The Mike Moffat (#2 at Schiit) Blog

Discussion in 'Schiit' started by baldr, Dec 15, 2016.

  1. Azteca

    Azteca Friend

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    Yep. If it can be done as an add-on a la Jotunheim I think that would be ideal. People who don't want phono stage or DAC don't have to pay for it, but for those who could use one it is a great added value.
     
  2. SSL

    SSL Friend

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    I thought the fabled Eitr was supposed to "solve" this problem.
     
  3. atomicbob

    atomicbob dScope Yoda

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    Six desert island albums:

    I Robot - Alan Parsons Project
    Desert Heat - Papa John Defrancesco
    Blues with a Feeling - Taj Mahal
    Folk Singer - Muddy Waters
    End of the World Party - Medeski, Martin & Wood
    HRX2011 Sampler - Reference Recordings

    Gadget connectivity:
    Personally I use a lot of SPDIF or AES/EBU and have the Breeze DU-U8 and Singxer SU-1 for USB compatibility. One decent windows driver (ST3086) and no more fiddling around with all the poorly written USB drivers. Maybe OEM one of those solutions. Understand the desire for a single box solution to include customers that aren't into the two box approach.
     
  4. Johan

    Johan New

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    Seems like the eitr isnt close to release after all then :(
     
  5. Didactylos

    Didactylos Acquaintance

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    Wrecking Ball - Emmylou Harris
    Time Out of Mind - Bob Dylan
    The Bends - Radiohead
    Rickie Lee Jones - Rickie Lee Jones
    The King is Dead - The Decemberists
     
  6. jowls

    jowls Never shitposts (please) - Friend

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    Wow. That's eerie...

    - Radiohead - In Rainbows
    - DJ Shadow - Entroducing
    - Massive Attack - Blue Lines
    - James Blake - The Colour In Anything
    - Portishead - Dummy
     
  7. daves

    daves New

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    3. Pink Floyd - Meddle
    2. Dire Straits - Making Movies
    5. The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
    1. Brahms - Piano Concertos, Gilels /Jochum (DG)
    4. Purcell - Music for Queen Mary, John Eliot Gardiner (Erato)
     
  8. k1arg

    k1arg Facebook Friend

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    Need to mix this up a bit with the goal of making sure @baldr's vacume is assailed on all fronts...
    • Metallica - Ride the Lightning
    • Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
    • Carcass - Heartwork
    • Opeth - Blackwater Park
    • Dream Theater - Train of Thought
    • Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2017
  9. Northwest

    Northwest Almost "Made"

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    I want to try my hand at this and search my WAV library.

    Beck - Mutations
    Boris - Pink
    The Shins - Wincing the night away
    David Bowie - Heathen
    My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
    Sebastian Bach - Lara St. John
     
  10. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    Tying get most genres I care about:

    Gang of Four - Entertainment (post-punk)
    Nina Nastasia - Blackened Air (singer-songwriter)
    Ramones - Rocket To Russia (punk)
    Sam Cooke - Night Beat (r&b/soul)
    Courtney Marie - Honest Life (country)

    Given Baldr's previous comments though I wonder if a more interesting list would be favorites that specifically have electronic instruments so he has more to work with on that front. I'm admittedly short on that in my collection as well but like:

    Radiohead - Kid A
    Barbara Morgenstern - The Grass Is Always Greener
    Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation - Horse Dance
    Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Press Fire

    About the hassle of supporting USB, it wouldn't really address the top tier of the market but it might be worth checking out the threads about using the very inexpensive Raspberry Pi with a spdif hat.

    http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...-a-cheap-transport-that-made-me-happier.1970/
    http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...-based-streamer-a-guide-for-the-nervous.3969/
    http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/raspberry-pi-i2s-to-spdif-hat.1990/

    And Scott Kramer's witchery with i2s from same on the Mobi:

    http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/modi-multibit-i2s-input-mod.3492/
     
  11. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    If we're talking Lizzy Mercier Descloux I feel honor bound to suggest Zulu Rock.
     
  12. Case

    Case Anxious Head (Formerly Wilson)

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    Time for a Desert Island thread
     
  13. fridaleider

    fridaleider New

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    The worst $100 I've ever spent was the USB upgrade I did when I bought my Bifrost two years ago. I didn't realize that my iMac supported optical out and thought that I "had" to get USB. I know Apple is being a little bitch about supporting optical out—none of the MacBook Airs support it, the new MacBook "adorable" doesn't support it, and the new "look pa, I have 4 USB-C ports!" MacBook Pro doesn't support it either. (I'm glad I got mine in 2015 when Apple still granted their pro notebook an optical out.) I'd be interested in knowing what support is like across the Windoze universe. Also, how big of a schiit would a commercially available USB-to-other-digital-format converter take on sound quality?

    If consumers can be educated into the viability of giving up USB input while keeping their internet-connected-device, and given a $200 financial incentive to do so, it may convince them. Had, for instance, Schiit thrown up a STOP! ARE YOU SURE YOU REALLY NEED USB? banner when I was ordering my Bifrost, and then linked to their optical cable of choice, I would have been saved two years of crippled audio and a hundred dollars better spent on dinner for three at Shizen Vegan Sushi.

