Merrick's Robust, Rambling, Ridiculous Comparisons Thread

Due to my purchase of the Jotunheim w/DAC along with a Modi Multibit, I find myself temporarily in possession of quite a few devices. I figure this is the perfect excuse to do some wholly subjective, completely unscientific comparisons.

My main reason for doing this was to see if the internal DAC in the Jotunheim is enough for me to be satisfied with until I can afford a Gungnir Multibit, or if I feel I still want an external DAC to enjoy until then, even if it means waiting a bit longer. And I figured since I was already doing that comparison, and I have all these other sources and DACs around, I might as well go all in.

The Jotunheim will be the amp I'm using for all the DAC comparisons. It seems to have enough transparency that I feel I can comment on the sound of each DAC through it without worrying too much about its sonic character obscuring or overly coloring the signal.

The DACs tested will be as follows:
Bifrost Multibit
Modi Multibit
Geek Out 2a (not pictured, should be arriving Thursday)
Jotunheim internal balanced dual AKM 4490 DAC

Sources will be:
Raspberry Pi 2 with Digiberry+
Pono player (doing double duty as a DAC)

The transducers I will be using:
HD600, dyanamat modded, balanced
Empire Ears Spartans, balanced
LFF Paradox, balanced
Audeze Sine, unbalanced

I'm not an engineer, nor am I as experienced evaluating audio gear as many people here are. This will all be my subjective impressions, not presented as any sort of definitive statements. I'm also not going to be scientific in any way about this. I will know at all times what DAC is playing, I'm not doing any blind tests. I'm also not going to use USB for the multibits, as my Raspberry Pi uses RCA coax which I think sounds better, having previously used USB with the Bifrost Multibit. The Joti DAC and GO2a will both use USB as they have no other option. Therefore this isn't an apples to apples comparison, but I'm not interested in handicapping the multibits because the other DACs are more limited in their connection options. I'm just considering the coax option an inherent plus that the multibits possess. If I had a D/S DAC with a coax option, I would use that, but I don't. Also I won't be using any USB defuckifiers because I'm talking about a $100 and a $200 DAC, and I'm crazy but I'm not that crazy.

Also pictured there is an ALO Rx Mk.III-B, another SS balanced/SE amp. I probably won't do any significant comparison between that and the Jotunheim, but I may mention it from time to time. I also just sold my Valhalla 2 so that will not be part of the proceedings either, although I do have some thoughts on the Jotunheim versus the Valhalla 2, going off auditory memory.

I also ordered a balanced cable from SurfCables to use with the GO2a and the Pono, so I will be able to give some SE vs. balanced source impressions in time.

Items will fall off this list as I'm not keeping all of them.

I want to give a shout out to @fastmike for being generous enough to let me hold onto the Bifrost Multibit for a bit to do these comparisons, even though he already has purchased it from me.

 

While this comparison is mostly for DACs, I did want to comment on the Jotunheim as an amp versus the Valhalla 2. I've used the Bifrost Multibit/Val2 combo with my HD600 for about six months. This is with the '75 Reflektor silver shield tubes in the Val. This was a daily driver setup and I think it sounded pretty great. The Valhalla 2 has great synergy with the HD600.

My Val2 buyer wanted me to ship it ASAP, which I did as soon as I got the Joti installed, so no head to head comparisons. But I plugged the Bifrost Multibit into the Joti first, mostly because it was already warmed up and I wanted to give the Momby some time to get to a good temp. In other words, all I've changed in my chain so far has been the amp.

I would characterize the Valhalla 2, specifically with the tubes I mentioned above, as dry and airy. Some might call it thin, I wouldn't necessarily disagree. It doesn't have the most robust bottom end, but it does impart a nice 3D sense of space to the music with plenty of detail. The airiness might also be heard as a laid back sound, not as in your face.

With the Bifrost Multibit the Jotunheim is not laid back. It's up front and aggressive. It's also got meat on its bones, with a nice fat bottom end and while it also imparts a lot of detail, its thicker character means the details aren't as immediately apparent in every track as they are on the Valhalla 2. The details are there, I just sometimes found myself listening a little more closely for them. The music sounds less holographic to me, which is probably the Val's biggest virtue. However, the thicker, wetter sound is pretty damn fantastic for a lot of rock, with the superior bass driving the riffs and the fuller sound giving the guitars excellent heft.

I'll miss the holographic nature of the Valhalla 2, but the versatility and overall balance of the Jotunheim is very compelling. I could actually play the Sine and my Spartans on the Valhalla 2, but the synergy wasn't ideal. The Jotunheim blows the Val2 away with the Spartans and still sounds fantastic with the HD600.

One last note, I honestly don't remember much of how the Valhalla 2 sounds with the stock tubes. I have them and almost immediately pulled them out in favor of the silver shields. My experience of the amp could vary wildly from yours depending on what tube you use.

 

High gain with the HD600. Low gain with the Sine and Spartans.

 

I switched over to the Momby because it's a shiny new toy and I've had it warming up for six hours. A lot of the thickness and wetness was coming from the Bifrost Multibit. This is also speaking to the transparency of the Jotunheim, I think a lot of people are about to find out exactly what their DACs actually sound like.

