Schiit Modi Multibit

Skippy
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. I've had exactly one [1] correspondence with Nick. He got back with me the next day.

I'd purchased the Modi 2 Uber just before the release of the Modi Mulitbit - two days past the 15 day review process. I contacted Nick and asked if it would be possible to exchange it since I had explicitly asked him in my earlier email about their NEW product line in the Fall [if what I would be better served to wait]. He encouraged me to order NOW.

I questioned him about our previous correspondence. My reply was returned by Laura who in a detailed email explained that due to confidentiality contracts all employees were not permitted to discuss new product releases. She said Schiit was approving returns for all Modi 2 Uber dacs purchased in the last 30 days. Great news, I packed up the Modi and placed my order for the Multibit the same day. That was Monday, took delivery of the Mutibit one week later and received my refund the following week.
 
Dave1701,

I had the same driver installation problems as you. After a few attempts, I opened Hardware Manager to see if Windows even detected the Modi. Under "Audio inputs and outputs" was a listing that showed it was working properly and drivers were installed. I have no idea why the installation software failed, but my Schiit plays and sounds great.

Jon
 
Two days later and "Nick T." has emailed me back after my second attempt at communication and told me to read the FAQ (something that I explicitly stated that I had already done in my first message), make sure there are no other drivers installed, and make sure that I'm using a USB 2.0 cable... There was no apology or explanation of why my first attempt at contacting the company was ignored and the emails I've gotten from their tech support have been 2 sentences or less.

I really can't believe that this is what you get when you buy a $260 piece of audio equipment from a small company. I just want a unit that works and now I am close to returning the thing out of spite for the surprisingly terrible service.

Maybe they are giving me a run around because I bought their "budget" unit? For me $250 is a lot of money. How much do I have to spend to be taken seriously?

Did you look to see if the drivers were already downloaded? I had the same problem with my windows 10 laptop until I discovered that the drivers had already downloaded. I connected it to another laptop with windows 10 and it automatically downloaded on that one as well.
 
Got my Modi multibit today in the mail and have been playing it for 6 hours now. Was a breeze setting up, with zero drivers to be manually loaded. Windows saw it right away, and JRiver figured it out with just a reboot. As for the sound, it has been getting better and better, and is a marked improvement over my original Modi. I have a playlist with about 5 hours of music that I run for critical listening and I am very familiar with all of it. It has been very pleasing to be hearing things, little faint details seemingly for the first time. Definitely a keeper! Sorry to hear the troubles some are having, and I don't know why I was spared from the drivers debacle. Maybe it is my operating system being up to date. Running win 10.
 
No. Just responding to the travails of the OP, an unhappy owner. His experienced put them on my Shiit list.
That's cool. If I was having problems that were not being addressed it would be sent out with the next days mail. I am glad that is not the case with me because this tiny box is really making my big old speakers sing!
 
No. Just responding to the travails of the OP, an unhappy owner. His experienced put them on my Shiit list.

Skippy
cheers.gif
. I've had exactly one [1] correspondence with Nick. He got back with me the next day.

I questioned him about our previous correspondence. My reply was returned by Laura who in a detailed email explained that due to confidentiality contracts all employees were not permitted to discuss new product releases. She said Schiit was approving returns for all Modi 2 Uber dacs purchased in the last 30 days. Great news, I packed up the Modi and placed my order for the Multibit the same day. That was Monday, took delivery of the Mutibit one week later and received my refund the following week.

For the record, the OP, MikE, stated above that his CS experience was positive.
 
I've got a Modi2 I ordered back at the first of the year. I really love it and wa planning to upgrade to Bitfrost next year and move the Modi2 to the second listening station. I'm certainly going to check out this new DAC but I'm still leaning toward the Bitfrost. My Yamaha 675 sounds wonderful through the optical and of course the Linux media server sounds great too.

I'd love to know how the Modi MB compares to the basic, sigma-delta Bifrost. They're close enough in price to make it a tough decision. And I suppose Schiit could eventually also include MB in the basic Bifrost...but the waiting is the hardest part!
 
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I'd love to know how the Modi MB compares to the basic, sigma-delta Bifrost. They're close enough in price to make it a tough decision. And I suppose Schiit could eventually also include MB in the basic Bifrost...but the waiting is the hardest part!

Here's some comments from the two Modi Multibit threads on Head-Fi.

"I own the Bifrost 4490 and the Modi Multibit. I prefer the Mobi. It's smoother and the imaging is much better."

"You'll see much controversy around "concrete" assessments (these things are very personal, different people have different sensitivities, etc.), but the gist of it is that many find Schiit R2R DACs to sound more "natural" or "realistic", with less "listening fatigue" and without "digital glare". I find such assessments especially convincing when coming from people with experience with live unamplified music or actual studio recordings (and who can compare the recording to the live performance they've assisted to), and/or have access to various DACs of ludicrous price tags yet still prefer the Schiit R2R presentation."

