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Measurement and Review of Schiit BiFrost Multibit DAC

Wombat

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I wonder why the improvement(or difference) is only noticed on a few tracks rather than in general? o_O
 
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FrivolsListener

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I wonder why the improvement(or difference) is only noticed on a few tracks rather than ingeneral? o_O

Well, in my opinion, it's partially that I'm no "golden ear", and partially that there aren't that many well-recorded albums in my collection. IIRC, the album that got my attention actually won awards for it's quality. Not many good albums were made in 1985, and with the severe compression used in the loudness war, it hasn't gotten any better.

Others post the link. Not me.

Every picture had the link name, and you said you were discussing it here. By name. One google search (which really wasn't needed) and here I am. Searching for "schiit" let met get a little feel of the lay of the land here, before I posted.
 

mindbomb

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Ultimately, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and what persuaded me that there might be something to this multibit crap was when I had a, "Holy crap! Where did *that* come from?" revelation in an otherwise unremarkable piece of music.

I think it is naive to believe that the bifrost multibit was made because schiit thought it sounded good. They probably knew of the performance issues. It seems like they just wanted desperately to tell the story about how they are using an industrial dac, talk about military and medical applications, and how other dacs have a low bit depth. The fact that performance took a back seat to this is what I think is so scandalous about the situation. Well, other than Mike being caught lying about the glitch and linearity issues being fixed.
 

rebbiputzmaker

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I wonder why the improvement(or difference) is only noticed on a few tracks rather than ingeneral? o_O
Well from my experience there are thing I listen for (certain cues) different instruments etc that I can the differentiate between the DACs I prefer and the ones I do not. The one I do not like do a bad job (unnatural harmonic presentation) that is clearly noticeable to me. ymmv.
 

FrivolsListener

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I think it is naive to believe that the bifrost multibit was made because schiit thought it sounded good. They probably knew of the performance issues. It seems like they just wanted desperately to tell the story about how they are using an industrial dac, talk about military and medical applications, and how other dacs have a low bit depth. The fact that performance took a back seat to this is what I think is so scandalous about the situation. Well, other than Mike being caught lying about the glitch and linearity issues being fixed.

I gather, then, that you think Mike is a charlatan. Is that true of his whole career? Other than his work at Schiit, how is his career regarded?

And, from watching from the outside, the first multibit DAC they did was Yggdrassil (sp!), then Gungnir, then Bifrost, then Modi. Yggdrassil was (and is) supposed to be their "statement" DAC. If he wanted to make a statement, there certainly were other ways of doing it.
 

Wombat

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Well from my experience there are thing I listen for (certain cues) different instruments etc that I can the differentiate between the DACs I prefer and the ones I do not. The one I do not like do a bad job (unnatural harmonic presentation) that is clearly noticeable to me. ymmv.

If you prefer a lesser performing DAC via your hearing that is fine as a personal opinion. But, your hearing discrimination capability is an unknown quantity to others so your opinion can be seen as an isolated one.
Do some study on physical hearing limitations and the area of psychoacoustics. The impact of these processes appear to be somewhat missing from your listening session conclusions
 
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FrivolsListener

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I wonder why the improvement(or difference) is only noticed on a few tracks rather than in general? o_O

Well from my experience there are thing I listen for (certain cues) different instruments etc that I can the differentiate between the DACs I prefer and the ones I do not. The one I do not like do a bad job (unnatural harmonic presentation) that is clearly noticeable to me. ymmv.

Also this. The instrument that caught my attention was a tambourine. It sounded... like a tambourine. Not like distorted hash. Another track that caught my attention was a well-recorded piano. Again, it sounded like a piano. I'll let someone else pour out the flowery superlatives if they want. What I heard was the instruments, not something that sounded like a recording of the instruments.

Does that make sense?
 

maul

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I gather, then, that you think Mike is a charlatan. Is that true of his whole career? Other than his work at Schiit, how is his career regarded?

And, from watching from the outside, the first multibit DAC they did was Yggdrassil (sp!), then Gungnir, then Bifrost, then Modi. Yggdrassil was (and is) supposed to be their "statement" DAC. If he wanted to make a statement, there certainly were other ways of doing it.

I think it's obvious that they're pushing multibit down to the cheapest price point possible, potentially without regard to performance issues. It's a great marketing tactic, "ours is multibit, everything else in this price range isn't" - instant differentiation. Their site is filled with brilliant sales copy, this whole "we're really clever, and hey, if you don't want this awesomely great thing then don't buy it, haha" reverse psychology spiel. They've built up this kind of clever, cool underdog vibe of an audio company who releases amazing products at affordable prices, and people have definitely bought into it. Sometimes a reality check is needed, to separate the fluff from the truth.
 

FrivolsListener

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I think it's obvious that they're pushing multibit down to the cheapest price point possible, potentially without regard to performance issues. It's a great marketing tactic, "ours is multibit, everything else in this price range isn't" - instant differentiation. Their site is filled with brilliant sales copy, this whole "we're really clever, and hey, if you don't want this awesomely great thing then don't buy it, haha" reverse psychology spiel. They've built up this kind of clever, cool underdog vibe of an audio company who releases amazing products at affordable prices, and people have definitely bought into it. Sometimes a reality check is needed, to separate the fluff from the truth.

You skipped the first question -- How is Mike Moffat regarded?

Yes, Jason writes clever marketing, but that's not how I heard of Schiit or why I have their stuff. After looking around here, there's an inexpensive DAC I want to try, to see if it lives up to the praise it got here.
 

mindbomb

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I think it's obvious that they're pushing multibit down to the cheapest price point possible, potentially without regard to performance issues.

