Choosing the Right DAC - Need Advice

Hi All,

I am relatively new to this High-Fidelity world. Saved up some money to invest in a good DAC. To be honest, I got hooked up with schiit DACs just reading the part where it says “live & analogue sounding”. Now dueling between Bifrost Multibit vs Modi Multibit+Eitr.

I have a pair of KEF R500s and a Hegel H90 integrated. Using the Hegel’s onboard DAC over USB and DLNA, running foobar2000 from a HP laptop. I’m no expert but I feel that the amp speaker combo is quite clean & neutral. I’m quite content with the setup except:

1. While I prefer the overall sound a touch warmer, it leans a bit on the other side. I think the onboard DAC is to be blamed. MBP+Amarra through RCA improves this but still leaves me wanting a touch warmer.

2. The vocals are a bit veiled, harsh and sometimes dry, except with very good recordings I guess. It leaves me wanting a bit cleaner, open and silky-smooth vocals. Again, I’m guessing it’s the DAC and it can get better with a better DAC.

3. The highs get intolerable with poor recordings. I sometimes listen to pre-2000 rocks and ballads. It gets so fatiguing that, without a second thought I could trade-off resolution for listenability. DAC right?

4. I feel that the overall musicality is a bit flat for my taste. I’ll almost always prefer musicality over highly resolving or analytical sound. Ofcourse I enjoy microdynamics (who doesn’t) but being able to connect with the emotions of the music makes me happier.

5. Imaging is a bit weak. It improves when I put the speakers closer together, but at the cost of narrower soundstage. Hoping it will get a bit better with schiit dacs.

6. The bass is a bit too lean from what I prefer. I’m guessing it has more to do with the speaker, their placement and the untreated room. I was thinking if adding schitt loki to the chain would be a good option.​

So yes, that’s my take on understanding and learning on what I have vs what I want. Feel free to correct my assessments as it will help me understand better. Hell, I’m dueling between Bifrost Multibit vs Modi Multibit+Eitr but I’m not even sure if my system is resolving enough to let me discern any differences. So any comments will be helpful.

Does anyone have any experience of using Bifrost Multibit/ Modi Multibit with Hegel + KEF? I am considering this purchase as a long term investment and I’m not very keen on taking the upgrade path towards Gungnir Multibit / Yggdrasil A2, not in a couple of years at least. Also, I understand getting them both for auditioning and returning one would be a great way to go about it, but well... lets just say its not an good option for me considering the place of my residence and the hassles.

So… if I could care less about the price differences, strictly SQ wise... what would be your opinion for my setup.... Bifrost Multibit or Modi Multibit+Eitr?

Best wishes to all.

 

It may be the dac, but my guess is the speaker room interface needs some help. In all my years, dac changes, while audible only account for maybe 10-25% of the overall sound. If something is that off with the highs and bass, work on the room and placement first. And maybe consider other speakers as a last first resort.

Good luck with the journey!

 

thanks bixby. room is definitely messing things up. ran dirac room calibration and found a big dip in bass. unfortunately I don't have much flexibility at this moment. about the highs... well I was using NAD D3020 before with the same set of speakers (using NAD's DAC) and never felt bothered. though the speakers are little laid back and light on bass, i like the way it sounds.

Anyway don't get me wrong, I do enjoy my setup a lot with the right kind of songs. all the points I mentioned before are me trying to figure things out towards perfection i guess (and to get me some new gears perhaps ). Any thoughts on Bifrost Multibit vs Modi Multibit+Eitr btw?

 

I have only heard one Hegel dac and in their system it seemed a bit bright to me. NAD in contrast has been on the warm side based on a few pieces I have owned.

Not sure I can help on the Bifrost Multibit / Modi Multibit paths. I did review the Bifrost Multibit a while back, link. Never heard an Eitr or Modi Multibit. They supposedly have better usb implementations than in the past. I think that was Schiits Achilles heal for years.

Not sure what I would look at in the under $600 space. Actually I did hook my JDS El dac up to my main speaker system and it did hold up rather well, just a bit concerned about Marv's measurements of it.

Good luck with the journey!

