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Budget DAC Review: Schiit Modi 2 ($99)

Sal1950

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A link was made to this thread and measurements from another forum:
WOW, guess I'm really out of the audiophool loop now-a-days. The Super Best Audio forum, is this to put on a shelf above the What's Best Forum clan?
What do you need to join the Super Best Audio Friends, besides a blind eye and tin ear? :D
 

watchnerd

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In the third panel above in your post Amir, Marvey says he has learned to take USB DAC measurements using a Wyrd because of all the crappy USB connections.

http://www.schiit.com/products/wyrd

So gee, I wonder how his measurements would look if he skipped that?

Yeah, I noticed that, too. Marvey is basically admitting that USB related issues are common enough that he often gets crappy results without the Wyrd.
 
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amirm

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Amirm, what do you make of the measurements on the bottom of this page, https://www.allo.com/sparky/usbridge.html using a Pi with or without their regenerator, and look what dac they tested with.
I am going blind looking for that on that page but can't find it. :) Can you cut and paste it here?

For now, they are really good people, interested in measurements and data. I have been in communication with them for a while now and they just sent me their latest bits which I plan to review.
 

Soniclife

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I am going blind looking for that on that page but can't find it. :) Can you cut and paste it here?
Towards the bottom of the page, just above the compatibility section there are 4 links, the first two are of interest. The links go to pdf docs, they are AP test reports, so not easy to repost.
 
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amirm

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Towards the bottom of the page, just above the compatibility section there are 4 links, the first two are of interest. The links go to pdf docs, they are AP test reports, so not easy to repost.
I saw those but it was just a checklist of pass/fail. Was there more after that?
 
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amirm

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So here is a snippet from their tests of Raspberry Pi vs their USB Bridge:

Allo Pi vs Rpi.png


We can see the output becomes much cleaner with their streamer. This again shows how susceptible the Schiit Modi 2 is to USB input.
 
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amirm

amirm

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WOW, guess I'm really out of the audiophool loop now-a-days. The Super Best Audio forum, is this to put on a shelf above the What's Best Forum clan?
What do you need to join the Super Best Audio Friends, besides a blind eye and tin ear? :D
You haven't seen nothing yet. My exposure to Marvey's posts was searching for reviews and landing on pages with this type of spiderweb chart:

upload_2017-12-7_10-0-18.png


It is the worst bastardization of audio measurements I have ever seen that measurements justify any of the above.
 

Eric Auer

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Well. the upside of Marvey inventing his own science is that it's hard to prove him wrong.

Eric
 
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amirm

amirm

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Well. the upside of Marvey inventing his own science is that it's hard to prove him wrong.
Tru dat. They also seem to have strange sense of humor as we do here given their missions statement:

upload_2017-12-7_15-4-16.png


I was meeting with the CTO of Intel years ago asking them to soften their position on some issue. He told me standing in the middle of the road meant that you get hit by both sides! I learned that lesson in my last endeavor. May they figure it out too.....
 

Blumlein 88

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Plankton is like detail but....smaller.

Apparently plankton is like micro-detailing, and a feeling.

Quoted from here: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/the-audio-101-thread.3214/page-2#post-96131 post #37.

Plankton has a technical meaning, but more than that, as @shaizada has alluded, it is also a feeling. When music reproduction lacks plankton, we get an unsettled feeling. A feeling of unsatisfactory-ness.

Also seems to be about the microdetail around macro-events. The idea the plankton around the edges puts things into a natural context. Swimming in plankton. Without the plankton the sound is swimming in nothing which will make it unnatural.

Now excuse me, as I need to go wash out my brain to get rid of the feeling of thinking about sound this way. Ugh!
 

Thomas savage

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Apparently plankton is like micro-detailing, and a feeling.

Quoted from here: http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/the-audio-101-thread.3214/page-2#post-96131 post #37.

Plankton has a technical meaning, but more than that, as @shaizada has alluded, it is also a feeling. When music reproduction lacks plankton, we get an unsettled feeling. A feeling of unsatisfactory-ness.

Also seems to be about the microdetail around macro-events. The idea the plankton around the edges puts things into a natural context. Swimming in plankton. Without the plankton the sound is swimming in nothing which will make it unnatural.

Now excuse me, as I need to go wash out my brain to get rid of the feeling of thinking about sound this way. Ugh!
I thought plankton was a great meal for lazy whales...

I find the plight of the humble plankton mirrors my own experience of life, I identify with the poor buggers.

Say no to terrible audio analogies relating to plankton, they have suffered enough.
 

Dana reed

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Hi All, first post here after lurking for awhile. I've had a Schiit Modi both the USB only version and the one with Toslink and Coax. I immediately used a Wyrd (USB hub) with them for USB input because
a. I wanted to be able to plug my iphone into it directly without getting the "draws too much power" error, and
b. I could definitely hear audio glitches when plugging it directly into my Mac
The hub took care of both of these issues, and I was interested to see how much less jitter there was in your measurements with the ISO regen or another hub.
Do you have measurements of the -90 dB waveform on the Modi when using the ISO regen or hub, or only the noisy one you showed on the previous page? I wanted to see how much of the noise compared to other DACs is from the USB and how much is from other parts of the product.
 
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amirm

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I do not have the ISO regen unfortunately. But will be measuring the Modi 2 again and comparing it to Modi 2 Uber and Modi 2 Multibit which I have recently purchased. That will include the -90 dB test.

And oh, welcome aboard. :)
 

Dana reed

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I do not have the ISO regen unfortunately. But will be measuring the Modi 2 again and comparing it to Modi 2 Uber and Modi 2 Multibit which I have recently purchased. That will include the -90 dB test.

And oh, welcome aboard. :)
Thanks, that will be an interesting comparison, as I have all three of those. The Modi is on my desk at work, the Modi 2 Uber is fed with an Airport Express by toslink in the basement, and the Multibit is by my bed and is fed by their USB->SPDIF converter (The Schiit Eitr). I can hear scant differences between any of them as long as I isolate the USB source. My portable setup is the Mojo fed with a sony DAP. With any of them, the much bigger difference is what headphones and/or amps I pair them with. Definitely haven't heard enough difference that I'd see moving up to higher level multibit or higher level Chord stuff for more money. Any of these measurements isn't making me dislike the things I've got from Schiit, maybe I'd feel different if I'd bought a $2,400 DAC, but unless I'd already spent $10K on speakers, I'd never do that.

I will say I like all these better than my first portable DAC, the Oppo HA-2. That one had a pretty audible noise floor with sensitive headphones, and not really enough power to drive things like planar magnetics or 300 Ohm dynamics.
 
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amirm

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I will say I like all these better than my first portable DAC, the Oppo HA-2. That one had a pretty audible noise floor with sensitive headphones, and not really enough power to drive things like planar magnetics or 300 Ohm dynamics.
Yeh, once you have audible noise, you know you have a bad product for the application.
 
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