Schiit Magni Unity DAC/HP Amp Review

[Billy Budapest]

Also, rated “not terrible.” Given Schiit’s excellent track record stretching back quite a few years, I expected better.

 

[Curupira]

A *consistently* excellent American made-and-designed product manufacturer is JDS Labs. They are just . . . wow! I’d like to see more products measured and evaluated here like they used to be.

And same with Geshelli. They seem to have disappeared from ASR, but they used to put out consistently great, American made and designed products.

So, more JDS Labs and Geshrllunproduftvreviews again, please!

The difference is that both Geschelli and JDS Labs aren´t bothered from using OP amps and known IC solutions. They make their selling points from casing (wood, volume knobs, tone controls, etc) and more features. Schiit does try the latter, but the main driving aspects of their releases is engineering feats and philosophy, mostly despite the SINAD race. For them, reaching above CD quality THD+N with a discrete circuitry and without resorting to a huge amount of negative feedback is preferable to just using OP amps and reaching 120dB SINAD. Add-in reinventing default industry solutions like off-the-shelf USB controllers and bluetooth models (or entire Delta Sigma ESS/AKM chips for that matter) with in-house patents and you get their descriptors/FAQ page.

The Unity, for instance, was a very personal project of Jason, as per the thread linked above, where he tried to reconcile the topology used in old Magni 3+ discrete and heresy/herectic.

 

[Joe Smith]

It's a shame. The Magni is a product that up until now, has brought a lot of people into the "Schiit universe." I have SIX Schiits: Magni 2 amp, Magni 3 amp, Modi 3 dac, Saga 2 preamp, the original Gjallarhorn speaker amp, and the (deeply flawed) original Fulla mini dac/amp (tons of noise from USB, only usable with a galvanic isolator such as a JDS Synapse in-line). All perform well.

The Mimir dac still a good product, I forget if Amir has reviewed it yet but the reviews I remember reading have been very positive.

I wonder if there were just too many design compromises getting their "mesh" dac version onto a small card that would fit inside the Magni casing? They have released a LOT of new products this year which always makes me wonder if they are doing as much pre-release testing as in years past.

Well, with these issues, it will be interesting to see if Schiit does update the product sooner rather than later. With so much good competition out there, bad reviews will affect their sales. The price point is very attractive, $200 versus a JDS Element for upwards of $500 (albeit with a lovely case, volume control, display and great specs).

There are a lot of people who do want a "one box" dac + amp for desktop use and that should be achievable now for $200 in an excellent way.

 

[Curupira]

I was referring to this specific product. At this price point no matter what words they throw into it audiophiles will not buy it because it is still so cheap.

You're wrong on that. Collectors and Schiit fans will buy most of their new designs if the engineering aspects are relevant enough to them. Biggest proof of this was the Schiit + NITSCH Magni Piety

Magni Piety

Schiit Collab Happens While traveling around SoCal, Christian met up with Schiit co-founder Jason Stoddard at Schiit's Valencia location. He got the chance to listen to an odd and interesting little amp. The Magni Piety ("Apostolic Edition" at the time) had the look of a Magni amp, but its...

nitschsound.com

It's a fully discrete 180 USD Magni that doesn't even clear 80dB SINAD and yet sold like hot pancakes (and still sells, on the second hand market) because of its 'warmth'.

 

[delta76]

You're wrong on that. Collectors and Schiit fans will buy most of their new designs if the engineering aspects are relevant enough to them. Biggest proof of this was the Schiit + NITSCH Magni Piety

Magni Piety

Schiit Collab Happens While traveling around SoCal, Christian met up with Schiit co-founder Jason Stoddard at Schiit's Valencia location. He got the chance to listen to an odd and interesting little amp. The Magni Piety ("Apostolic Edition" at the time) had the look of a Magni amp, but its...

nitschsound.com

It's a fully discrete 180 USD Magni that doesn't even clear 80dB SINAD and yet sold like hot pancakes (and still sells, on the second hand market) because of its 'warmth'.

As long as people are aware of that I don't see any problem with them buying it because of it is warm. People like tube amps as well for that. We usually forget that music is about preference and as long as music put a smile on your face it is fine for me, as long as they don't claim "secret sauce" or "musicality".
But back to the point, at this price point, i don't think Engineering at Schiit had much biggest to try a lot of thing. Just an adequate of a working dac+hp amp. everything else is likely marketing BS.

 

[Joe Smith]

You're wrong on that. Collectors and Schiit fans will buy most of their new designs if the engineering aspects are relevant enough to them. Biggest proof of this was the Schiit + NITSCH Magni Piety

Magni Piety

Schiit Collab Happens While traveling around SoCal, Christian met up with Schiit co-founder Jason Stoddard at Schiit's Valencia location. He got the chance to listen to an odd and interesting little amp. The Magni Piety ("Apostolic Edition" at the time) had the look of a Magni amp, but its...

nitschsound.com

It's a fully discrete 180 USD Magni that doesn't even clear 80dB SINAD and yet sold like hot pancakes (and still sells, on the second hand market) because of its 'warmth'.

Interesting, had not head of this, surprised that Schiit would allow for this kind of collaboration/side development. Looks like there is a new collab product about to launch based on the Piety, but larger, and priced at $599. Man, $600 buys a lot of warmth! For NITSCH, anyway.

 

[shuppatsu]

At this price point no matter what words they throw into it audiophiles will not buy it because it is still so cheap.

Que? Is this site not full of audiophiles buying cheap audio electronics?

