Schiit Modi MB firmware v2 update technical measurements

I remember Jason mentioning that the chip has greater then 16bit THD despite only being 16 bits. I saw it on the spec sheet once but I don't see it anymore.

 

From Mike's previous comments here and elsewhere, it seems there are at least two ways the Schiit crew squeeze extra resolution out of their DACs. The first is a byproduct of balanced implementations. On the Yggdrasil for example, two 20-bit DACs (one per phase) double the resolution for a balanced signal, resulting in 21 effective bits. Here is [a relevant post on HF]. This obviously doesn't apply to Modi Multibit since it isn't balanced. The other way, which I think is a relatively recently development for Schiit, is dither. Here is [a post] where Mike confirms that the blacker background of Yggdrasil v2 is partially attributable to dither. In [this post], Marv indicates that the Modi Multibit v2 firmware also seems to add dither. Schiit may have other tricks up their sleeves, but these are the ones they have mentioned publicly.

 

What an interesting comment from Mike regarding blackground and dither.

 

I'm not sure if people have seen this before, but I noticed that Schiit has now posted their own Audio Precision measurements of the current shipping revision of the Modi Multibit (they had previously posted the Modi 3): http://www.schiit.com/public/upload/PDF/Schiit DAC APx555 Standard Test Suite_ Modi Multibit.pdf

They had posted the Modi 3 measurements earlier, but I think these Modi Multibit measurements were posted much more recently.

These are pretty consistent with what posters here have gotten. The AP report format might be a little easier to read for some people.

 

New expanded vocabulary/verbage on the 3 baby Schiit Dac shoot out:

"much of the distortions I show are due to poor engineering, not because the multibit architecture"

does he mean "NOT RECOMMENDED" ;D?