas. I work with some really great electrical engineers, but they are not pumping for advertisers. So, that left us with the underground mags. They too were eventually forced to advertise.

What they all knew, or figured out, is that people want to be rewarded for their decisions. So while the underground types reviewed higher end gear, and the others mid fi, they all avoided saying much of anything bad openly about much of anything. People do identify with their purchases, especially when those purchases are a projection of their ego, and whether it is a reflection of their ego or not, it's certainly a reflection of their judgment. So of course they take it personally. As for me, I am always striving for the best while spending the least. I know that I can't afford what ever some believe to be the ultimate this week, but I understand people's attachment to his gear, and their defense of it.

It seems like high school, maybe, or middle school. But they're mostly in their 40s or older. It's funny.

Most audio products sound the same. They have to. The whole point is to sound the same because that means they're accurate. And most audio products, even the very worst by Schiitt, are incredibly accurate to our crappy ears.

 

[stalepie]

or our "schitty" ears, I guess I should say.

 

[Ripper2860]

Oh, and let me add some clarity to my earlier post....

I'm not discounting measurements and spec's as a general guideline, however they are not the end-all / be-all. Odds are a horrific spec'ed amp will sound horrific. But will an amp with .1% THD really sound worse than one with .0001% THD? Sure, the .1% THD measures significantly worse to the analyzer but how does it sound? There are tolerances/ranges in which it just simply doesn't matter to the human listener. I'm sure that in the future we will discover how to measure for more or all audible attributes that we as humans can hear and perceive. We can then use those new measurements to better quantify what we hear and how audio equipment will truly sound. I'm afraid we are just not there yet.

I've spoken my peace. Now back to listening and enjoying my music on my comparatively Schiity measuring, but great sounding tube amp.

 

[adydula]

They do they are under the specs for each product they sell....

 

[adydula]

I have tube amps with distortion up to 10% and they sound great.,.go figure....

Alex

 

[LouS]

It seems like high school, maybe, or middle school. But they're mostly in their 40s or older. It's funny.

Most audio products sound the same. They have to. The whole point is to sound the same because that means they're accurate. And most audio products, even the very worst by Schiitt, are incredibly accurate to our crappy ears.

I'd never go that far. I bought a little Schiit Modi Multibit. If I went by it's sound I'd have never bought the Yggdrasil. The old gear I have gets extensive improvements, usually just parts replacements, but it's talk years to figure out which parts to use. Take the PS Audio 200C od CX. They spoke of its slight imperfections. Swapping out the bridge rectifiers with soft recovery rectifiers clears most of that up. I also changed out the 14004 diodes with UF4007's to further reduce the amount of ringing imposed upon the DC. I am running low on Black Gate caps, but I use what I have and then do the best I can, not to mention bypassing caps and such. As for CD/DVD players, I have gone through hundreds of dollars worth of OP amps to find the best sounding op amp. I have reworked my crossovers, on my KEF 105's I replaced all the coils, I spent far more on rebuilding them than I had paid for them. On top of that the newer gear has far better protection circuitry, I don't fully trust it, but it's better than what little protection the older gear had. That said, my Stasis 2 amp can be bettered, but it would take one heck of an amp to do it. I even replaced every resistor in that amp.

 

[amirm]

Excuse me Amir...you were told and invited to meet with Mike at any of the shows he attends and offerred to sit down and discuss "stuff"...its all in another thread close by.

Well, that "invitation" lost its bling a day later when I was summarily banned from the thread . Regardless, I am still happy to meet with him. He may have animosity towards me, but I have none against him.

The next show that I may go to is RMAF. You guys want to wait that long to get resolution? Seems like from admin on down, I am being challenged to answer. What would you like me to do?

 

[amirm]

Only a few hours? Ok, that is HUGE. That is not enough time to set up, evaluate a baseline or ensure calibrations and test runs are normal, troubleshoot any aberrations, and get more than 1 run of measurements in.

You say that based on what experience? How long did it take Jude to make his measurements? Did he calibrate? Did he establish a basement?

Remember, all my tests are comparative, show performance of two products side by side. This means that any errors translate immediately to the other device providing a set of controls (if both have 10% THD, you know something is wrong).

Anyway, I have my templates ready to go for DAC testing. I think I have done some 40+ DAC measurements by now (most of which I own by the way). So I am able to get through them quickly.

All of this said, I absolutely like to have the gear at my home office not necessarily because of the reasons you mention but because I can make additional tests as requests come.

During the above tests by the way, I measured a number of other DACs including Berkeley Alpha, Bryston, Mark Levinson, etc. Here is the Byston for example:

All I did was move cables from one DAC to another and re-ran the test. Takes one minute.

 

[amirm]

No, it is very specifically "here", as Jude pointed out. Did you even read his post? Let me quote the important bits...
"and I'm sure you noticed that the Yggdrasil does perform considerably better from its balanced outputs, since you did post a frequency response plot from its balanced outputs (but nothing else). Since the Yggdrasil2 is described by Schiit Audio as a "Balanced Upgradable DAC," I thought you might at least consider also including other measurements from its balanced outputs."
I suspect you saw the very good results from the balanced outputs, and disregarded using them as it wouldn't support your Schiit smearing campaign.

Your accusation is uncalled for. I value my professional reputation immensely. I accept no advertising, no sponsorship, no nothing. I enter every test as I do any other. If the results are good, I praise it. If they are not, I say so.

If I had the unit right now, I would be rushing to measure it again and post the balanced results, whatever they are.

The moment we want to go down the road of accusing each other of being outright liars, we have lost all professionalism and any basis to have a continued discussion. I take you for not being a Schiit employee. You should not assume that I am cooking results for no personal gain whatsoever.

