The Mike Moffat (#2 at Schiit) Blog

The Gadget is one of those products that presents an interesting marketing case. I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of potential customers for it have no clue that they want/need it, or even what it is or does. Of course, prior to 6-7 years ago, if you had told me that I would spend $1300 on a dac, I would have asked if you could get me some.

 

@schiit said in his blog, "don’t get too excited, this will take a good LONG while to get right." So can I assume for the near foreseeable future, Modi Multibit + Eitr is still the way to go for entry-level multibit with clean USB? Or would it be worth waiting until H1 2018 to see what turns up?

 

For the high end, right. This is only being implemented to allow lower price points. I will be working on some inexpensive multibit DACs which I cannot do until the USB is done in a microprocessor which allows us to configure newer lower priced DACs. The more accurate statement would be that it will take a LONG while to beat a Gen V. It is a very tough act to follow.

 

Schiit kills a part of diy scene, no doubt, but I think it's progress, evolution.
DIY'ers need to think more out of the box, be more creative.
There is no point to replicate a well proven, well built, reasonably priced equipment piece other than for fun of building something.
For me the motivation used to be tight budget. Now it's to get something unique, something that perhaps serial production is not great at.

 

I didn't get into diy until after I had the gateway drug known as the Schiit Stack. (Modi/Magni)

Just saying.

 

Don't worry - they play favorites. After all, @Thad E Ginathom is still here too.

 

Have they made you do the dribble test yet?

Five full minutes of staring at the camera without one single drop rolling down the chin. And they do a forensic check for editing.

I managed it on the third try.

 

Ahhhh, the CHIN. Thank God for that.....

 

True. Let me be thankful for small mercies (at least while they last!) There are far worse, and far more smelly, symptoms of dotage!

 

Fat Man was the next Gadget. Little Boy was a different design.

Just saying.

 

USB – There used to be a set of cute, animated figures which hooked up to a USB port and would dance and do other inconsequential wastes of electricity as the user stroked his remote, faster, and faster I suppose. Made me seriously wonder about the Universal in USB. So how do I know this?

Well, back a dozen years or so ago I was doing consulting work on cinema servers. (I know, I am a whore – it paid very well) The problem was to make a server so that "popcorn boy" could change the content on Thursday nights. As I recall these times, what I most loathed about the cinema biz was the utter contempt expressed openly by management towards their subordinates. "Popcorn boy" was intended to be a demeaning term referring to theater employees. So they roll.

Anyway, I had a proto server running with an rf remote for content/security management where the remote interfered with the cute animated figures. It was only a proto, but the annoyance of a duplicate USB ID was very frustrating at the time.

Returning to the relevance of the above it only occurred to me a few days ago what is fucked up about USB. D/A converters with USB connectivity OR a cinema servers with SATA connectivity compels the user to be in the business of troubleshooting the host machine. Now when I designed the cinema server, I was not only building the host server, but the SATA system hooked up to the drive with the content. In the case of the D/A converters, we do not have anything to do with host machine. Ugh! This is not, however, what is fucked up about USB (or eSATA, for that matter).

The problem is that both systems are hotplugged. Yes, connected and disconnected with power on. Goes against laws of nature – kinda like coprophagia or dating chickens, no matter how cute with their feather ribbons. Nor are there breath mints of suitable potency. Hotplugged systems are most susceptible to failure at/near to point of plug. Anti-static design and layout prophylaxis help but do not eliminate the problem. Given enough time, one by one, the bays in the server become increasingly intermittent as they slouch towards failure. In the real world, bays with extra SATA stations are used until the server is sent in for rework. In the home computer arena, given lower costs, there is a far lower product lifespan before the next gen processor comes out. Still, most USB D/A converter users know that on any given machine, a USB port does not necessarily equal another USB port, not just in reliability, but in sound as well.

So yup, we can fix USB sound. The long term hotplug problem still needs some attention. My eyes are on it.

 

I guess running enough current to spot-weld the pins in place is out of the question?

 

Just give us a CD player, computers have made everything way too complicated.

 

#baldr, would it then behoove one to power down a PC prior to plugging into/unplugging from a USB port?

 

Interesting, but does it matter.

 

Don't know, thus the question. But since the implication is not catastrophic failure, but rather slow death ("increasingly intermittent"), maybe?

 

In theory yes, but in practice you have a whole ton of factors which lead to premature failure or out-of-spec performance... lateral and bending strains (which easily lead to mechanical failure), corrosion/oxidation/dirt, scratches, driver issues and the nature of hot-plugging, power supply issues, electrical arcs/sparks/shorts, etc.

 

Does USB-C do any of this better? It sure does seem the flavor of the month...

 

You don't have to worry about schrodinger's USB anymore since USB-C plugs in either way.

 

So, it takes three attempts to plug in a USB type A plug. Is that really a problem that needed to be engineered out? I think not. In fact, I think it is easier to just look at the plug and the socket and get it in second time. Logically, looking should lead to getting it right first time, but that would be against the laws of USB and something horrible would happen.

It took me several years to realise that the ridgy bits are on the bottom (wide) part of a usb mini plug (or is it micro... the one on phones) and I can now insert them, every time, first time, even in the dark. Except when the damned hardware designer has put the socket upside down. Which they do sometimes. I suppose that is one of the USB laws too.

I think everything should have multiple, incompatible, SCSI connectors. Particularly loved (erm, actually not quite the right word) those huge IBM piggy-back ones.