"I had Bifrost>Asgard 2>Alpha Prime, upgraded to the Bifrost to Multibit when that upgrade came out. I listen mostly to modern jazz and jazz-related music, West Africa, Middle East, early music, baroque, and modern classical. Wins from the upgrade: crisper attacks (percussion, guitar, piano), more sustained decays (guitar, piano, bass), clearer upper midrange (piano), better separation between instruments. Overall closer to live performances by the same musicians (I attend live shows pretty often)."

"I compared the 4490 [Bifrost] with the Multibit on my 2 channel speaker setup and found that both of these 2 DAC's sounded very similar, deciding to put the MB with the speaker system and the 4490 with my headphone system. While the 4490 sounded excellent with my headphone setup, once I swapped the DAC's I truly appreciated how much superior the MB sounded. Originally I didn't perceive as noticeable of an audible difference when comparing these DAC's on the 2 channel speaker system, but on a headphone system the difference is quite dramatic."
 
Originally I didn't perceive as noticeable of an audible difference when comparing these DAC's on the 2 channel speaker system, but on a headphone system the difference is quite dramatic."
I don't use headphones much except on the road, but find they can be quite revealing of the subtleties.
 
The guys that are saying just use the Windows driver may be onto something. The Schiit driver install directions say to hook up the dac and see if Windows installs the driver (that would be the MS driver).

So, I would unplug the dac, uninstall the Schiit driver, plug dac back in and try that. Like someone said above, look in device manager for it. C Media something.

My Bifrost is plugged into the nas (Linux) and I can see it there but it doesn't show up in W10 device manager.

Murray
 
Here's some comments from the two Modi Multibit threads on Head-Fi.

"I own the Bifrost 4490 and the Modi Multibit. I prefer the Mobi. It's smoother and the imaging is much better."

"You'll see much controversy around "concrete" assessments (these things are very personal, different people have different sensitivities, etc.), but the gist of it is that many find Schiit R2R DACs to sound more "natural" or "realistic", with less "listening fatigue" and without "digital glare". I find such assessments especially convincing when coming from people with experience with live unamplified music or actual studio recordings (and who can compare the recording to the live performance they've assisted to), and/or have access to various DACs of ludicrous price tags yet still prefer the Schiit R2R presentation."

"I had Bifrost>Asgard 2>Alpha Prime, upgraded to the Bifrost to Multibit when that upgrade came out. I listen mostly to modern jazz and jazz-related music, West Africa, Middle East, early music, baroque, and modern classical. Wins from the upgrade: crisper attacks (percussion, guitar, piano), more sustained decays (guitar, piano, bass), clearer upper midrange (piano), better separation between instruments. Overall closer to live performances by the same musicians (I attend live shows pretty often)."

"I compared the 4490 [Bifrost] with the Multibit on my 2 channel speaker setup and found that both of these 2 DAC's sounded very similar, deciding to put the MB with the speaker system and the 4490 with my headphone system. While the 4490 sounded excellent with my headphone setup, once I swapped the DAC's I truly appreciated how much superior the MB sounded. Originally I didn't perceive as noticeable of an audible difference when comparing these DAC's on the 2 channel speaker system, but on a headphone system the difference is quite dramatic."

Thanks, MikE. This is a helpful start. With D/A analog conversion technology changing so fast--and value-for-$ getting better all the time--I'm really tempted to try the Mimby MB. Certainly upgradabilty is important, but I can only imagine what the $600 Bifrost MB price tag will buy in a couple years.
 
I think my next Schitt purchase will be the Wyrd box. I now experience a faint buzzing heard mostly between tracks timed when the hard drive light flickers with the new Modi multibit that wasn't there with the old one. I am guessing it is from a different driver in use but I am stuck with it and now the buzz is there even with my old Modi. It goes away completely when I use the power saver option so not too concerned. Using high performance power setting the buzz is constant, "balanced" option is not much better. I am guessing the Wyrd would eliminate this RFI. If not there is a 2 week grace period to send it back.
 
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Just googled bimby. Apparently someone felt the need to make up a name for the sake of making up a name. Mimby too and don't forget Yiggy. Buzzing noises and a band $$ aid patch? No thanks.
That is a very inaccurate assumption IMHO. I am quite certain that the buzz I am hearing is from my cheap hp pc and not from the Modi mb. I say this because the noise is coming from my computer and is there even with the Modi switched off but gone as soon as I switch on the pc power saver setting or switch off the computer. If anyone doesn't want to deal with noise on their USB buss they should pony up for a computer with good components and design, or they could try $99 for the wyrd like I am probably going to.
http://schiit.com/news/news/wyrd-usb-decrapifier-launches
 
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IMO USB is not good for audio, unless you have a dedicated USB card for audio in your PC. Otherwise sharing the USB bus with mouse, keyboard, memory sticks, printers... receipt for disaster.
 
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