Schiit Magni Unity DAC/HP Amp Review

[Joe Smith]

I reached out to folks at Schiit today via their email to get their take on the review and how this Magni unit measured. They responded to me very quickly, summarized thus:

- They are 100% confident in the spec sheet & APx report on the Schiit website.
- What is posted on ASR is the opinion of Amir based off his APx settings and equipment. The serial number on that Magni is from July 2024, which was from well before Mesh was released. Unless whomever sent him that Magni upgraded the unit to Mesh of their own accord, he likely isn't measuring a Mesh DAC card.
- Schiit pulled a random Magni Unity and Mesh DAC today and measured 110dB SINAD on their APx525. They note that a bad/contaminated volume pot is a likely candidate for the observed sensitivity and channel mismatch.
- Schiit says if Amir wants a proper fresh-from-the-SMT-line Magni Unity with Mesh DAC to test, he is aware of the channels with which he can request one.

Again, I think the "piling on" in this thread is pretty unfortunate. Schiit makes many, many good products and have good customer service - I and many others feel this way. Yeah, for those of you that can afford Benchmark products, well, sure, be my guest. I'm sure they are great!

 

[Mocie]

Again, I think the "piling on" in this thread is pretty unfortunate

People on this forum have thousands of comments on this site only doing precisely this, its pretty par for the course to karma farm.

Jason noted elsewhere that regardless of the findings Amir ultimately recommended the Magni Unity and they've seen a pretty high number of sales on it since, so it's not like the review has had a bad impact - the total opposite, in fact. Theres a market for AIOs at this price point in the wake of the issues cropping up with the DX5II in the thread.

Thanks for clearing it up though, was definitely worth looking into.

@amirm if it was a custom job installing a Mesh DAC, are we sure the sender did so correctly? If its a 2024 there's a good chance it wasn't a Mesh unless it was a home job.

 

[johny_2000]

for good us made stuff jds labs reigns supreme. Schiit is just for audiophools now. I heard jds have better service compared to schiit as well so there's that.

I agree. Although they use similar components, JDS Labs produces higher quality products at equally low prices.

Schiit recently acquired its own automated production line for manufacturing printed circuit boards. However, they cannot manufacture their own enclosures and rely on contractors. JDS Labs, on the other hand, acquired CNC machines and manufactures the enclosures themselves, while outsourcing the production of printed circuit boards to contractors.

 

[amirm]

@amirm if it was a custom job installing a Mesh DAC, are we sure the sender did so correctly?

The "mesh" part was my doing as that was the option listed on Schiit website. As is the case with the unit itself, it is darn difficult to see what you are actually dealing with.

So are they saying there was a different DAC option going into this unit at one point vs what they are selling now? If so, I will take out the word "mesh" from the review.

 

[amirm]

- What is posted on ASR is the opinion of Amir based off his APx settings and equipment.

Opinion??? I am reporting on what my instrument is indicating. That by itself is not an opinion, it is a fact. They would do well to refrain from using such terminology.

 

[johny_2000]

Schitt has always been negative towards good measuring devices.

However, making good measuring devices has never been anything they claimed or someone like Jason Stoddard would aspire to do.

And now they are proud of it, calling themselves survivors of the war of measurements.

 

[amirm]

- Schiit says if Amir wants a proper fresh-from-the-SMT-line Magni Unity with Mesh DAC to test, he is aware of the channels with which he can request one.

Likewise, if they want their products reviewed to their liking, they should send me a sample rather than waiting for a customer to do that.

 

[Mocie]

So are they saying there was a different DAC option going into this unit at one point vs what they are selling now? If so, I will take out the word "mesh" from the review.

The Unity + Mesh DAC combo begun being sold in December 2025, as I understand it.

I believe it used to be the old Multibit DAC unit that could be included in the previous Magni, which is what @Joe Smith was suggesting may have been tested in this case instead of the newer Mesh version. Joe seems to be convinced it's a 2024 model you have here, which would be the Multibit and not the Mesh. If the unit was from someone who acquired the Unity after December 2025 then it is probably the Mesh DAC.

 

[johny_2000]

I believe it used to be the old Multibit DAC unit that could be included in the previous Magni, which is what @Joe Smith was suggesting may have been tested in this case instead of the newer Mesh version. Joe seems to be convinced it's a 2024 model you have here, which would be the Multibit and not the Mesh. If the unit was from someone who acquired the Unity after December 2025 then it is probably the Mesh DAC.

The Schiit Magni Unity hardware configuration for 2024 used the following:
DAC Chip: ESS ES9018, a standard delta-sigma chip.
USB Interface: Schiit’s proprietary Unison USB interface.
Availability: The Magni Unity was the only Magni model available in 2024 with an internal DAC option. It was introduced in late 2023 as the first modular Magni.
As of 2026, it is available with an optional Mesh DAC card, which uses a proprietary digital filter and ESS delta-sigma modulator to achieve what Schiit describes as its affordable "multibit" sound profile.

