Schiit Eitr Preview Thread

Torq offered to order up a new pair.

 

I wonder if you can use the Lynx AES16e to insert an external room correction processor like the MiniDSP DDRC22D into the playback chain. If you can setup the Lynx mixer to do a processor loop / AES insert, the PCI express card remains useful for stereo.

 

That's not what I asked, or why I asked it. I was poking at a whole different can of worms

 

Going to beat the dead horse here, but in terms of tonality,

I spent all of yesterday feeding my home rig with Optical out of my iRvier H140. My PC died and needed fixing and thankfully I had the H140 to run into my dac,

Non the less, I spent most of the day listening to Metallica, all of their older albums before Cliff passed, and... the high hats and cymbals were obnoxious thin and lifeless, more so than I've noticed before.

My home PC is up again so the Etir is feeding my system again, and the biggest difference I'm noticing is up top. Optical into my NFB10ES2 gives me a very hard... thin top end, high hat and cymbals in particular were down right... distracting... like listening to jingle bells! Non the less, switching into the same albums today with both the LCD XC and Eikon out of both the iCan Micro SE and the Ember II the top end has better definition, transients maintain a good edge, and the top end overall doesn't sound so thin and lifeless, though these albums... are some of the worst to listen to, still the Etir is fleshing out these song nicely, that and the micro detail... listening to The Thing That Should Not Be... and yet again here's something I've never heard before!

@Abraham Lincoln and @Torq if you guys decide to measure it cool, if not... also cool. I'm with @Torq I've not noticed a BIG change in how the Etir sounds since I plugged it in., but no changes in it over the last few days. The improvements it made were pretty easily discernible and were immediate recognized quickly, today's observations come from going BACK to Optical and noticing how bad it is... I didn't notice a big improvement in the highs on my first day listening, and I also enjoyed Metallica's ...Shortest Straw, from the Kill 'Em All, another track I suffered through yesterday via optical in

 

As an aside, the harder to find early CD releases of their 2nd and 3rd albums are supposed to be much better than all subsequent releases and "remasters". I've been lazy about trying to get a hold of them on eBay to find out for myself how much better they really are.

 

Be careful if you decide to get the early CDs. There was a "secret remaster" in 1995 that look like the original 1989 Elektras. (The 1995s are really peak limited, aka "Loud".)

How to tell the difference - link.

 

My two first two CD's were from Telarc, an 1812 overture recording from the London Philharmonic, and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, and god those were some awful harsh recordings. Ear bleeding. I keep them for reference, how far digital has come.

 

Isn't there a DCC release of Ride the Lightning? That should sound good.

 

Yeah, and "Master Of Puppets". They are controversial because they are not as dynamic as the originals. Steve Hoffman said he did not use any peak limiting/compression and I believe him. But something happened...

It kind of reminds me of the MFSL "Yes - The Yes Album". A respected mastering engineer (the name escapes me) said he did not use peak limiting/compression nor bass eq, yet it sounds (and looks) quite compressed and has huge bass. (Although with that one there were not reference test tones for the Dolby A tape, so it had to be set by ear.)

 

I'm attempting to use the Squeezebox Touch -> Eitr, but not having any luck. The Squeezebox sees the Eitr, but it just keeps rebooting in a cycle.

 

I have been listening through an Eitr/Yggdrasil combo all day. I can say that this little box sounds every bit as good, and maybe a bit better, than the LPS-1 powered ISO Regen/Singxer F-1 combination I have used previously. That's $855 versus $179. The "better" part is the bass. There is the same clarity and detail with the bass but with more fullness and depth.

The Eitr work wonders with Modi Multibit too!

Edit: Forgot to add in the cost of the Singxer F-1!

 

I saw this USB Gen 5 self-install post on Head-Fi. I'm not sure if the "not a trivial job" is only Yggdrasil specific or not. Jason was responding to a poster with Yggdrasil. (Also to endless "When?" posts.)

@schiit on Head-Fi

 

It's a little bit harder than installing a PCI card in your desktop because it has a bunch pins and it's tricky to line up, but if you're ok with installing a new motherboard in a 90s era Thinkpad, this would be a piece of cake.

 

Largely specific to Yggdrasil, which is quite a bit more complicated than the rest of our stuff. Gungnir LEDs are also a bitch to line up. And, of course, the usual static-mitigation stuff needs to be followed. And it's really best if this is done by someone who's familiar with our stuff, or who is a technician who's going to take responsibility if something goes wrong.

Because, if something goes wrong--if the upgrade doesn't work for some reason, or some part of the product goes dead, etc, literally the only thing we can do is say, "Send it back to us, we'll take a look and fix it."

This means you'll be paying shipping anyway, plus installation charges, plus any necessary repairs. We've had some pretty incredible stuff come in for repair, including a Mjolnir where the MOSFETs were removed by drilling the screws out of the chassis and the potentiometer (a 4-gang Alps RK27) was sheared in half when the guy ripped the board out. This required replacement of metal and many components to make right.

Also, very importantly: legally, all of our gear reads "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE." The moment we start invalidating that by saying, "Sure, go ahead and do it yourself," we've opened ourselves up for all sorts of amazing dates with legal-type people. Some of which might end up taking the company down, after someone decides to do the upgrade...while the product was plugged in...while sitting in the bathtub. So please excuse me if I err on the side of caution.

So, to be clear: upgrades are for qualified professional installation only.

 

It only takes a little bit of stupid to wreck a whole lot of smart.

Just wondering... is Gen5 coming to the Jotunheim USB dac module? It's mighty small, so I'm betting space constraints might mean no.

 

Heads Up: Eitr and USB Gen 5 upgrade are now available from Schiit in the UK (Electromod).

I've ordered the upgrade and will likely be sending my Gungnir Multibit in soon. I will report back with comparisons to my M-Audio Audiophile 192 BNC setup in due course.

 

Schiit Europe also features the Gen 5 upgrade for €159 available now.

The Eitr will be available late August for €185.

 

I asked about self-install, it should be orderable on Friday..

 

Thanks for that! I was going to ask Dennis at Schiit EU about just that today.

Shipping the Yggdrasil from Malta to Netherlands will probably cost twice the price of the USB board. Not worth the money and risk. It's either self install or Eidr for me.