I am retired now and all I have is my reputation and the work that I did in the industry to create the very computer technology you use to type your posts here. Please don't cheapern that because you read a review of mine that you don't like.

Everything I do is in the services of the audiophiles and consumers. If you want protectionism of manufacturers, you need to look elsewhere.

 

[LouS]

Your accusation is uncalled for. I value my professional reputation immensely. I accept no advertising, no sponsorship, no nothing. I enter every test as I do any other. If the results are good, I praise it. If they are not, I say so.

If I had the unit right now, I would be rushing to measure it again and post the balanced results, whatever they are.

The moment we want to go down the road of accusing each other of being outright liars, we have lost all professionalism and any basis to have a continued discussion. I take you for not being a Schiit employee. You should not assume that I am cooking results for no personal gain whatsoever.

I am retired now and all I have is my reputation and the work that I did in the industry to create the very computer technology you use to type your posts here. Please don't cheapern that because you read a review of mine that you don't like.

Everything I do is in the services of the audiophiles and consumers. If you want protectionism of manufacturers, you need to look elsewhere.

Looks like I didn't go far back enough to catch all this, but it's true that the balanced outs sound far, far better.

 

[amirm]

@amirm, it seems to me you have a personal agenda with regard to Schiit Audio. Some points:

@amirm, you are a member of the trade (MOT), and we do not allow MOTs to criticize and/or attack other MOTs here. Again, it's clear to me that you have an agenda and strong bias, especially where Schiit Audio is concerned. The only reason I allowed your post (the one I'm quoting in this post) to remain is so that I could respond to it and maintain the context for my response.

Jude,

Thank you for the detailed response. There is a lot in there and I will do my best to address the relevant parts piece by piece so that members can follow.

For now, I like to address this as I did to you privately on the warning you sent me.

As I explained, I did not ask, nor do I know how I got the "Member of trade" status. My company, Madrona Digital, performs system integration for high-end homes and commercial real estate. Our typical residential customer has a $10M home and wants advanced security, home automation, controlled lighting, distributed audio, etc. They have no idea, nor care the difference between a DAC and a Mac.

My company does not in any way form or fashion compete with any hardware company being discussed. Feel free to examine the madrona digital website to demonstrate that.

While I love 2-channel audio, I hate, absolutely hate, doing that as a business. I also have no idea how to make money from it. Bless others who have figured out how to make a living.

Speaking of making a living, I don't make a penny from any of my reviews whatsoever. I buy most of the products and instruments out of my own funds. It is a hobby that I love. I love to teach, and explain what I know.

So the notion that I am a competitor and I must follow some code of conduct makes no sense. My work at ASR Forum by definition involves talking about good and bad of company products. How do you expect me to explain that work without being able to discuss such? You have put a set of handcuffs on me without justification and any logic for why it makes sense for the community you serve.

All of this said, I am here as your guest and you are free to ask me whatever you wish. If you want to call me ant collector and tell me I can't talk about audio, that is cool tool too.

Please clarify so that I don't waste time posting information that then gets deleted or edited. I can just as well answer your challenges on ASR Forum.

Finally, I expect professionalism from my peers. Nothing in your data backs the personal accusations you made about me. If you had evidence of my lying, etc., sure. But all you have done is present a different set of measurements. How does that make me eney of Schiit and you not a friend of theirs?

 

[gdhal]

I have tube amps with distortion up to 10% and they sound great.,.go figure....

Alex

It's all about which harmonic the distortion is occurring. Our ears use the higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure, so any addition to these harmonics (or their presence where none was before) is easily heard, despite not being all that easy to measure. So a 7th harmonic at 0.005% is a much bigger sin in terms of coloration than a 2nd harmonic at 1%. Its a bit of an inconvenient truth.

 

[amirm]

You seem dead set on interpreting the results (especially where Schiit's concerned) in a manner that is consistent with what I (again) feel is clearly a personal agenda or bias with regard to Schiit Audio. And your interpretation of the linearity error plot -- using your +/-0.1 dB threshold -- is one I have not specifically seen anywhere

That assertion is incorrect. I have applied that same standard to every DAC I have tested before and after testing Schiit products. It is a criteria I have picked as an engineer/manager who strives for excellence (no wisecracks about Microsoft ). You are welcome to pick more relaxed standards if you like. But I set my standards and I don't ask another reviewer to approve it.

More importantly though, I provide the full set of measurements for linearity to readers. They are then welcome to use whatever criteria they want. Take this measurement of linearity comparing Berkeley Alpha DAC on the left and the Exasound E32 on the right:

You see where I put my markers @0.1 dB. You don't like that? Just move to the left. I am not there to police you. Doing so will still show that the Berkeley is less performant with its linearity going more random than the predictable curve for Exasound E32.

This is what I said in the review:

Now consider this: I am personal friends with folks at Berkeley!!! Yes, you read that right. When I was at Microsoft, I led the acquisition of Pacific Microsonics, makers of HDCD, which was run by the same people.

Was it easy to say their DAC is less linear there and their competitor wins? No. But the data speaks and I have no choice but to tell the reader like it is.

Back to your point, I hope you see that graphs themselve provide full set of comparative data points. Indeed my commentaries are very, very short compared to say, reviews you write. The graphs and data are just about all of it. My feelings will not be hurt one bit if my text is ignored.

 

[ProfFalkin]

You say that based on what experience?

I can't and won't speak for Jude.

To answer your question, I served in the USMC as a 2871 calibration specialist and I am very aware of basic standards, best practices, and requirements for measurements to be considered valid. If you are inaccurate, someone buys a DAC they won't like. If I was inaccurate, innocent people could have died.

So yes, I consider myself to be experienced enough to judge your methods.