Schiit Modi 3+ Review (Stereo DAC)

[JonP]

To be clear, it wasn't like I felt the sound is lacking. To my non-audiophile ears it's sounds perfectly fine. I wouldn't say excellent just because I haven't tried anything else.
I was mostly curious to try out a DAC seeing people are willing to spend hundreds-thousands of bucks on them, and to see if I would notice any difference.

I have "vintage" B&Ws towers (not some fancy model I think) and a "vintage" Nakamichi amp. Both going back 25-30 years. I have a "vintage" Marantz CD player from the same era that I pulled out of storage. It's still mostly working fine but had trouble loading some CDs (mostly worked after a few tries, and a couple wouldn't load). I always disliked using headphones, I have some cheap Chinese ones for emergencies.

Options were to try to service the CD player (maybe like $100? If I can even find someone to do it and do it well) or buy some decent but not too expensive CD player ($300?). Neither appealed to me, so I bought a barely used 2nd hand BD player for $30 (original MSRP was like $500 in 2010). Then E30 for $90-100 (like new) to see if it would improve on what already sounded good enough to me. As you can see frugality is a running theme here

I'm curious to hear how would you improve with a few hundred bucks. Replacing the speakers?

Yeah, thats where I was saying to focus the efforts. I was wondering if you had something like a cheap, plastic computer speaker set or something... limiting your ability to tell differences.

Sounds like the opposite is the "problem". You have decent, if a bit old, speakers, so not a lack of quality there... but, with that $500 player you probably have started with a pretty good DAC. ;-) Maybe trying against a 10y old, $30 retail CD player or something, and you'd notice a difference.

Theres a fair amount of good speakers in the below $500 catagory, including the recent JBL's in Amir's review today... thats where I'd tell someone to spend $ to start improving their system.

Good speakers, learn a bit of proper placment in the room to optimise your speaker setup... and you've gone a long way to good sound.

 

[DuncanTodd]

Speakers (and how they interact with your room) and source are by far the most important parts of the chain in terms of getting good reproduction. E30 is good enough, that nothing will actually sound better, so yes, you are on the right path with speakers. Amir has reviewed lots of them, and there are several good choices that stick out.

Yeah, thats where I was saying to focus the efforts. I was wondering if you had something like a cheap, plastic computer speaker set or something... limiting your ability to tell differences.

Sounds like the opposite is the "problem". You have decent, if a bit old, speakers, so not a lack of quality there... but, with that $500 player you probably have started with a pretty good DAC. ;-) Maybe trying against a 10y old, $30 retail CD player or something, and you'd notice a difference.

Theres a fair amount of good speakers in the below $500 catagory, including the recent JBL's in Amir's review today... thats where I'd tell someone to spend $ to start improving their system.

Good speakers, learn a bit of proper placment in the room to optimise your speaker setup... and you've gone a long way to good sound.

Thanks.
Going into getting a DAC was not really to try to fix something I felt is broken or lacking, just to experiment if it makes a difference to my ears vs using the cheaply bought BD player. Another idea behind the DAC was that if/when that BD player craps out, I can get something cheap instead again. I guess it's not the same as getting a real transport CD player, but it's the same idea, to bypass a possibly crappy internal DAC with a better one. Streaming seems to be the main reason people use DACs, so I suspect if I was streaming from my PC the differences may have been more noticeable.

It's very possible I can do a bit (or a lot) better with different speakers, but I don't have an immediate urge to test that as I'm content with what I have. There's also no such thing as home trials in my country, so it's not something I can just try out and change my mind after. In addition prices are high and selection isn't massive. I do have a spare pair of Q Acoustics towers I will, at some point, try against the B&Ws. Those towers are (unconventionally) used at nearfield. I love repurposing stuff. Bookshelf often require low freqs reinforcement and stands. I also have a turntable so passive speakers with an amp is a simpler choice than powered.

A cheap BD player for $30 instead of $30 CD player was simply due to available selection. Most CD players I've seen where at least $100 and much older. There's no point to buy a used CD player at the same age as my Marantz. It may suffer from the same issues, if not now then later. A newer CD player could mostly come from someone who hasn't given up on physical media in the last 10 years, fairly rare here.
Blu-rays were never a big thing here, so you can get them for much less as they don't have that Stereo mystic. DVD players are even more common, however they'd be older and likely have a lot more millage on them.
I suspect the Stereo/Vinyl trend resurrected by hipsters, brought up prices for anything Stereo. Sure, Stereo never went away, but now a lot of young people want the vintage experience too and prices reflect it.

