Bought a Gungnir Multibit... So far not impressed. Why?

Hi all, I have a Gungnir Multibit sitting in the digital source shelf of mi rig. Right now I'm not impressed. No Magic... at all.
I'm writing to find out if someone else share my thoughts about it or has any advice to improve my experience with it.

It is a new unit and has 100 hours of warmup\break-in. It's sitting on a bamboo board, I tried different signal cables and in the end I opted for balanced->SE adapter (rewired by myself with good wire and silver tin) since my amp is only SE. An i3 8GB ram 128 GBSSD PC is the source, It runs an optimized version of W7 ultimate and it has a LPS to avoid SMPS shit and I use Foobar with wasapi event. I'm using a schiit PYST usb cable.

The Good:
- Sound conveys a weight and a body while retaining a certain resolution
- Quite detailed, more than the average of the dacs I've heard at this price tag
- The bass is really a threat, not overwhelming but really present
- It sounds very "spatial", more than I've ever heard at the price tag
- It doesn't sound like a sabre

The Bad:
- It lacks harmonic richness. It sounds "Dry" in a certain sense. God... this is the worst thing
- Voices are not much refined, can't hear a lot of nuances
- The highs don't sound much right. On certain tracks I can't hear properly the difference between the brush hitting repeatedly the cymbal... Other multibit dac I've heard did that in the same rig.
- It is organic but doesn't quite feel as a "whole"

What am I doing wrong? It is too early to assess the dac? Or is it just not the right dac for me?
I have more than 7 days left to decide to keep it or return it. Any input is appreciated.

 

Remind us, what is your amp and HPs?

EDIT: One more thing, what DAC are you most familiar with that you are comparing to?

 

What dac are you comparing it against as well? We directly compared a DS Gungnir to an Yggdrasil at the NYC event and the difference was night & day. Never heard a Gungnir Multibit, but if it's as close to the Yggdrasil as most claim I'm assuming the improvement should be quite distinct.

 

Right . Currently using Speakers. This one is the amp:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/unisonresearch/unico.html
And the speakers are Infinity K80:

 

Well... I compared it to a counterpoint DA 10 and a micromega duo so far. Tomorrow I'm headed to get other dacs as loaners to compare. The counterpoint looked richer and more nuanced.

Edit: can't remember if the micromega is a duo o a duo bs. Think the latter.

 

IDK. Gungnir Multibit sounding dry? I haven't heard anyone say that, but who knows. Hmm, and treble is off? It kind of sounds to me like the Gungnir Multibit wasn't sufficiently warmed up. You do leave it on 24/7 yes?? If so, then the 100 hours you mention would be 4 days, which _should_ be sufficient. But I remember people said the Yggdrasil really needed a full week to warm up on the initial run. I recommend giving it a few more days just in case it is still coming in to its own. Keep it turned on.

Edit: One more thing - aren't those DACs you mentioned fairly vintage? I wonder if they are actually on the super warm side of things, thus Gungnir Multibit seeming dry? Just a thought.

 

My guess would be ear/brain expectations compared to your usual tech. *

* unqualified statement

 

Yes, I left it on day and night for 4 days. I wonder if 4 days are enough. In the beginning it sure sounded congested but that went away and it opened. I wonder cause a friend told me he read it needs 300 hrs of break-in. That seems a little exaggerated to me... but who knows? Thus I was looking for similar experiences. By Dry I absolutely don't mean cold... actually Gungnir Multibit is pretty warm sounding. But somehow dry of harmonic content that those dacs somehow had.

ehm... mmm... not sure I understand. Was I expecting too much?

 

Just put 15 wooden planks below Gungnir Multibit. That should fix it.

 

Sounds to me like a warm up issue. I found two distinct moments while mine was initially powered up... About 4 days in, and then after I think around 10 days.

Vocals are exceptionally clear, treble sounds natural and refined... Overall warm and wouldn't describe it as dry.

If you are using SE RCA outputs, try swapping the output being used on the Gungnir Multibit. I'm not sure if both SE outputs are supposed to be exactly the same, but mine has a tendency to distort on one of them.

Otherwise, give it at least 12 days and see. Just a recommendation.

 

I was able to listen to a Gungnir Multibit loaner, and I thought it sounded incredible, I would get one if I had the money.

 

It is warm... but also dry. I mean 2 different things.
I'm using xlr->rca.


What do you prefer the Gungnir Multibit to.

 

It's normal. Return it, get something better, world's big.

 

Yeah... that crossed my mind. The thing is that it looked premature to me. I wanted to know if someone had similar experience, like @Mikoss said. Today is the forth day and it is better than yesterday, truth to be said, but still doesn't fare very well.
Tomorrow I'll test again with other gear.

 

Ok... that could be the key answer I was waiting for. So it is useless to wait for it to bring out that sound I like.
What would you suggest I get instead on the modern market? I Like a lot that sound... counterpoint ultra analog and sonic frontier sfd2 are two dac I love, for reference.

 

Sometimes it could be synergy issues, not just with hardware, but also software. I didn't like foobar with my Yggdrasil as it sounded quite clinical, musicbee ASIO sounded more relaxed to my ears.

 

Why would someone sell a sonic frontiers?
Totaldac and the other likes are totally out of reach for me.
Well I can imagine very well a tube output stage improving on the schiit sound I'm currently experiencing. Too bad I won't be able to hear it or to witness the failure given the distance
As for the software I tried different softwares... the most pleasant was daphile. Foobar to be frank is just a compromise for the features.

Ok. I'll give it a few days more to be sure and then I'll reach for return.

Thank you all