Yea, I think this is what happened. I don't think you even have to qualify it with "potentially".
 

Wombat

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Quite frankly, I don't give a rat's arse whether individuals subjectively prefer one DAC over another.
I do care that the forum is getting threads full of lengthy diversion including circular arguments from 'but I can hear it' proponents who argue from an individual subjective experience without accountability.

That is not what this forum is about.
 
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Thomas savage

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You skipped the first question -- How is Mike Moffat regarded?

Yes, Jason writes clever marketing, but that's not how I heard of Schiit or why I have their stuff. After looking around here, there's an inexpensive DAC I want to try, to see if it lives up to the praise it got here.
Well if you can do double blind listening tests, never mind about preference just see if you can reliably tell the difference first then we will be ‘all ears’.

Otherwise your subjective conclusions mean absolutely nothing here, I know that sound harsh but we all know how inherently faulty sighted listening is. You may well hear a difference or to be more precise related to the sound differently, who knows why but the resulting conclusions mean absolutely nothing minus any controls in the process . ( on this forum ).
 

Thomas savage

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Well from my experience there are thing I listen for (certain cues) different instruments etc that I can the differentiate between the DACs I prefer and the ones I do not. The one I do not like do a bad job (unnatural harmonic presentation) that is clearly noticeable to me. ymmv.
Again this means absolutely nothing here, if you can differentiate between DAC’s under controlled listening conditions then we have a data point to investigate ( even then it’s a sample of one so not really much to write home about).

Your impressions might be valid, I mean as a result of a change in DAC performance but we have no clue if that’s true so there’s nothing of worth to discuss.

I know it sounds harsh, it bruises the ego to say ones own subjective opinions mean nothing and could just as well be a delusion but there are many other forums on the internet that would love to hear all about your non substantiated subjective conclusions so don’t feel too bad just click away someplace else.
 

rebbiputzmaker

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Well if you can do double blind listening tests, never mind about preference just see if you can reliably tell the difference first then we will be ‘all ears’.

Otherwise your subjective conclusions mean absolutely nothing here, I know that sound harsh but we all know how inherently faulty sighted listening is. You may well hear a difference or to be more precise related to the sound differently, who knows why but the resulting conclusions mean absolutely nothing minus any controls in the process . ( on this forum ).
Have you done anything to help bring you to this conclusion? Listening/testing? Or is it just something you have just adopted as a belief system?
 

rebbiputzmaker

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Again this means absolutely nothing here, if you can differentiate between DAC’s under controlled listening conditions then we have a data point to investigate ( even then it’s a sample of one so not really much to write home about).

Your impressions might be valid, I mean as a result of a change in DAC performance but we have no clue if that’s true so there’s nothing of worth to discuss.

I know it sounds harsh, it bruises the ego to say ones own subjective opinions mean nothing and could just as well be a delusion but there are many other forums on the internet that would love to hear all about your non substantiated subjective conclusions so don’t feel too bad just click away someplace else.
You posted this boilerplate.
Again this means absolutely nothing here, if you can differentiate between DAC’s under controlled listening conditions then we have a data point to investigate ( even then it’s a sample of one so not really much to write home about).

Your impressions might be valid, I mean as a result of a change in DAC performance but we have no clue if that’s true so there’s nothing of worth to discuss.

I know it sounds harsh, it bruises the ego to say ones own subjective opinions mean nothing and could just as well be a delusion but there are many other forums on the internet that would love to hear all about your non substantiated subjective conclusions so don’t feel too bad just click away someplace else.
Yes done in Absolute controlled conditions!
 

tusing

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Have you done anything to help bring you to this conclusion? Listening/testing? Or is it just something you have just adopted as a belief system?

This isn't a "belief system"; double-blind testing is a staple of modern scientific comparison. It's the best method of testing we, as humans, have managed to come up with; as irreplaceable as the scientific method itself.

Without any objective measurements, your subjective comparisons are essentially useless without double-blind testing and a statistically significant conclusion. This isn't to say that your comparisons are wrong - just that they are untrustworthy.
 

tusing

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You skipped the first question -- How is Mike Moffat regarded?

Yes, Jason writes clever marketing, but that's not how I heard of Schiit or why I have their stuff. After looking around here, there's an inexpensive DAC I want to try, to see if it lives up to the praise it got here.

How Mike Moffat is regarded is entirely meaningless if their actual product is an engineering failure. If anything, products like this tarnish his and Schiit's reputation.
 

tusing

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I know that almost nobody takes ZeosPantera as anything more than an entertainer, but he telegraphed that multibit measures badly by uploading a video saying that the Modi Multibit was the only one that doesn't sound the same in a shootout against an iFi iOne and a JDS OL DAC. He said that it had more bass, which shouldn't be the case if it's transparent as the others. So it is very likely that it is similar to the Bifrost Multibit.

Zeos's subjective listening skills might actually be trustworthy - he also pointed out that the Bifrost MB wasn't anything impressive. As I mentioned earlier, there are two types of reviewers - ones that praised the Bifrost as "amazing", and ones that called it "alright" or "unimpressive". Zeos falls into the latter group, and the latter group is the one to pay attention to.
 

maul

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Even a broken clock is right twice a day - Zeos' listening skills are anything but trustworthy, quite the opposite. Tons of inaccuracies that don't match the frequency responses, etc. Not to mention he loves bloated, horribly distorted bass. So much so that he does such bizarre things like breaking the seal on Stax, killing sub bass and raising mid bass. Lots of other things I could mention. I would say he's probably the "reviewer" I trust least when it comes to their ears. Just throwing that out there...
 
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