 

[Slc80]

I read some older reviews where Schiit DACs stopped working due to driver issues or not being recognized. Was the move to Unison USB for the Modi 3+ because of these issues? Has Unison USB been more reliable?

 

[trl]

From my understanding Schiit simply wants something else, something built from scratch from they, because don't want to rely on manufacturer firmware and possible software/hardware limitations. According to https://www.schiit.com/products/unison-usb this USB transport offers:

1. A completely unique USB input receiver based on a Microchip PIC32 microprocessor with Schiit's proprietary code.
2. Complete electromagnetic and electrostatic isolation.
3. Self-power by the DAC for the critical low-noise re-clocking and latching sections.
4. Precision local clocks for both 44.1 and 48k multiples.
5. NO SUPPORT FOR ANTIQUE WINDOWS. If you're not on Windows 10, stick to Gen 5.

Of course, some pure marketing might stay behind their decision of building a new transport from scratch, but I think this is a bold decision and could be a good thing for a big brand like Schiit to develop their own boards.

However, I still don't get it why they don't make the move to DSD and MQA, now that they have their own transport board might be even easier. I'm just trying to think from a marketing perspective here, especially that in the past they were offering a dedicated DSD-decoding device, given the high no. of customers asking for that. They should let off the subjectivism (although I don't like MQA stuff neither) and start implementing DSD and MQA decoding boards/devices; this should produce more income too, as I've seen/read about many purchasing non-Schiit stuff due to this lowlight (although, software DSD decoding is having at least same audio quality as the hardware decoding, but no everyone knows that).

 

[PeteL]

,

« However, I still don't get it why they don't make the move to DSD and MQA, now that they have their own transport board might be even easier. »

« Given the high no. of customers asking for that. »

No, it can’t be easier, if you purchase a xmos microcontroller, it’s already done, you uncomment a couple line of code already written for you, and compile the supplied libraries.
I’d like to ask, high number compare to what? I’s a very low number and in absolute term compared to the whole music distribution market.

 

[trl]

I’d like to ask, high number compare to what? I’s a very low number and in absolute term compared to the whole music distribution market.

Actually I've seen/heard several people ordering non-Schiit DACs due to lack of DSD or MQA. Every new market gimmick is an advantage for the marketing and sales dept., so adding DSD and MQA to a device will increase the sales for sure.

 

[ElNino]

Schiit has enough customers — they don’t need to compromise their integrity by offering MQA.

 

[trl]

I am aware of their position regarding DSD and MQA, no worries, I was just sharing my opinion about a possible increase in sales if they start to "compromise".

 

[PeteL]

Actually I've seen/heard several people ordering non-Schiit DACs due to lack of DSD or MQA. Every new market gimmick is an advantage for the marketing and sales dept., so adding DSD and MQA to a device will increase the sales for sure.

My view is that when hanging out lot's in forums like ASR, or surrounds ourselves with people with the same interest in audio, the sense of scale changes a bit. I don't want to assume anything about you or put words in your mouth, but, when we take a step back a bit, it's a tiny tiny percentage of music listeners that even know what a DAC is, let alone buy one, then whatever they do, Schiit will have always just one small part of this market. "Will increase their sale for sure"... Yes, will increase their sale for sure that is true, but it is not what matter, what matter is how much will it cost for how much increase in sales, you can't just look at one number, the margin are VERY tiny on DACs, and especially with Schiit, that tries to compete in pricing with the Asian manufacturers, Arguably the only ones that achieve this in North America. Developpment cost are high in the western world. If in the end they dive in that to sell 50 more DACs, a company that takes those kind of decision would sink in no time. Actually they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves, their reciepe works, not trying to go for the "me too" stuff, but offer a range of products covering a large spectrum of consumer types.

 

[DuncanTodd]

the margin are VERY tiny on DACs, and especially with Schiit, that tries to compete in pricing with the Asian manufacturers, Arguably the only ones that achieve this in North America.

What do you reckon the margin is on something like this?:
https://www.psaudio.com/products/directstream-dac/

 

[SmackDaddies]

What do you reckon the margin is on something like this?:
https://www.psaudio.com/products/directstream-dac/

90% plus over cost of materials/parts. Amortizing design costs is more complicated

 

[PeteL]

What do you reckon the margin is on something like this?:
https://www.psaudio.com/products/directstream-dac/

I would assume more than the modi 3, much lower volume tough.

