[JK-47]

I think this is what Mike is trying to say - it would be for MM only (or high output MCs) and still cost 4-5 times as much as the Mani. And thus therefore, is it worth building a limiting product for 4 to 5 times the price, just for tubes? 

 - no impedance matching (47k only)
 - no high output (MM only and maybe those Denon DL-110s or DL-120s)
 - no tube rolling (6DJ8/6922/7308 only)
 - 4 to 5 times cost of Mani ($516 - $645 USD)

I think Mike and Jason would love for such a product to be 3 to 4 times the price, but the power supply/filtering and chassis I think is the most limiting. Clean power is a must for tube preamps (well...any tube amp), and that comes at a price.

With a simple step up transformer, a M/C cart can be used with a MM phono preamp. A decent DIY SUT can be built for as litle as $120. Parks Audio and Bob's devices are other more costly SUT solutions.

 

[gwitzel]

 
Thanks for responding.  There have been questions on this thread which imply that I may be condemning all other Macs other than the above which is not true.  I have access to three newer Mac Minis, two older Mac Minis, about a half a dozen or so various flavors of MacBooks/Airs.  I prefer the model above.  YMMV.  I have not tried everything.  I am not an expert on digital audio servers. I only mention that in my inadvertent experience this is an inexpensive way to build an excellent sounding server.  It is my opinion and a narrative construct.  I have also stated that I prefer glass as opposed to plastic fibre links, others have felt differently.  
 
Let me restate that whatever anyone else's opinion is on the performance of various audio components is none of my business; also, all of you are as entitled as I am to your expression of your preferences, feelings, and opinions.  Finally, I have zero tolerance of ad hominem attacks.  Some of my most valuable friendships have been formed with those whose opinions were polar opposites of mine.

 
This is how I understood it, you make comments here which reflect your opinion and experience, even about findings you cannot 'prove' or give the exact reason, and I am very thankful for this. After all, it's your thread.
 
I was not following this blindly in the expectation to get the best server in the history of the world, or because of sheer fanboy-ism (if you ask me, a very demeaning and sexist term that should be banned from head-fi).
 
I think it is a good strategy - lacking true own expertise - to follow the advice of an expert. I was somewhat unhappy with my setup, and thought I should give it a try. To be honest, I am not really interested why this Mac Mini sounds better... Being a physicist in academia I have plenty of intellectual challenge and exposure to competing ideas in my work. I want my music gear to sound good so I can forget about it and relax. 
 
If we now consider the fact that you give advice how to find low-cost solutions, I cannot see how it could be harmful to anybody. I really don't have to sell a kidney to buy this Mac Mini, or any of the Schiit products for that matter, and I am just beginning my career and really not rich. So I try, if I like it I keep it, otherwise I sell with little loss. This helped me to converge quickly to a setup that is affordable but close to some of the really expensive stuff I had the chance to hear. While the best will be not the best tomorrow anymore, the good enough will remain good enough for much longer, and adding the Mac Mini achieved this for me: it's really good enough.
 
I would hate to not get expert advice anymore here on head-fi - even anecdotal - because people have to fear attacks. Especially if it is not used to up-sell own products or discredit the products of others.
 
Your advice made my weekend.

 

[kstuart]

  I have also stated that I prefer glass as opposed to plastic fibre links, others have felt differently.    
Let me restate that whatever anyone else's opinion is on the performance of various audio components is none of my business; also, all of you are as entitled as I am to your expression of your preferences, feelings, and opinions.  Finally, I have zero tolerance of ad hominem attacks.  Some of my most valuable friendships have been formed with those whose opinions were polar opposites of mine.

I agree entirely with this point of view.
 
However, as a designer and manufacturer, your personal opinions can be misconstrued as manufacturer recommendations.
 
For example, it is not an entirely unreasonable for a casual Head-Fi reader to get the impression that Schiit recommends glass over plastic fibre for use with Schiit DACs, rather than simply that Mike personally prefers them.
 
So, it's probably a good idea to clearly label such posts.

 

[NightFlight]

I hope my comment is not being taken out of context as some sort of attack. I basically stated that glass has never worked out for me. Is that because my gear didn't match? Likely. Some people swear by glass. Maybe the glass I tried at random was crap disguised as a premium product. Stranger things have happened.
 
