schiit mulitbit dac differences

hello SBAF friends !

i dont understand why all schiit Multibit Dacs sound so different. shouldnt the Gungnir A2 and yggdrasil A2 be the same in sound? but the impressions here and on the head-fi appear seem so different. are these differences exagerrated?

both use the same digital filters, although different chips and gungnir don't have a choke input power supply. still doesnt make sense why the signatures of these dacs are different. even bifrost 2 is different.

mike moffat himself says that he doesnt voice any of his dacs, so whats up? why is the yggdrasil a2 now tuned to consumer friendly when the a1 was more neutral? a1 has more micro details except for the greyness background.

all schiit dacs should sound the same on paper, maybe slightly worse bass with different power supplies the lower price you go into multibit line.

i just don't understand the wild differences in the dac tunings. can anyone pls explain this?

 

This is a bit like putting the same engine into three different cars and wondering why they don't all feel the same. Then again, there are some people for whom a car is just a car and as long as it goes from A to B they can't really tell the difference or don't care. Then again for others, you could change your wiper fluid and they'd swear the car felt different.

Have you actually heard all these dacs in person to be able to quantify the differences to your ears? You basically half-answered all your questions already in your post.

 

Sounds like there may be a bit more to DAC design than you think there is.

But there’s one bit that’s wrong here. Gungnir MB and Yggdrasil don’t use the same output stage, they just both have JFET buffer based output stages.

And I recommend hearing stuff before commenting on how you think they sound. I wouldn’t call Yggdrasil A2 consumer friendly at all.

 

what i have read about the yggdrasil a2 is that it is more v-shaped, warmer sound that bleeds into lower mids. a1 already had a boomy bass but isnt controlled like a2. there is also a brighter emphasis in the treble, not as hard sounding as the a1.

im nervous about upgrading to a2 because i dont want to lose the neutrality. i also dont want to lose the dynamics of the yggdrasil a1 since a2 has been said to be softer than even the Gungnir a2. more laid back sounding than the forward nature of the a1. i do not like a soft relaxed sound.

yggdrasil a1 has a detail emphasis in the midrange and treble that is emphasized more than the a2. a1 sounds more resolving and natural timbre.

i do not know why there are such sonic differences between these revisions. it is all so confusing and i dont want to go backwards with a softer sound.

 

Actually you can try just the firmware upgrade, which is using the A2 firmware in an A1, basically bring it to a GS. I upgrade to the new firmware and am very happy with the increased dynamics and warmer mids without losing the airiness. (Give if a week or 2 to let the changes settle)

Even if you don't like the results down the road, opening up the chassis and swap the original firmware back is easy enough.