 

[shuppatsu]

Schiit Magni Unity Headphone Listening Tests
I did some listening tests using my Dan Clark E3 headphone which has a 27 ohm impedance. Up to about 3:00 o'clock on the volume control, the sound was excellent on my reference tracks. Above that, which starts to become loud, distortion started to set in with sound getting brighter and crunchy. To be sure it was not the headphone, I switched back to my Topping DX5II unbalanced out. Not only the Topping get louder, it stayed gorgeously clean and produced dynamic range far beyond the Magni. I know, not a fair comparison given the $100 price difference but just making the point that the Magni is not the "end game" the company says it is.

I’m having trouble reconciling this report with the 32ohm THD/Power graph. The E3 isn’t *that* hard to drive, is it? 2+ watts of clean power at 32ohm would seemingly provide plenty of headroom for a 27ohm, ~100dB@1V headphone.

What am I missing?

 

[Mnyb]

W.t.f is a mesch DAC ? Clearly not as good as any random of the shelf chip

 

[delta76]

Que? Is this site not full of audiophiles buying cheap audio electronics?

I meant subjective audiophiles who believe in more expensive = better sound. Many members in this forum do not identify themselves as audiophiles but audio enthusiasts

 

[DSJR]

They keep trying 100 different ways to recreate the wheel, using all sorts of Proprietary Technologies™ with Funny Names™... Only to perform worst than common off the shelf solutions. To me it feels like it's the designer's hobby rather than designing a truly better competitive product. Same as Nelson Pass playing around with exotic designs in his First Watt amps.

I fear you're right here. Jason soon seems to get bored with established standard techniques - and in a way it's perhaps good that the company can afford this.

Thing is and I hope Jason et al can appreciate this, not all of 'us' regard these things as trinkets to play with and then discard when the next new box comes along. Come on fella, you know you can do better than merely 'good enough'

 

[David_M]

The -1dB linearity error at -120dB is greatly overstated. You'll be hearing a signal at -121dB instead of -120dB. No human is capable of hearing anything at such levels, let alone distinguishing between the two. Such signals are buried deep beneath an amplifier's thermal noise.

 

[Joe Smith]

W.t.f is a mesch DAC ? Clearly not as good as any random of the shelf chip

MESH - a proprietary reconstruction filter that Schiit folks claim is better than others..."combining our own unique time- and frequency-domain optimized digital filter with an ESS delta-sigma modulator. Backed up by OPA1656 op-amps and optimized filtering using film capacitors and precision thin-film resistors..."

 

[Power Pop 23]

W.t.f is a mesch DAC ? Clearly not as good as any random of the shelf chip

No, the performance of the DAC of the Schiit Magni Unity does not merit consideration as a mensch amongst other implementations.

A little closer to mush.....

 

[oleg87]

As long as people are aware of that I don't see any problem with them buying it because of it is warm. People like tube amps as well for that. We usually forget that music is about preference and as long as music put a smile on your face it is fine for me, as long as they don't claim "secret sauce" or "musicality".
But back to the point, at this price point, i don't think Engineering at Schiit had much biggest to try a lot of thing. Just an adequate of a working dac+hp amp. everything else is likely marketing BS.

Well, except it's not warm - the whole "tube sound" thing is pure power of suggestion.

Which is also fine, people have to earn a living somehow, and I think Schiit has well-spec'd and well-priced models in their lineup alongside the more subjectivist-targeted equipment. The Unity also seems like a solid enough product to me - though I really would prefer a DAC module that has the full suite of common digital inputs.

 

[Adamant11746]

I bought this recently. I have to admit I was expecting slightly better measurements, although not a ton better (except for the low impedance weakness, which was pretty surprising). However, I'm still happy with my purchase because A) outside of demanding, low impedance loads at high volumes there aren't any truly audible problems and B) Schiit is the only US manufacturer in my budget that had the combination of features I was looking for. I agree with @amirm's panther choice, although if there were a couple more US based options with similar prices and feature sets I'd be harsher.

PS: The requirements I had were separate volume and power (which eliminates the JDS Atom stack), and integrated usb DAC for a very crowded desk (which eliminates both the JDS and the Geshelli options). I also didn't want to spend much more than $200, and I wanted easy to use controls (which eliminated some of the 1 knob options like the FiiO K11, Topping DX3 Pro+, and the various SMSL DAC/amps). The fact that even if something goes wrong Schiit has a decent reputation for customer service AND is based in the US for ease of shipping back was a bonus.

 

[oleg87]

Looks like this product is at "end of life". Schiit is listing it now as "last call". No longer in their product line up depending where and how you look (search engine).

Huh? Only thing I'm seeing under "last call" is the Lyr. The Magni is where it usually is in their lineup.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Thanks for the excellent review, Amir. To me, this one seems "not terrible" and maybe a little overpriced. I don't think most people will be playing their phones above 3pm level, as least not for any appreciable length of time, unless they want to invest in Apple AirPods Pro 3's as hearing aids. But nonetheless it's bad hygiene to suboptimize a design when it costs so little to makes it flawless. And the lack of a volume indicator is a major sin, IMHO. So maybe a "not bad" verdict.

 

[amirm]

I’m having trouble reconciling this report with the 32ohm THD/Power graph. The E3 isn’t *that* hard to drive, is it? 2+ watts of clean power at 32ohm would seemingly provide plenty of headroom for a 27ohm, ~100dB@1V headphone.

What am I missing?

I don't know. That is why I ran the same test with the same song with Topping. Testing wasn't blind so maybe I am imagining it.

 

[amirm]

Looks like this product is at "end of life". Schiit is listing it now as "last call". No longer in their product line up depending where and how you look (search engine).

You sure you searched for Unity version? I searched again and it is there and as I noted, it says it is end game product. No sign of being discontinued.