 

[Joe Smith]

The Unity + Mesh DAC combo begun being sold in December 2025, as I understand it.

I believe it used to be the old Multibit DAC unit that could be included in the previous Magni, which is what @Joe Smith was suggesting may have been tested in this case instead of the newer Mesh version. Joe seems to be convinced it's a 2024 model you have here, which would be the Multibit and not the Mesh. If the unit was from someone who acquired the Unity after December 2025 then it is probably the Mesh DAC.

Just to clarify, it's not my thought re age of the unit; Schiit service replied to me in an email that based on the visible serial number in the review photos, it was an earlier version of the Magni Unity amp - the serial number indicating when it would have been produced. Which would have had the earlier DAC card and not the "MESH" version, unless that purchaser upgraded the card themselves more recently (seems unlikely). That could probably be clarified with the person who loaned the item for review?

I asked Schiit if they would like to comment directly on this; they said no, but were fine with my passing on their remarks.

At the end of the exchange, that's when they indicated that if Amir wanted to request a review sample from them, he could do so. Not sure what their normal practice is. I was under the impression that they would want to send items to ASR for review, but perhaps that's not the case, iconoclasts that they are.

I don't mean to ruffle feathers, but sought to clarify things where possible, as I know the Magni is a product that many of us have owned (over the many different version cycles).

 

[Joe Smith]

I agree. Although they use similar components, JDS Labs produces higher quality products at equally low prices.

Schiit recently acquired its own automated production line for manufacturing printed circuit boards. However, they cannot manufacture their own enclosures and rely on contractors. JDS Labs, on the other hand, acquired CNC machines and manufactures the enclosures themselves, while outsourcing the production of printed circuit boards to contractors.

I love JDS Labs, have two of their product as well. Customer service, yes, is top of class, absolutely. But re your comment above, I'd rather a company make their own mainboards and farm out the making of the enclosures, if it came down to one or the other. But I'm sure JDS has a very reliable subcontractor on the boards, as their product is very reliable, based on my experience and what I've heard anecdotally.

(My only gripe in the past with Schiit has been scratchy volume pots on my Magni 3 and the original Fulla - they work, but need to be "exercised" after periods of non-use. I thought it was interesting that they brought up the volume pot issue as possibly contributing to some of the results Amir got. If their volume pots start to go wonky after only a year or so of use, that's not good news.)

EDITED: Meant to say MAGNI 3 above, the headphone amp, not MODI 3, which has no volume pot and passes a ~2v signal with no attenuation control.

 

[johny_2000]

My only gripe in the past with Schiit has been scratchy volume pots on my Modi 3 and the original Fulla - they work, but need to be "exercised" after periods of non-use. I thought it was interesting that they brought up the volume pot issue as possibly contributing to some of the results Amir got. If their volume pots start to go wonky after only a year or so of use, that's not good news.

Many DAC manufacturers have abandoned the use of true potentiometers for volume control in their products for the reasons you mentioned. Instead, they use digital volume control via DSP (and rotary encoders / apps), Relay-Controlled Volume with MCU or specialized volume control chips with a digital communication protocol, such as the NJW1194 (with an accuracy of +/- 0.5 dB at 0 dB volume). In this respect, Schiit is being old-fashioned again, perhaps to please audiophiles.

 

[Joe Smith]

Many DAC manufacturers have abandoned the use of true potentiometers for volume control in their products for the reasons you mentioned. Instead, they use digital volume control via DSP (and rotary encoders / apps) or specialized volume control chips with a digital communication protocol, such as the NJW1194 (with an accuracy of +/- 0.5 dB at 0 dB volume). In this respect, Schiit is being old-fashioned again, perhaps to please audiophiles.

Well, just to clarify, the volume pot is on the MAGNI headphone amps and the MAGNI +internal dac card. The standalone Schiit dacs (MODI, MIMIR, and up the line) don't have analog pots. Indeed, MODI has no volume control at all, MIMIR has Forkbeard digital volume control with the $50 add-on plug-in, the higher end models also largely incorporate Forkbeard now.

Corrected my post above, that comment was regarding the MAGNI 3 headphone amp, which does not include a dac.
Corrected this post to note the Forkbeard volume control availability (non-analog) on the models other than the MODI.

 

[Mocie]

MODI and MIMIR have no volume control at all, not sure how the higher end models handle that.

Forkbeard App, at least in the case of the Mimir. It's on most of their newer models now, the mesh card with the Jotunheim 3 has it too.

 

[johny_2000]

Forkbeard App, at least in the case of the Mimir.

If an application is involved, this means that the volume adjustment is performed in the digital domain using a digital signal processor (DSP).