EDIT: One thing to try is to get the speakers closer to the front wall if you can. Smooths out comb filter effect in the bass. Also try different footers for the speaker to stand interface, wood blocks or high tech de-couplers like Herbies

I know, this flies in the face of old audiophile wisdom, but the best sounding bass I ever got from my speakers is when I went away from spikes (40 years of use) and decoupled the speaker from stand with Herbies discs. And by getting really close to the front wall with placement about 6 -8 inches to back of speaker.

 

Nobody's perfect. Every authority has to be questioned, and only arguments should be considered, not where they come from. That being said, I'd listen to this guy:
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/ALMA'14/Sound_quality.htm

There is a lot of very technical text there, but there's also a lot of easily understandable stuff too. Try to understand what he says about room acoustics, reflections, interactions (dig around on his site). Improving (understanding) on these things is not exactly simple. Adding something in the signal path might not be the best approach (in a sense of a remedy for your problem). Optimizing speaker placement and orientation will cost nothing (but time), and probably be of more use. Room treatment... I'd not suggest that unless you're trying to make a home-recording studio. It's mostly useless, most cumbersome and expensive in the lower bass region anyway.

What you have are speakers that can't reproduce the lowest sub-bass no matter what you do. Music usually doesn't have much info there anyway, but if you want to go there, you will need sub(s).

Your speakers are cardioids in the upper regions and omni's in the lower. This will produce reflections which will be spectrally different from the front wave. What does this mean? I'm not 100% sure that there is a consensus on importance of that - my take is that for one kind of music - vocal, and so on, it will sound more "in room" natural, but will mess up instrument separation and orchestral stuff - this is just my speculation. You really are limited with what you can achieve in imaging with an average room and a stereo system, unfortunatelly - but, fortunatelly, it can still sound great if properly set up.

DSP room optimisations and stuff are a topic of it's own. Some issues are simply not possible to fix with it, others are, but screw up the sound if not in the sweet spot, etc.

If you do decide to get a new Schiit component, at least it will look nice and you can use it later for something else.

 

thanks again. my speakers are already pretty close to the front wall... say about 11-12 inches. they are about 90 inches apart (2.2 meters) and slightly toed in. came to this after quite a lot of trial & errors. However, I will try 6 inches from the front wall to see if things improve.

i share the same impressions with you about hegel and nad dac with my limited experience. IMO, in my system hegel dac does a pretty good job with classical, acoustics and voice dominated recordings. but musics with lots of instruments in it, like in orchestra or even rocks... it becomes clumsy, harsh & loses its musicality, at least to my ears. complain about highs in my system is actually coming from that i guess.

Herbies discs... never knew about it. I will dig into that.

 

thanks for the link. thats a good read and yes a bit too technical. i only brushed my eyes but i'll definitely give some time to understand the technicality.

i understand what you said about sub-bass. it was a conscious decision i made during my purchase of speakers. personally i am not a big sucker for floor shaking & overpowering bass. but what i'm currently missing is a nice presence of bass in low to med listening levels. i was hoping it can be achieve without sub(s).

spot on man! i just mentioned your speculation in my last post (before i read your post). interesting. i'm appreciating the power of knowledge & experience once more. tell me what are my options here, except may be changing my speakers

i spent some time playing with room optimizations, DSPs, parabolic eqs etc. i had a feeling that, unless i can master them well almost to the level of sound engineers, i will tend to mess things up more than i'll be able to fix. it just felt too much work and the path didn't feel right for me. i am a believer of simplicity and didn't want to ruin my peace of mind. so yes, personally i don't want to walk that path.

can you please put some more light on that. I am looking forward to a schiit dac with hopes to improve musicality and some bit of warmth to my music. will it help?

 

Glad if I helped a bit.
Don't be overwhelmed by the complexity of the subject, you will progress more and more with time and good sources.

Regarding the benefits of Schiit amps and dacs...
Lets just say that I admire their build quality and honesty. Read the q&a's on their product pages. It's gold.
But, I'm afraid I don't think something like that can change the reality and nature of the speaker design, your room and speaker placement. I'll tell you that I can't tell the difference between dacs. I have a hard time reliably discerning properly working amps too. That's the truth for me. It's entirely possible that I'm just not good enough to hear that. See what works for you, the best possible advice I can give is to try and get the thing so you can hear it in your system, with the option of returning it if it isn't what you wanted. Good luck