Schiit Gungnir Multibit impressions

I vote for "Gambino":

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambino_crime_family

Clearly one of those "under the covers" guys that's calling all the shots without anyone knowing, until someone exposes him as the new boss.

 

You can bet Gungnir Multibit 2 will be an absolute gangsta.

 

It has to be Gungnir Multibit A2 so we can have Bamby.

 

Based on hints given to me by Sonority Audio, it seems Gungnir Multibit actually was upgraded in a similar manner as Yggdrasil (to Analog 2 version). The actual sonic difference may not be as significant as with Yggdrasil though.

I wouldnt honestly stress much about it. Differences between DACs are small anyway, you are definitely not missing out with the original Gungnir Multibit. Rather wait a bit and upgrade to something that could truly make a difference (to Yggdrasil, or maybe vinyl?).

 

Someone mentioned they were gonna call the new A2 Gungnir Multibit a Goomba. After that I don't really care what the official SBAF name for it is gonna be, I'm going with Mario World terminology (also "Yggdrasil A2" sounds terrible when I try to say it, I say "Yggdrasil A2" myself), though "Gambino" is pretty cool too.

Also:

 

I guess I don't get it. So, for these DACs that are marketed as being upgradable, now @schiit is holding out on making these upgrades that already exist available to customers? Seems like the value of upgradability has taken a hit.

 

They just don’t want to deal with all the pissing and moaning obviously. They still are upgradeable as far as the usb and dac boards are concerned.

 

Plus when you add in the 6 month plus wait list for upgrades when they do annouce it. The street price on a used Gungnir Multibit with no usb upgrade has been like $750 lately anyway. I would just sell the old one buy a new Gungnir Multibit A2, it's faster, easier, cheaper and you get more warranty than making the old one current.

 

I think the plan is to quietly roll out upgrades for X months (six?) before allowing upgrades so that people who just bought the product don’t go “this sucks now it’s worthless!”

 

I know this is a long post but I'm still really proud that I managed to edit it down from 5 or 6 paragraphs to 2 (not including this one):

Schiit seems to be in an awkward-ish space between artisanal houses like EC, ZMF, or Leptoni and big factories like Foster or (ahem) Beats. Heck, it's pretty well-documented on here that Mr. Uthus is willing to make minor alterations to his amps at the customer's request, or that he sometimes has to source a replacement part that's equivalent to or superior to what it's taking the place of, often due to components' getting phased OOP or something to that effect; not sure how bigger names deal with problems like that, but I suspect they don't bother advertising running changes to their lineup so long as performance remains within tolerances— any meaningful change in performance gets a V2 designation and a new chassis/box, usually with a heavier price tag slapped on it.

So long as the cost of purchasing used and availing of the upgrades doesn't exceed the cost of buying an updated unit new at launch, then things should be okay, ideally, but I can see why withholding the upgrade from people with older units and a willingness to pay for said upgrades would be met with righteous "God damn it" indignation. As for that, I can only really say that the conversation seems to be swinging back around to talking points raised during the Yggdrasil A2 debacle: they don't want their customers to feel shafted, and the only way they can do that is to withhold new tech until such a time as people who bought the old versions won't feel bad and throw online tantrums.

 

Or, Schiit got so overloaded and backed up with so many Yggdrasil upgrades, that it made absolutely zero sense to announce the other lower DACs yet. I believe either Mike or Jason have said they underestimated the demand for the upgrades (also I believe there may have been parts shortages in the mix as well).

 

The rest of you guys can name it whatever you want, mine will be a Gumba.

Gungnir Multibit A2 sound like a horrible northern Minnesotan or Bostonian version of Gungnir Multibit.

"How's about we hook up the Gungnir Multibit A2, eh?"

There's also an 85% chance that it's the nickname somebody here uses for their grandmother.

 

Spoken in the voice of Marge, from the movie Fargo.

 

A buddy of mine heard my Yggdrasil A1 for the short time I had next to a B-series/A2 Gungnir Multibit soonish after he sold his old Gungnir Multibit.

IIRC, he said that the overall tone was closer to the Yggdrasil A1 than the Gungnir Multibit A1. He had actually returned it because it became too neutral for his tastes, where as the Yggdrasil A2 is just right.

That's in line with the several impressions I heard on the headphones discord before I left it. Gungnir Multibit and Yggdrasil almost switched places tone wise.

I'm still surprised no one has brought up a certain someone that says Gungnir Multibit a lot.

 

Agreed. If they can't/don't want to multitask and handle each field efficiently, it's good to take care of customers they already have first, I think. Decent support/available upgrades after spending money work on me as a customer.

 

Yeah, that was a mistake. Certainly piqued my interest, although I'm pretty sure I can read between the lines. I'll continue to enjoy the hell out of my Gungnir Multibit, and IF an update is announced I'll probably follow along. Mindlessly. Like a true Schiithead.

 

Speaking of reaching out, I emailed Schiit and asked them if the Gungnir had a silent upgrade close to what they did with Yggdrasil A2.

They basically said that they cannot comment on new products or upgrades/updates before release.

They gave me a link which gives me their whole philosophy with regards to process and product improvements

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...bable-start-up.701900/page-1715#post-13791607

Thought of sharing this also in this thread and hopefully do more in clearing out assumption (silent upgrade or not)