    If you think enough of a market could be captured in a v1 without USB, or indeed if you are comfortable with a v1 not capturing the whole audiophile market, I think you should stick to your guns and release it only with those digital formats you feel worthy of inclusion. If someone can't be bothered to give up USB, are they really the target audience of the MP? Your ears are surely more picky than mine (which found USB inferior to optical, though hardly "ass," thank I'm sure entirely to the excellent implementation found in Bifrost Multibit), but it seems to me that this would serve the double benefit of (1) persuading more people to give up USB and (2) limiting the reviews of the product to those audiophiles serious enough about sound to listen to the product as you intend.
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2017
  14. MWSVette

    MWSVette Almost "Made"

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    Listed 5 on another site.

    Different site, different island, different 5 albums.


    Jethro Tull - Songs from the Wood
    Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
    Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
    Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina - Best of Loggins and Messina Friends
    Sade - Best of Sade

    :)
     
  15. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    Unfortunately this is unrealistic. Look at new Macbooks or Surface Pros. No optical. USB is not that bad anyway, provided that some basic hygiene is followed with respect to hardware and software, unless you are talking about extremely resolving systems, in which case you are talking of a big enough expense to justify buying a dedicated digital source with specialized connections. In my experience, going from USB from a cheap ARM-based streamer with USB output to my current mess of streamers, DDCs, and cables did improve SQ step by step, but the original low-end system (CuBox>Bifrost>Asgard 2>Alpha Prime) was already good enough for many hours of involving listening.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2017
  16. fridaleider

    fridaleider New

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    Tee hee my first dislike! Wotan would be proud.

    I agree with the notion of adding the USB input as a Jotunheim-like add-on. Though would there be anything else to put in that space? If not it sounds like it would be more like the Bifrost option before USB was standard. But a $200 penalty for USB sounds good to me.
     
    Last edited: Apr 29, 2017
  17. artur9

    artur9 Facebook Friend

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    I got rid of my USB for music use so I'm good with no USB. But why is the assumption that feeding the MP/Gadget will be from a computer that only has USB?

    I mean, one could Airport Express it and that has optical out (at least, mine does). One could Chromecast it with its mini-toslink. Or use a transport. And then there are the sub $100 DDC. Maybe Schiit could just offer a passable, sub $50 DDC?
     
  18. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    No reason to assume that low-cost optical is better than all USB, optical transmitters and cables can add timing jitter and otherwise corrupt the S/PDIF signal. As for DDCs, IMHO their main benefit, at least for the lower-cost units, is to move the complex, electrically noisy USB receiver away from sensitive DAC circuitry.
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2017
  19. Mithrandir41

    Mithrandir41 Friend

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    Thank you for that bit of info, as it had nothing to do with the thread. Rando in truth.
     
  20. baldr

    baldr Schiit-sterer

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    In his Schiit Happened book, my co-founder recently chronicled our experience and some conclusions with respect to the manufacture and distribution of electronic components in this country, I must provide some additional information from some different viewpoints. Jason likened the component makers to pharmaceutical makers. Fair enough. It is just that the pharma makers depend upon health insurance companies, as do the component makers lie with distributors to form rackets.

    Rackets? Is that not harsh? Part and parcel of the rackets are a lack of documented pricing anywhere, except some greatly inflated price reserved for the non-insured nor those buyers of components not registered to the distributor.

    At smaller quantities, there are distributors such as Mouser and Digi-Key which feature pricing designed for smaller companies which is distinctly unfavorable to pricing available in other parts of the world. We found out early on that we had to shop for parts internationally to get pricing which allows us to scale up and favorably compete with other international makers.

    The distributor model of electronic component sales includes free technical help in design. Given that audio is not a huge money maker for the distributors, audio help typically consists of the least sophisticated design help possible. Since sigma delta designs are proper to unsophisticates, this is exactly the sort of design help which a distributor will provide to otherwise lame audio companies.

    Neither Schiit, nor Theta Digital in its time needed any such “help”. Twenty five years ago, when Theta Digital was thriving, the manufacturers of components were willing to take mid-sized companies direct, Theta had did direct business with Burr-Brown and Motorola. Those days are gone.

    Start an electronic mfg. company today and you will need to deal with Digikey, Mouser, and Newark. When you get to the point where you need parts for thousands and thousands of affordable products, you will be directed to a larger distributor such as Arrow or Avnet who will give you no price until they are satisfied who you are, what you are doing, and how many parts you really will need, in their estimation. Then and only then will you get a quote. Maybe.

    I went through a neck upgrade surgery 2.0 just about a year ago and was sent for a MRI. Just for shits and giggles, I called Tower Imaging and asked them how much it was going to be. What came back was who was my insurance company, what was their coverage, how much of my deductible had I used, etc., etc. I kept politely asking how much was a cervical MRI without contrast and whether they were in the business of providing a given service at a given price. Up and up I went in supervisor levels until I got my answer – they intended to bill my insurance company $4785. What they did not answer was how much they would accept.

    The elephants in the room are rackets: Component Manufacturers in bed with Distributors and the Medical/Pharma in bed with Insurance Companies. Just as there are no uniform medical prices, there are also no uniform electronic component pricing. The only reason I am hopeful for change in our industry is there is far less regulation present than in medicine.
     
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