I find Mike's success with a 2009 Mac Mini 2.26Ghz odd as well. I've not tested that particular model, which is actually funny since my workplace is lousy with them. I've tried iMacs and MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Mac Mini 1.66GHz and pretty much stopped there. TosLink performance with my DACs (not Schiit at the time) had been less than stellar. On the other hand I had great success with my randomly selected Asus Motherboard running windows 7 and FooBar. *shrug*.. It goes to show that matching can be somewhat random.  Sometimes you just have to keep plugging away at it.
 
But since I can't move here without bumping into a 2009 Mini 2.26 - I'll have to give it a whirl and see if the stars line up.

 

[gefski]

Had been happy with the sonics of my Windows/Jplay setup for 3 to 4 yrs, both pre and especially post Yggy.

But when my wife got her new iMac and gave me her "hand me down" iMac (price was right), I decided to fiddle with it for a couple months. Heck, I use an iPad in my life daily. So now, with this iMac/Audirvana rig somewhat tweaked, I'm sonically as good or better off than I was before and I've re-learned something for about the 50th time in this hobby.

Functionality first, THEN sound quality. Nothing ruins my enjoyment of music more than stumbling and bumbling over problems. With Windows, I go to HeadFi meets, we want to try a different USB interface and two or three of us are bent over a table for a half hour uninstalling and installing drivers, a process that must be reversed when we're done.

Now I'm fiddling with the source component hassle free.

Not that I'm emotionally attached to the sovereign nations of either Cupertino or Redmond. Just want to buy some of their stuff and have it serve my music.

 

[Baldr]

  I hope my comment is not being taken out of context as some sort of attack. I basically stated that glass has never worked out for me. Is that because my gear didn't match? Likely. Some people swear by glass. Maybe the glass I tried at random was crap disguised as a premium product. Stranger things have happened.
 
I find Mike's success with a 2009 Mac Mini 2.26Ghz odd as well. I've not tested that particular model, which is actually funny since my workplace is lousy with them. I've tried iMacs and MacBooks, MacBook Pros, Mac Mini 1.66GHz and pretty much stopped there. TosLink performance with my DACs (not Schiit at the time) had been less than stellar. On the other hand I had great success with my randomly selected Asus Motherboard running windows 7 and FooBar. *shrug*.. It goes to show that matching can be somewhat random.  Sometimes you just have to keep plugging away at it.
 
But since I can't move here without bumping into a 2009 Mini 2.26 - I'll have to give it a whirl and see if the stars line up.

Not at all taken as attack.  My comments were written only as a result of a random sampling of Macs, not as the sainted opinion of an important music server opinion leader.  My surprise was the relatively low cost.  I build electronics for the digital and analog reproduction of audio, not servers.  If I have an advantage, it is solely that we have quite a few different computers and OSes laying around at Schiit.  My preference of glass to plastic piped TOS is dwarfed, IMO, by the superiority of coaxial SPDIF.
 
The bigger point is that the more experience we get, the more we have to share with others; a corollary is the more stuff we try, the more experience we get.  I wish to encourage everyone to express what they can for the benefit of all here.
 
As a manufacturer of headphone amps and dacs, it is inappropriate for me to endorse anyone else's product; to do so is a zero sum proposition.  For every one endorsed, something is taken away from all others.  I hope all can clearly tell the difference between an endorsement and reporting the results of my own experiments on used equipment, particularly when taken in the context that I have (in this case) many more servers to try.

 

[landroni]

 

  glass has never worked out for me. Is that because my gear didn't match? Likely. Some people swear by glass. Maybe the glass I tried at random was crap disguised as a premium product. Stranger things have happened.

My preference of glass to plastic piped TOS is dwarfed, IMO, by the superiority of coaxial SPDIF.

 
Here's a recent post going into technical details on why plastic Toslink may be suboptimal compared to glass Toslink, and both dwarfed by USB assisted by reclocking devices like Wyrd.

  The main issue with TOSLink (optical SPDI/F) is jitter and data errors. In order to transmit a fully intact clock, the entire TOSLink chain has to be able to handle at least 11 Mhz for a 48 KHz audio stream, but the cheap plastic components and cables can only manage 5-6 MHz. A good DAC will have the ability to re-clock the stream. High quality transmitters and glass conductors have necessary bandwidth, but these components are honestly rare in the consumer market. The other major problem which can't be easily solved is data errors -- the LED light doesn't travel across the fiber in as straight line like an electrical impulse going down a conductor would; instead, light bounces around inside the fiber, refracting, before reaching the receiver. Again, cheap, thick plastic fiber cores suffer from a lot of data errors; for best results, the fiber should be of a high grade glass of an extremely fine diameter to minimize this damage.