 

[chilort]

Submits the unit as something it isn't. Gets called out. Blames the manufacturer.

This isn't really how I see it. But this thread could justifiably be framed this way.

"Oops, this was a modified device and we can't be sure a 2026 product would measure the same," wouldn't hurt

 

[Jimster480]

I reached out to folks at Schiit today via their email to get their take on the review and how this Magni unit measured. They responded to me very quickly, summarized thus:

- They are 100% confident in the spec sheet & APx report on the Schiit website.
- What is posted on ASR is the opinion of Amir based off his APx settings and equipment. The serial number on that Magni is from July 2024, which was from well before Mesh was released. Unless whomever sent him that Magni upgraded the unit to Mesh of their own accord, he likely isn't measuring a Mesh DAC card.
- Schiit pulled a random Magni Unity and Mesh DAC today and measured 110dB SINAD on their APx525. They note that a bad/contaminated volume pot is a likely candidate for the observed sensitivity and channel mismatch.
- Schiit says if Amir wants a proper fresh-from-the-SMT-line Magni Unity with Mesh DAC to test, he is aware of the channels with which he can request one.

Again, I think the "piling on" in this thread is pretty unfortunate. Schiit makes many, many good products and have good customer service - I and many others feel this way. Yeah, for those of you that can afford Benchmark products, well, sure, be my guest. I'm sure they are great!

It is always funny how protective people are of a brand literally called schiit. it isn't like they are hiding what they do.
Maybe they will send a new test sample or preferably someone else legit can obtain an actually random one and send it in here again so they don't cherry pick to look better.
They are completely dishonest people in every regard.
Benchmark isn't the only brand, JDS Labs is a better brand (then Schiit). I don't get peoples interest in this Schiit brand. They make trash and always have excuses for their trash.

Schiit Happened: The Story of the World's Most Improbable Start-Up

Phasing? I can get from really deep drop beats at these timing points to not much at all depending on where I stand in relation to distance from my system. Noting I can go as far back as 30 feet or more back in a big room. So room gain too plays a part. Perhaps the Yggy is in opposite phase...

www.head-fi.org

^just tons of marketing fluff for them to make an excuse to put a 10 year old DAC chip in a brand new product and call it innovation, while lying about their "homegrown USB" and claiming that it is the only purpose built audio USB solution (which is completely false and fabricated).

People on this forum have thousands of comments on this site only doing precisely this, its pretty par for the course to karma farm.

Jason noted elsewhere that regardless of the findings Amir ultimately recommended the Magni Unity and they've seen a pretty high number of sales on it since, so it's not like the review has had a bad impact - the total opposite, in fact. Theres a market for AIOs at this price point in the wake of the issues cropping up with the DX5II in the thread.

Thanks for clearing it up though, was definitely worth looking into.

@amirm if it was a custom job installing a Mesh DAC, are we sure the sender did so correctly? If its a 2024 there's a good chance it wasn't a Mesh unless it was a home job.

This is how forums work, I know that Schiit-ites don't like this type of stuff because they can't control this forum the way they control Head-Fi and SBAF. So here brands actually have to face scrutiny. Overall if the device is supposed to have a simple DAC card to be plugged in, there should be no reason why a user buying the DAC Card (which is sold on the Schiit website) causes the performance to be different.
While I agree that there is a market for AIO's at this price; Schiit isn't the brand you want to purchase.

The Unity + Mesh DAC combo begun being sold in December 2025, as I understand it.

I believe it used to be the old Multibit DAC unit that could be included in the previous Magni, which is what @Joe Smith was suggesting may have been tested in this case instead of the newer Mesh version. Joe seems to be convinced it's a 2024 model you have here, which would be the Multibit and not the Mesh. If the unit was from someone who acquired the Unity after December 2025 then it is probably the Mesh DAC.

The Multibit wasn't what went into this case. I can't find anything else that supposedly went into this case other than a 9018 DAC. I can't find any details on what makes the Mesh DAC different and if it uses a different DAC chip then the one they originally posted about themselves.

Likewise, if they want their products reviewed to their liking, they should send me a sample rather than waiting for a customer to do that.

I wouldn't trust any "sample" sent by them, if they sent one then one from the shelves would also need to be sent.

Submits the unit as something it isn't. Gets called out. Blames the manufacturer.

This isn't really how I see it. But this thread could justifiably be framed this way.

"Oops, this was a modified device and we can't be sure a 2026 product would measure the same," wouldn't hurt

This is just a complete fabrication. It isn't a modified device, this is why Schiit is a dishonest company. They sell the DAC separate from the amp and the customer installed the DAC which is in accordance with their website. This just means that Schiit has sold more garbage and that the DAC when installed by a customer doesn't work properly.