 

Watch listed.

Waiting for built-in DAC vs Momby/Bifrost Multibit. Also, is your experience with Momby/Bifrost Multibit similar to Torq's?

 

Sooooo if the Moby comes out ahead, can I cancel my order? jk

 

My Momby is still warming up, so the sound may still change. I know that Torq found them difficult to reliably pick between when A/Bing. Not A/Bing, the Momby sounds less thick, less wet, and less warm. They both have the same amount of detail, but I'm finding it easier to pick the smaller details out on the Momby. This may be because the staging on the Momby is smaller, so the details are more up front instead of being integrated deeper into the mix. The Bifrost Multibit sounds like more of a colored signature, the Momby more neutral.

However I will say the Bifrost Multibit has a silky smooth presentation, whereas I'm getting some nasties in the upper registers on the Momby. I seem to recall @drfindley and @Huxleigh among others mentioning the Momby's propensity for this in the dedicated thread. I want to give it more time to warm up and burn in to see if that settles down.

They are ultimately more similar than they are different. I'm playing up the differences for purposes of comparison. I could understand why A/Bing them would be difficult to tell them apart.

 

I think what I'm going to do is choose an album, and listen to it with the same pair of headphones on each DAC I have available. I've been doing this with Abbey Road and the HD600 and it's been good for illustrating the differences so far.

I'm on the Joti DAC now and I actually think it's pretty decent. Again, lots of detail and tonality isn't too bad. It's much more upfront than either multibit, and there's not nearly as much sense of space around each instrument. This is really clear on "Oh! Darling". With the multibits, it feels like you can hear the air around Ringo's drums changing in response to what he's playing. With the D/S, you get none of that. I can hear the drums being hit but there's no resonance outside of that. It's not echo, it's much more subtle.

This is also brighter than Bifrost Multibit by a good margin, and the Momby by a smaller margin. I think the comparison between this and the GO2a will be really interesting. If this is all I had to listen to, I wouldn't mind too much. The question is will I want to listen to only this for the time it takes me to save up for a Gungnir Multibit?

 

Bifrost Multibit is placed warmish side on Marv's DAC awesomess chart as well. I heard MMU stack durig meet, and I did hear grains on treble area (digitinus?). Coming from Mojo, this is gonna be different. My Momby will arrive on Thursday.

None? Not even less? I'm glad that I ordered Momby.

Do you think the internal DAC is more neutral than Momby or brightly colored, which is the opposite of Bifrost Multibit? No wonder TMoney didn't like internal DAC during the show.

 

Maybe you could call it a very fast decay. The drums hit and then immediately dissipate. There's bass response, I can hear it and feel it, but it doesn't feel to me like how it feels to hear a drum actually being hit in the real world. The multibits do a better job of making the instruments feel like they're existing in an actual space, as opposed to a virtual space. Again, I'm curious to see how this fares against the GO2a, because I'm wondering now if this is an inherent D/S thing or just the specific implementation on this DAC.

The internal DAC feels bright to me, but not excessively. I did not enjoy pairing this DAC with the HD800 at the meet, treble spike city. With the HD600 it's less pronounced. And again these are all good DACs and the differences are being heightened for the purposes of comparison. If I had to blind A/B some of these those differences could be much harder to detect.

 

Any opinions on going coax over USB with the Modi Multibit?

 

If it's anything like the Bifrost Multibit, and I suspect it is because it's the Schiit Gen 2 USB implementation, I much preferred the coax. I haven't listened to the USB input since. I will go ahead and do a comparison and let you know. Probably won't be tonight though.

 

I did go ahead and run some test tracks through the Momby in both USB and coax inputs. The USB sounded pretty good, but the coax still sounded better to my ears. It's not something major, just a little more immersion in the music, a bit more definition and space on the instruments. Minor stuff but it adds up and I find myself more engaged when using coax as the input. If all you have is USB, don't sweat it. It's not night and day. If you want to try coax or optical, I suggest getting a Raspberry Pi with a Hifiberry Digi+ hat or the upcoming hat that @Michael Kelly is developing in this thread: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/raspberry-pi-i2s-to-spdif-hat.1990/

I currently have the Digi+ and am eagerly awaiting Michael's hat.

 

I did it recently and the difference was striking (in favor of coax). I immediately sold my USB cable/Regen and went back to CD player/CDs, ditching USB/computer audio entirely. So you can imagine what the difference is...

 

DId you try the regen between your computer and the USB/SPDIF interface to see if it sounds better than computer>USB/SPDIF interface?

 

Yes. It did sound slightly better.

 

The Bifrost Multibit went off to its new home with @fastmike today, but my GO2a should be arriving tomorrow to take its place.

 

Hi @Merrick, Nice review! What is your pi/digi+ situation? Are you running stock, powering it thru the pi's usb port?

Doing anything from the pi/i2s threads (LPS thru GPIO, decouple the 3.3V, piCorePlayer, etc.)?

 

Just standard Pi2 with Digi+ using Rune. I have a powered USB hub for power and plugging in any USB DACs.