Measurement and Review of Schiit BiFrost Multibit DAC

[rebbiputzmaker]

I've never seen that to be the case. The objectives I know always give credit to the fact that anyone is not only entitled to their preferences but they are supported in following that road.
Only issue arise in the screaming of the subjective community to "trust your ears only" a approach that is almost guaranteed to lead you down a road to preference over fidelity. And in the larger picture uncontrolled sighted listening is a treacherous path with human perceptions being the most unreliable method of judging just about anything.

Sal,

Not everyone thinks that you should trust your ears only, but both approaches should be part of the total equation.

regards

 

[Thomas savage]

I've never seen that to be the case. The objectives I know always give credit to the fact that anyone is not only entitled to their preferences but they are supported in following that road.
Only issue arise in the screaming of the subjective community to "trust your ears only" a approach that is almost guaranteed to lead you down a road to preference over fidelity. And in the larger picture uncontrolled sighted listening is a treacherous path with human perceptions being the most unreliable method of judging just about anything.

I have, normal human behaviour though especially on the Internet.

Just because someone claims to be a objectivist don’t go assuming they are somehow immune to the ridiculousness of the self. They will be a hopelessly compromised, contradictory mass of nonsense just like everyone else.

 

[Thomas savage]

Id prefer to own equipment designed to be as ideal in a objective measurement sense as possible, then I can mess about with plug ins / digital filters / PEQ / psychoacoustic algorithms etc to tune to my subjective taste or just play about with for fun.

Why anyone would want to comprise the signal with ifi hardware is beyond me, Seems a expensive schiitshoot way of doing things.

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

I have, normal human behaviour though especially on the Internet.

Just because someone claims to be a objectivist don’t go assuming they are somehow immune to the ridiculousness of the self. They will be a hopelessly compromised, contradictory mass of nonsense just like everyone else.

Sounds like you are speaking from experience.

 

[amirm]

I saw that @Jinjuku mentioned you were banned (from Jason's thread?...or all of Head-Fi), please confirm this as I'll be happy to pass that along on Head-Fi in Mike's thread. FWIW, Mike is a believer in not moderating his thread; he and Jason differ in this philosophy.

Oh it is absolutely true:

[...]

This is a "reply ban" and was issued in a millisecond after I post in Jason's thread. I broke no forum rules and only responded to people saying my measurements were in error.

I own three of Schiit products personally. Yet I am forever banned to post and ask any questions there? And they left others to keep talking about me/my work with no ability on my part to respond???

This is not a company that believes in transparency.

Anyway, as you may know, I went against my better judgement and responded in Mike's thread: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/wha...n-robert-hunter.784471/page-448#post-14028321

 

[Sal1950]

Sal,

Not everyone thinks that you should trust your ears only, but both approaches should be part of the total equation.

regards

Only if the listening part is done under controlled conditions, which is rare in the extreme.
Without controls sighted listening is hopelessly flawed.

 

[Thomas savage]

Sounds like you are speaking about me.

Fify

 

[amirm]

Also, I don't think my question has been answered regarding if the Bimby you measured is a current one. If so, then their ROM fix didn't work...definitely something worth knowing.

As I noted, the unit that I received belongs to another member. So I don't know its age but it is not new. As asked in one of Schiit threads on head-fi, they have not provided any information for people to know if their specific unit has the fix or does not.

I should also note that the glitch is but one of countless of performance issues with this DAC. Jitter and lack of linearity are serious performance problems. So even if the glitch is fixed, we are left with the rest of the problems needing fixing/explanation. Indeed I like to know if Schiit saw all of these problems after the initial design and chose to ignore them. Or never measured the device to know of these problems.

 

[amirm]

Guys, let's not get into subjectivist vs objectivist discussions in this thread.

 

[Thomas savage]

As I noted, the unit that I received belongs to another member. So I don't know its age but it is not new. As asked in one of Schiit threads on head-fi, they have not provided any information for people to know if their specific unit has the fix or does not.