The Schiit Magni Unity hardware configuration for 2024 used the following:
DAC Chip: ESS ES9018, a standard delta-sigma chip.
USB Interface: Schiit’s proprietary Unison USB interface.
Availability: The Magni Unity was the only Magni model available in 2024 with an internal DAC option. It was introduced in late 2023 as the first modular Magni.
As of 2026, it is available with an optional Mesh DAC card, which uses a proprietary digital filter and ESS delta-sigma modulator to achieve what Schiit describes as its affordable "multibit" sound profile.

Yep, from what I see the only thing they changed was offering the DAC separate from the Amp as its own purchase.

 

[amirm]

"Oops, this was a modified device and we can't be sure a 2026 product would measure the same," wouldn't hurt

There is nothing modified about the device. Owner sent in the product. The labeling says the same thing as 10 years ago with completely different guts ("Magni"). I looked up what it says on company website and it says it has Mesh DAC as an option so I listed it as such. If it has a different DAC, then the company is at fault for not being clear about model numbers and name.

Either way, this is a production product from Schiit and sold to a customer. It has issues that I listed from less than state of the art performance and large variability in measurements. None of its competitors had problems like this in 2024 or even earlier.

 

[amirm]

This isn't really how I see it. But this thread could justifiably be framed this way.

Only if you let the marketing/PR department put on their tap dancing shoes. I consider company's response condescending, rude and non constructive. Sadly this is rather typical for them. They have routinely refused to accept flaws in their products. A story is always given, blame never accepted. See this thread as an example of a number of such attempts: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/schiit-saga-grounding-and-hum-issues.4737/

For a bit, they decided to work toward better performing products, even offered samples to be reviewed. That resulted in much better products, leading me to highly recommend them. Testing of this Magni tells me they are going backward, and with the same attitude they used to have ("we are great at PR in forums so could care less."). Seeing how our members and visitors have so many excellent choices, it is no bother for us. But a shame to see one of the few US companies losing sight of where they should go when it comes to building high fidelity, high value products.

 

[Mocie]

I don't get peoples interest in this Schiit brand. They make trash and always have excuses for their trash.

Considering the head reviewer and owner of the forum disagrees with this extreme position, I'd say this is facts > feelings. See:

For a bit, they decided to work toward better performing products, even offered samples to be reviewed. That resulted in much better products, leading me to highly recommend them.

I also think getting wound up about PR is pretty embarrassing in general. You're not being sold snake oil here, this is a product which is being recommended by the head reviewer. You're easily the most tribalistic poster in this thread from what I've read.

The Multibit wasn't what went into this case.

Yeah you're right, we worked out it was whatever ESS they threw into those models (as you noted). I think it warrants a re-test to be sure with the 2026 to see if anything DAC performance wise, but that isn't on anyone to chase up here. Amir made title changes to reflect it was an older unit - I think an extra disclaimer it is the previous model would be fair, but that's not my place to say either. The amp review, at the least, should still 1:1 the current model being sold as it was only a DAC change.

If it is ultimately just the exact same DAC chip but renamed to seem different, I feel like that's something you'd want to test for to expose. Just my two cents there.

This isn't really how I see it. But this thread could justifiably be framed this way.

I think this is a genuine concern, I get nobody HAS to do it but I think acting in better faith and being above it is always the better call, hence why I thought it was important to note the older DAC being reviewed here. The amp review still holds up though, don't think anything would change this.

Only if you let the marketing/PR department put on their tap dancing shoes. I consider company's response condescending, rude and non constructive. Sadly this is rather typical for them.

This is just always gonna tie back to the stigma and sentiment from the OG Yggy measurement (for both sides), hence why I think the suggestion was to just be the bigger person with notating the older product. It's not even like the review was diminishing, the final conclusion was ultimately a 'buy'. I think some people might just view it as misleading not to note that it was a 2024 version of the product now that we have all the facts.

While I agree that there is a market for AIO's at this price; Schiit isn't the brand you want to purchase.

I suspect the timing of this review syncs up with it becoming more recommended as the DX5II failure rate seems to keep spiking. The last 50+ pages of that thread are either troubleshooting firmware breaking it every time it is patched, or people reporting failures/breakage. JDS are great, I own the Element 4 - it's also priced at a premium compared to the Magni Unity and the DX5II, for both the Core ecosystem and the warranty coverage (John Seaber is worth every penny). It's closer to the Jotunheim 3 if we're going to do fair comparisons.

I guess Fiio and iFi are the alternatives? I'm not familiar with their price point right now. But I don't think the ultra cheap AIO market is that diverse, it's either stacks or cheaper dongles beneath this.

Either way tl;dr I feel like it'd go a long way just to mention it was their 2024 DAC at the top of the review. I think it'd be a fun test to see if it is just a renamed chip or if the 2026 offering performed better. I'm also a zoomer and you've been doing this for god knows how many years so don't let me tell you what to do.