KOWHeigel
High Gear of Your Soul
I still haven't gotten such good news. Congrats! I am now anxiously awaiting this kind of email.
Schiit Bitfrost
- Thread starter KOWHeigel
- Start date
I still haven't gotten such good news. Congrats! I am now anxiously awaiting this kind of email.
Perhaps - but I didn't want to risk not getting my refund, or getting dinged a handling charge or something!
Its hard to tell from afar who is a a decent company, and who is characters ...
Got the refund promptly, they seem like good guys to me.
cosmoline
Member
The Schiit is in the house!
Congrats on your "shipped" status!. Mine came today, playing it now. Love it so far, although I will say the midi settings aren't clear to me. I'm using a 2011 Mac Mini with either usb or optical and Audirvana. when I'm playing a file the midi setting changes to the sound flower 2ch. setting. the Audirvana setting stays the same though. the music sounds good, I'm going through a lot of my favorite music (Kind of Blue, Madman Across the Water, Revolver etc.....) These are CD's ripped to flac.
More to follow
Congrats on your "shipped" status!. Mine came today, playing it now. Love it so far, although I will say the midi settings aren't clear to me. I'm using a 2011 Mac Mini with either usb or optical and Audirvana. when I'm playing a file the midi setting changes to the sound flower 2ch. setting. the Audirvana setting stays the same though. the music sounds good, I'm going through a lot of my favorite music (Kind of Blue, Madman Across the Water, Revolver etc.....) These are CD's ripped to flac.
More to follow
KOWHeigel
High Gear of Your Soul
I use linux for my compuer playback but make sure you are bypassing the "mixer" of your os for playback. The default sound setting for all OS's is to send sound to a mixer to be converted to (generally) 16/48 so you can have multiple sounds at once (think youtube and system sound [beep])
IN POST EDIT: It looks like audionirvana does bypass the mixer so you should be set there, I'm guessing your other program is not. Best of luck and keep us updated on your impressions.
cosmoline
Member
Bifrost update
Ok, so here goes.......The rig: Mac Mini running a clean install of OSX ML to USB to the Bifrost to the C28 to the MC 2105 to newly foamed and (rebuild of tweeters) Vandersteen 2C's. The software is Audirvana running with iTunes integrated. I have my flac files loaded on iTunes as proxy files only, and sharing enabled so I can see and control playback with apple's Remote app on the ipad. I also installed Real VNC on the Mini so I can update/configure remotely. The files reside on a 3 TB Nas which is networked on a gigabit Cisco switch with Cat 6. I'm ripping my CD collection as I type on an older Dell desktop converted to the latest Vortexbox setup. When the ripping is done I'll ftp all the newly ripped flac files from the VB to my Nas. I think you can set the VB to rip to a Nas but I don't know how yet.
So how does it sound? My first go to comparison was with the Grateful Dead's "American Beauty" on vinyl and a 24/96 file (HD tracks). The Bifrost can play! It sounds a little "bright" to me, I understand that with some burnin it will mellow out a bit. That aside, "Ripple" and "Candyman" sounded flawless. The guitars especially sounded crisp and clear. I played Miles' "Kind of Blue" 180 gram vinyl and a 16/44 file. Except for the "brightness" I thought that the flac files sounded great. Everything was crystal clear and precise. I tried The Black Keys' "The Moan" title song and that did not sound good to me. To be fair a lot of their stuff has that "garage band" sound and is a little fuzzy to begin with.
So that's my first week with the Schiit! Today I upgraded the USB cable to an Audioquest "Forrest". TTFN
Ok, so here goes.......The rig: Mac Mini running a clean install of OSX ML to USB to the Bifrost to the C28 to the MC 2105 to newly foamed and (rebuild of tweeters) Vandersteen 2C's. The software is Audirvana running with iTunes integrated. I have my flac files loaded on iTunes as proxy files only, and sharing enabled so I can see and control playback with apple's Remote app on the ipad. I also installed Real VNC on the Mini so I can update/configure remotely. The files reside on a 3 TB Nas which is networked on a gigabit Cisco switch with Cat 6. I'm ripping my CD collection as I type on an older Dell desktop converted to the latest Vortexbox setup. When the ripping is done I'll ftp all the newly ripped flac files from the VB to my Nas. I think you can set the VB to rip to a Nas but I don't know how yet.
So how does it sound? My first go to comparison was with the Grateful Dead's "American Beauty" on vinyl and a 24/96 file (HD tracks). The Bifrost can play! It sounds a little "bright" to me, I understand that with some burnin it will mellow out a bit. That aside, "Ripple" and "Candyman" sounded flawless. The guitars especially sounded crisp and clear. I played Miles' "Kind of Blue" 180 gram vinyl and a 16/44 file. Except for the "brightness" I thought that the flac files sounded great. Everything was crystal clear and precise. I tried The Black Keys' "The Moan" title song and that did not sound good to me. To be fair a lot of their stuff has that "garage band" sound and is a little fuzzy to begin with.