 
The current logic with TOSLink is that it is only preferable over USB if the USB is subject to a lot of noise from the source. With the introduction of USB re-generators (Wyrd, Regen, etc), though, it's hard to make a case for TOSLink at all.

 
Since USB itself can be suboptimal when transmitting data in realtime streaming (e.g. try a >5m USB cable), this seems to leave Coax SPDIF as undisputed winner. From what I hear, only the BNC connector (which is a variation of coax, and reportedly preferred in studios) would be a small step above Coax SPDIF. 
 

 

[rmoody]

   
Here's a recent post going into technical details on why plastic Toslink may be suboptimal compared to glass Toslink, and both dwarfed by USB assisted by reclocking devices like Wyrd.

 
Since USB itself can be suboptimal when transmitting data in realtime streaming (e.g. try a >5m USB cable), this seems to leave Coax SPDIF as undisputed winner. From what I hear, only the BNC connector (which is a variation of coax, and reportedly preferred in studios) would be a small step above Coax SPDIF. 
 

So, what's out there to add BNC digital out to a system?
 
I've found this: http://www.shenzhenaudio.com/musiland-digital-times-24bit-192khz-pci-sound-card-spdif-toslink-bnc.html
Everything is in Chinese, I'll have to research a lot more.
 
And this:
http://smile.amazon.com/Musiland-Monitor-03USD-Digital-Coxtial/dp/B00A2QL25Y/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1455814293&sr=8-5&keywords=Musiland
I'm struggling with the point of USB to SPDIF, isn't that sort of what a DAC does?

 

[landroni]

 
So, what's out there to add BNC digital out to a system?

This has been discussed some in this thread:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/781268/the-diyrs-cookbook/165#post_12165575

 
One (pricey) way is to use Hydra Z to feed to the BNC input in a DAC (like Yggy):
http://audiobyte.net/products/hydra-z

 
Hydra Z seems to be a re-clocking device for USB input similar to Wyrd, but with many more output connector types.


 
Another choice would be to use a PCI card for desktop computers, like this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Musiland-digital-times-Sound-Card-PCI-S-PDIF-optical-Computer-PC-Internal-/271935408487?hash=item3f509d0967:g:T2cAAOSwT6pVrVRu
 
PS A less outrageously expensive solution would be Audio-GD's DI-U8, which also can take in USB and spit out BNC:
http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/DIU8/DIU8EN.htm

 

[GrouchoMarx1933]

I've been debating getting a Raspberry Pi instead of a Mac Mini to run as my music server. I see Hifiberry has a board with galvanic isolation and optical and coax outputs. Given this discussion of how coax is superior to both USB and optical for audio, I may go that route.

 

[rmoody]

  I've been debating getting a Raspberry Pi instead of a Mac Mini to run as my music server. I see Hifiberry has a board with galvanic isolation and optical and coax outputs. Given this discussion of how coax is superior to both USB and optical for audio, I may go that route.

 
I'd be interested in hearing about your experience with it.

 

[Baldr]

RE USB galvanic isolation:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/766347/schiit-yggdrasil-impressions-thread/1890#post_12354184

 

[GrouchoMarx1933]

Well, the Hifiberry board for the Raspberry Pi normally comes without, but for $5 more you can get the galvanic isolation. Sounds like the added $5 likely isn't worth it, so one could get the board without the galvanic isolation and still have the benefit of the digital coax output.

 

[landroni]

  Well, the Hifiberry board for the Raspberry Pi normally comes without, but for $5 more you can get the galvanic isolation. Sounds like the added $5 likely isn't worth it, so one could get the board without the galvanic isolation and still have the benefit of the digital coax output.

Funny how Hifiberry offers galvanic isolation for 5 bucks, whereas Mike suggests "galvanic isolation solutions can cost in the $500-nearly $2000 range". Is it possible Hifiberry's galvanic isolation is poorly done?
 
This is what their marketing states:
https://www.hifiberry.com/digiplus/
"Optional: high-bandwidth output transformer provides full galvanic isolation of the electrical output"

 

[GrouchoMarx1933]

That's why I said the $5 likely isn't worth it, if Mike is saying good isolation costs 100 times that amount.
 
I can do a Raspberry Pi build with the non-isolated version of the Digi+ board for just over $100. Seems like a reasonable experiment to try.