[Nicholas Seltzer]

I'm thinking of upgrading my DAC to a Gumby. Right now I have a Schiit Jotunheim, which I will continue to use as an amplifier (at least initially) via balanced input. I'm leaning toward the gumby because of its beauty and plentiful inputs and outputs. In addition to running to my headphone amp, I'm also planning on running out to my poweramp and speakers. Can anyone with experience describe its value in terms of sound quality? I mean, Schiit makes cheaper, equally beautiful products. Is it worth it? Anything else I should consider?

 

[theveterans]

there's a good amount of diminishing returns as you move up the DAC ladder. On Jotunheim thread, one even mentioned no difference between Bifrost Multibit and the internal Balanced DAC from Jotunheim. As always, YMMV. To me, Bifrost Multibit still sounds excellent to me even after hearing their Yggdrasil DAC

 

[Ninadada]

I'm thinking of upgrading my DAC to a Gumby. Right now I have a Schiit Jotunheim, which I will continue to use as an amplifier (at least initially) via balanced input. I'm leaning toward the gumby because of its beauty and plentiful inputs and outputs. In addition to running to my headphone amp, I'm also planning on running out to my poweramp and speakers. Can anyone with experience describe its value in terms of sound quality? I mean, Schiit makes cheaper, equally beautiful products. Is it worth it? Anything else I should consider?

I have a Jot with internal DAC, and recently acquired a Mimby and Bimby. Listening through HD650s the tonal balance and characteristics is fairly consistent between DACs. What was noticeable while using Mimby and even more so with Bimby was an increase in the size of the soundstage as well as instrument separation. The clarity also seemed to improve but I'm not sure if it was only a perceived improvement due to the increased separation. I would expect this trend to continue up the Schiit line of DACs, albeit at a diminishing rate as other posters have mentioned. I do look forward to hearing the Jot with Gumby and/or Yggy one day to see if my ears can detect additional improvements. For the sake of my pocket book, I hope I can't! Until then, I'm very pleased with the Jot and Bimby.

 

[bagwell359]

After hearing the Gumby I sold my VPI Mk IV table, Souther TQ-1 arm, and Koetsu Rosewood Sig - and have sold 11.5k of my 12k LP collection over the past two years.

Before the Gumby Multibit it was Krell, ARC, and other killobuck DAC's that sounded like music to me. Never heard any of the cheaper Schiit DAC's. Did hear the Yggy, and I like the Gumby more - but it was in '16.