So that's my first week with the Schiit! Today I upgraded the USB cable to an Audioquest "Forrest". TTFN
KOWHeigel
High Gear of Your Soul
Got mine yesterday. Haven't had time for an extended listen yet. I'm letting it burn in by playing music through it while am away.
I did get a few minutes in and like what I hear so far but no where near enough time to make any detailed comments. Hopefully this weekend. Pictures will come with bigger write up.
I did get a few minutes in and like what I hear so far but no where near enough time to make any detailed comments. Hopefully this weekend. Pictures will come with bigger write up.
cosmoline
Member
Glad to hear that you finally got your package. I'm anxious to hear your impressions of the Dac. I'm still not done ripping my CD collection, I took a break for a couple of days. Sofar so good with mine, I've had a couple of pops and "tinny" sounds but for the most part the Dac is pretty solid.
Dr. Morbius
I.N.T.E.R.O.C.I.T.O.R.
I'm on the cusp of buying a Bifrost to share between my living room system and computer system so I'm interested in what everyone has to say about them.
Cheers! :beer:
Cheers! :beer:
Same here - I have been using the Bifrost between my Sonos Zoneplayer and my tube amp - I love the increased detail in the music over the Sonos' built in DAC. I can listen to this setup for hours.
I finally received my Bifrost last Tuesday after waiting about 3 weeks for the Schiit guys to crank them out. I plugged into my system using the USB input from a MacBook running Decibel. Cold out of the box it was pretty thin sounding. I started up Decibel and let it play continuously from the playlist from Tuesday to today. Wednesday I checked it and it was still pretty thin sounding. Thursday it started to open up and sound better. Today its sounding nice, rich and full sounding with real good detail. I am going to let run over the weekend and see how it sounds on Monday. It has about 72 hours of burn in time so far.
Yes - detail, detail and more detail. That's what I noticed when I began using the Bifrost. What initially I mistook as thinness, I later realized was more detail on the lower end - not just boominess anymore, but actual layers of LF that were more distinguishable than before.
100 hour check in on the Bifrost today. Sound still improving with more nuances of instruments and voice inflections coming through. Already surpassing my current Wolfson 8741 based DAC in dynamics and detail. I am pairing the Bifrost with a Pangea Silver USB cable which itself brings out a lot of high frequency detail on my other DAC.
cosmoline
Member
Lee,
Are you playing the Bifrost nonstop to get the hours in? Just wondering. Mine is going on two weeks now and I'm liking the crispness and detail more each day. I'm playing Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow (Cause we ended as lovers), and I can tell you with certainty that this cut is ripping it up! Very detailed in the bass and his guitar is sharp and precise. It's a cd rip so the flac file is going out at 16/44.1 never the less it sounds rich. I'm still using Audirvana but I stopped using it with iTunes integrated, too quirky. I tried my dell laptop with jriver and that combo sounded very good also.
Are you playing the Bifrost nonstop to get the hours in? Just wondering. Mine is going on two weeks now and I'm liking the crispness and detail more each day. I'm playing Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow (Cause we ended as lovers), and I can tell you with certainty that this cut is ripping it up! Very detailed in the bass and his guitar is sharp and precise. It's a cd rip so the flac file is going out at 16/44.1 never the less it sounds rich. I'm still using Audirvana but I stopped using it with iTunes integrated, too quirky. I tried my dell laptop with jriver and that combo sounded very good also.
grundigger
Well-Known Member
The SBT's internal DAC is pretty good, but the external DACs I tried with it improved the sound quite a bit (VALAB NOS DAC and Tubemagic D2). That said, I prefer my Vortexbox with a Hifimediy USB DAC (Sabre ES9023, Tenor TE7022, 96/24). The DAC was less than $60, shipped. Crazy . . .
pete_mac
Super Member
Likewise, the SBT internal DAC ain't bad, but it can easily be improved upon.
I recently sold my very decent DAC and reclocking combo (audio-gd Reference 5 and Empirical Audio Synchro Mesh) and am using the internal DAC once again. Quite a substantial backwards step! One thing is clear in my mind - I took for granted how decent my previous digital setup really was. I miss it massively!
I'm hoping to try the exact same Hifimediy DAC that you mention above via the SBT and EDO applet to see if the Hifimediy USB DAC is an improvement over the onboard SBT DAC. If this proves to be the case, it could be an interesting bang-for-buck upgrade!
Edit: sorry, this is a thread on the Bifrost and I'm drifting off-topic.
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Yes, the Bifrost is running non-stop being fed from a MacBook running Decibel. I check on its progress a couple times a day. It just keeps getting better and better sounding.
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