 

[DuncanTodd]

90% plus over cost of materials/parts. Amortizing design costs is more complicated

So you're assuming ~$500 would be pure unit cost (materials and assembly)?

 

[Degru]

From my understanding Schiit simply wants something else, something built from scratch from they, because don't want to rely on manufacturer firmware and possible software/hardware limitations. According to https://www.schiit.com/products/unison-usb this USB transport offers:

1. A completely unique USB input receiver based on a Microchip PIC32 microprocessor with Schiit's proprietary code.
2. Complete electromagnetic and electrostatic isolation.
3. Self-power by the DAC for the critical low-noise re-clocking and latching sections.
4. Precision local clocks for both 44.1 and 48k multiples.
5. NO SUPPORT FOR ANTIQUE WINDOWS. If you're not on Windows 10, stick to Gen 5.

Of course, some pure marketing might stay behind their decision of building a new transport from scratch, but I think this is a bold decision and could be a good thing for a big brand like Schiit to develop their own boards.

However, I still don't get it why they don't make the move to DSD and MQA, now that they have their own transport board might be even easier. I'm just trying to think from a marketing perspective here, especially that in the past they were offering a dedicated DSD-decoding device, given the high no. of customers asking for that. They should let off the subjectivism (although I don't like MQA stuff neither) and start implementing DSD and MQA decoding boards/devices; this should produce more income too, as I've seen/read about many purchasing non-Schiit stuff due to this lowlight (although, software DSD decoding is having at least same audio quality as the hardware decoding, but no everyone knows that).

DSD would require extra development time and custom drivers (unless they just do DoP through WASAPI) and MQA requires paying extra licensing fees for what is essentially an elaborate scam. And afaik DSD in many DAC chips goes through extra processing that makes it kinda pointless anyway compare to PCM.

I think sticking to regular PCM is fine, and I appreciate that they're simply sticking to UAC2 spec rather than messing with drivers.

 

[Labjr]

Do you have to pay licensing fees for the ES9068 DAC chip which has built-in MQA decoding? Or is it built in to the cost of the chip?

 

[ElNino]

Do you have to pay licensing fees for the ES9068 DAC chip which has built-in MQA decoding? Or is it built in to the cost of the chip?

Manufacturers almost certainly have to pay additional license fees, likely quite a bit in excess of the actual price of the ES9068 itself. (I explained why I think the MQA hardware license fee is around $50 USD in another thread.)

 

[PeteL]

Manufacturers almost certainly have to pay additional license fees, likely quite a bit in excess of the actual price of the ES9068 itself. (I explained why I think the MQA hardware license fee is around $50 USD in another thread.)

50$ per unit seams very very outragously crazy expensive for a licence like that. Can you link to the "other thread?" literally no manufacturers would be dumb enough to sign a deal like that.
As a point of comparison, a couple year back,the Qualcomm licence for AptX, AptX HD an AptX LL was 7k for a lifetime developper licence, and 72 cents per unit produced

 

[Degru]

Do you have to pay licensing fees for the ES9068 DAC chip which has built-in MQA decoding? Or is it built in to the cost of the chip?

You have to pay licensing to be able to enable it and include it in your product.

 

[raif71]

DSD would require extra development time and custom drivers (unless they just do DoP through WASAPI) and MQA requires paying extra licensing fees for what is essentially an elaborate scam. And afaik DSD in many DAC chips goes through extra processing that makes it kinda pointless anyway compare to PCM.

I think sticking to regular PCM is fine, and I appreciate that they're simply sticking to UAC2 spec rather than messing with drivers.

DoP eh? My DAP does DoP, D2P and Native for DSD. I guess one can tick off Native dsd using this DAC. Do you think then DoP or D2P can be used? I would very much like to get a Schitt DAC.

 

[PeteL]

DoP eh? My DAP does DoP, D2P and Native for DSD. I guess one can tick off Native dsd using this DAC. Do you think then DoP or D2P can be used? I would very much like to get a Schitt DAC.

I highly doubt that. Even if there was some ambiguity, because the 4490 supports it, the fact that Schiit specs a max sample rate of 192k kinda put it to bed.