I should also note that the glitch is but one of countless of performance issues with this DAC. Jitter and lack of linearity are serious performance problems. So even if the glitch is fixed, we are left with the rest of the problems needing fixing/explanation. Indeed I like to know if Schiit saw all of these problems after the initial design and chose to ignore them. Or never measured the device to know of these problems.

What peaks my intrest is they seem to be shouting about this ‘ glitch ‘ so loud as to drown out all of the other performance issues that have been highlighted by various measurements.

Maybe they engineered the poor performance in as a intended mechanism to obtain the subjective goal they want.., or as you allude to it might just be garden variety over sight

 

[Candlesticks]

As I noted, the unit that I received belongs to another member. So I don't know its age but it is not new. As asked in one of Schiit threads on head-fi, they have not provided any information for people to know if their specific unit has the fix or does not.

I should also note that the glitch is but one of countless of performance issues with this DAC. Jitter and lack of linearity are serious performance problems. So even if the glitch is fixed, we are left with the rest of the problems needing fixing/explanation. Indeed I like to know if Schiit saw all of these problems after the initial design and chose to ignore them. Or never measured the device to know of these problems.

In the words of Mike Moffat:

First, I address the widely reported and endlessly condemned zero crossing "glitch" on earlier Yggydrasil DACs. It was (and still is) my opinion that said glitch was well below the threshold of audibility (> minus 116db). The results were dozens and dozens of posts by one bellyacher (on another forum) adjudging I was incompetent as an engineer. I then decided to address the glitch by adjusting the filter software. The result was no change in audibility. This change was implemented before the multibit Gungnirs and Bifrosts were introduced and that glitch is not applicable has never been involved in those products.

I bolded the key part.

 

[Sal1950]

I've never seen that to be the case.

I have, normal human behaviour though especially on the Internet.

Never say never, that is my moto, don't know how I let that slip by.
But I can really not remember someone putting down a position that any listener isn't entitled to a preference. Maybe some folks might get irrational over which is "better", opposing a dialog with the "trust your ears" crowd on which path leads to High Fidelity.

 

[amirm]

In the words of Mike Moffat:

"This change was implemented before the multibit Gungnirs and Bifrosts were introduced and that glitch is not applicable has never been involved in those products."

I bolded the key part.

So the BiFrost should be free of the glitch and it is not???? Am I reading this right?

 

[Candlesticks]

So the BiFrost should be free of the glitch and it is not???? Am I reading this right?

I don't know. Maybe there were two different glitches. Seems to be that if it's a high end Schiit product there will be some kind of glitch or quirk that will show up in measurements and shouldn't be worried about in the words of the engineer who made it.

 

[amirm]

I don't know. Maybe there were two different glitches. Seems to be that if it's a high end Schiit product there will be some kind of glitch or quirk that will show up in measurements and shouldn't be worried about in the words of the engineer who made it.

Well, the "not worrying about it" is ours to decide, not theirs. I don't put any weight on reliability of their listening tests. Did they pick content where this kind of problem shows up? He says there was someone complaining about this in listening tests. Did they get the content from him and test?

 

[Candlesticks]

Well, the "not worrying about it" is ours to decide, not theirs. I don't put any weight on reliability of their listening tests. Did they pick content where this kind of problem shows up? He says there was someone complaining about this in listening tests. Did they get the content from him and test?

If they didn't document it and didn't make it public I'm going to treat it the same as them not doing it. Why would I trust a manufacturer when they state that the problems with the products they make are insignificant or inaudible. Regardless, if the performance is terrible and the difference is inaudible to another cheaper product then why would anyone care because there isn't any reason to buy it. Anyway, from another persons perspective audible distortion is a feature worth buying.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Id prefer to own equipment designed to be as ideal in a objective measurement sense as possible, then I can mess about with plug ins / digital filters / PEQ / psychoacoustic algorithms etc to tune to my subjective taste or just play about with for fun.

