The Mike Moffat (#2 at Schiit) Blog

You heard it hear first people (perhaps to Jason's chagrin). Jüd will Schiit his pants if he finds out he didn't get to be the one to drop the info before anybody else.

 

Maybe I'm not entirely wrapping my head around it but I kind of have mixed feelings about the idea. What is the most it could potentially change the artist's original intent for sound/tuning?

 

That whole purist view is bunk. Unless you fly to the studio the album was recorded in and listen to the master tapes on the monitors the music was mixed on, you're not hearing it the same way the artist did. Every headphone, speaker, phono cartridge, DAC, room, etc... has it's own presentation. The world isn't perfect and music isn't made in a vaccuum and it's ok to alter the recording.

 

I am going to print both of those one one shirt and wear it to RMAF

 

You've missed the point with this. Come on.. friends don't give friends the old "Unless you go to the studio.." bit. I'm not a purist and I didn't say anything that indicated such. I'm talking about the potential to actually change pitches. I'm not saying it's bad but we're talking about the potential for what SEEMS like a pretty drastic and purposeful change to the recording. I'm not talking about trying to achieve perfection. Then again maybe I'll be so blown away by the result that it won't matter.

 

I guess we'll find out at RMAF.

 

Wish I could be there. I actually briefly looked at plane tix but I had to accept the reality that i've just got too much going on to go.

 

I assume MP goes before the DAC...please tell me it supports AES3 in/out...Please!

 

That Manhattan is the kind of device that will be fun for an audiophile to play with. Dial it in till the music goes "ahhhhhhhh" that's right. If that "ahhhhhhh" leads to more eargasms and skingasims then it will be worth it. Can't wait to try. I like classical music and other music that it seems will be appropriate for it. And my listening is all about eargasims and skingasmims and getting the music to sound like "ahhhhhhhhh".

One bit of music that I like is the third movement of Rachmaninoff's second symphony. The adagio movement. The way it builds and hits a climax in the middle then works it way back down to slowly go away. That climax gives me goosebumps almost every time. Oh my that feels good. If the Manhattan is able to enhance those kinds of goosebump moments then oh my. George Takei. Oh my. The Gungnir Multibit already helps those goosebump moments happen (thank you). If Manhattan helps even more I just might melt. Very curious to try this Manhattan thing.

 

This is very interesting, because it would imply that humans are biologically hardwired to favor a C=256 tuning. Have you tested the Gadget with people who are pitch perfect?

C=256 is called "scientific pitch": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_pitch
If I am understanding this correctly, C=256 is equivalent to about A=430.

Here's an interesting discussion about tuning in different orchestras:
https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/776/why-are-orchestras-tuned-differently

 

So if A=432 blows; C=256 f'ing rules..
where does A=440 fit into this schiit scale?

JJ

 

Every link in your audio chain is a pretty drastic and purposeful change though. About artist intent... I was reading an interview the other day from some guys who remastered Dylan's John Wesley Harding and the harmonica was described as "piercing" on the original masters because he had a tendency to rock back as he sang and lean into the harmonica parts. In the room it would have a completely different sound than it would on tape because of how the mic picked up the vocals and harmonica. Did Dylan purposefully do that to make it more strident or was it just an idiosyncrasy? You can follow that kind of rabbit hole forever. If what you care about is the music the best thing you can do is make it sound as good as you can in your listening environment. If MP makes your music sound better then who cares how it did it?

 

It seems that this upcoming Gadget is the entry-level model in the Manhattan series, to be followed by bigger, more expensive models. So what is the difference between Gadget and the bigger one?

Also, will the Manhattan series benefit from Eitr or Gen 5 USB?

 

I listen to mostly pop/rock-type music. I assume that The Gadget would have an effect on non-electronic portions of the music. Or maybe even on those parts too, since they are tonal (e.g. electronic keyboards). As a random example, Madonna's Holiday is pretty much electronic except for electric guitars and vocals. How much of an effect would be heard?

Edit: What effect does it have on vocals that are sung off key? Is there any auto-tune going on?

 

Whatever it sounds like, this is a pretty big departure from "preserving the original samples"

You can bet this version will come in the small Modi chassis with USB, RCA SPDIF and maybe TOSLINK inputs; probably just SPDIF out. No BNC or AES. because $199, and form factor, and because @baldr hates TOSLINK

 

If the final version has USB in and S/PDIF out, can we assume that it will have Eitr functionality?

If it did, then it would make the Eitr obsolete.

 

I'm guessing it will not have Eitr functionality, but also even if it did it's deliberately changing the sound so it's doing something different than the Eitr, which is a straight pass through.

Personally I cannot wait to hear it. I really want to try Music For 18 Musicians and Einstein on the Beach with it.

 

There's a tweak-o-meter so with 0 tweak it would be essentially an Eitr, if it had Eitr functionality.