Why anyone would want to comprise the signal with ifi hardware is beyond me, Seems a expensive schiitshoot way of doing things.

This mirrors my opinion. +1000

 

[Blumlein 88]

Well, the "not worrying about it" is ours to decide, not theirs. I don't put any weight on reliability of their listening tests. Did they pick content where this kind of problem shows up? He says there was someone complaining about this in listening tests. Did they get the content from him and test?

My earlier reply described the guy complaining. It was not a valid complaint. He was comparing two devices with wildly different frequency response.

 

[Thomas savage]

Oh it is absolutely true:

View attachment 10440

[...]

View attachment 10441

This is a "reply ban" and was issued in a millisecond after I post in Jason's thread. I broke no forum rules and only responded to people saying my measurements were in error.

I own three of Schiit products personally. Yet I am forever banned to post and ask any questions there? And they left others to keep talking about me/my work with no ability on my part to respond???

This is not a company that believes in transparency.

Anyway, as you may know, I went against my better judgement and responded in Mike's thread: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/wha...n-robert-hunter.784471/page-448#post-14028321

I read through your contributions in mike’s thread, I don’t get it.., you are providing information in the form of measurements, free of charge.

Where’s the problem ? Your not there taking the piss or degrading people’s choices.

Don’t we all want manufacturers to provide as much info as possible about their kit? They tend not to in Audio so to have someone taking a deeper look at performance is a god send, hopefully in time it will make Audio company’s publish more information about what they make.

I can understand schiit having a issue but why should their customers or potential customers ?

It’s like some of them are on autopilot, having to pick a fault when there’s nothing much on offer to criticise but they just ‘ have to’.

It’s bonkers , it’s like they think your Burnie Madoff

 

[Candlesticks]

I read through your contributions in mike’s thread, I don’t get it.., you are providing information in the form of measurements, free of charge.

Where’s the problem ? Your not there taking the piss or degrading people’s choices.

Don’t we all want manufacturers to provide as much info as possible about their kit? They tend not to in Audio so to have someone taking a deeper look at performance is a god send, hopefully in time it will make Audio company’s publish more information about what they make.

I can understand schiit having a issue but why should their customers or potential customers ?

It’s like some of them are on autopilot, having to pick a fault when there’s nothing much on offer to criticise but they just ‘ have to’.

It’s bonkers , it’s like they think your Burnie Madoff

Because some people develop around a product or brand like a cult. This is especially true with audiophile products because audiophile products are sold upon brand stories that people want to buy into. Someone who has thousands of dollars of Schiit gear isn't likely to respond well when someone points out that some of their products have serious issues. They don't want to know if it is bad. Even the ones who self-profess to only care about what they hear still like to believe that it measures well. You're an intruder coming in and providing evidence to the contrary. You're motives have to be questioned in their mind to provide the self-assurance that you're just a spiteful objectivist out to get Schiit and that actually everything is fine.

As I originally said on one of my first posts here. People buying these expensive products largely do not care about measurements. The best utility in terms of measurements is always at the budget end where quality can be found and recommended. These are the people who care about getting quality on their very limited budgets and want measurements to provide assurances that what they are buying is quality. As the price increases the people care less and less about measurements and more about perceived sound and brand stories.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I read through your contributions in mike’s thread, I don’t get it.., you are providing information in the form of measurements, free of charge.

Where’s the problem ? Your not there taking the piss or degrading people’s choices.

Don’t we all want manufacturers to provide as much info as possible about their kit? They tend not to in Audio so to have someone taking a deeper look at performance is a god send, hopefully in time it will make Audio company’s publish more information about what they make.

I can understand schiit having a issue but why should their customers or potential customers ?

It’s like some of them are on autopilot, having to pick a fault when there’s nothing much on offer to criticise but they just ‘ have to’.

It’s bonkers , it’s like they think your Burnie Madoff

Some are calling measured results only anecdotal. Bizzaro. None will admit Bob's results show the same poor linearity. Saying Amir's unit is defective.