Magni 3+ and Magni 3 Heresy released

That's also what I love about them, and why I buy all their schiit! The clear amount of passion they have for what they do! It's better to start out doing something for fun and find a balance than start out doing something entirely for business and never have the passion to actually do a good job.

Honestly, perfect channel matching is more important to me than volume precision, so even just a regular switched set of resistors with only a couple positions would be good enough for me, but that's just my use case. I'm not fussy about what volume things are. I only really want volume...in general. I recognize that I'm in the minority.

 

I can appreciate the sentiment expressed here. The concern I would have is about a company like Schiit becoming too "customer-centric" in the long run. To me that's almost a euphemism here for "APx555-approved." What you call customer-centric can also be seen as a race to the bottom, in the sense of engineering artistry and skill. Can you imagine how f'ing boring the hifi space would be right now if it weren't for Schiit? Jason and Mike, with the exception of Chord and a few others, are nearly the only guys in the industry not making cookie-cutter, datasheet-xerox, me-too, who-gives-a-shit designs. That's the corrosive effect of measurement extremism. VERY few companies have the balls to commit to a product strategy that isn't beholden to a handful of easily digestible (or regurgitate-able) numbers on a spec sheet. It's absolutely mind-boggling that ASR's preferred substitute for Schiit products over the past couple of years has been Topping. f'ing seriously?! Can you imagine what the audio landscape would look like if companies aspired to emulate Topping? Sadly, that's what the future may look like when engineers like Jason and Mike decide to hang it up. It's what the present would look like too if Schiit weren't around. So sure, I think it's great that Schiit has decided to take steps to become more "customer-centric" in the sense of reaching out to some of these young audiophiles who are just beginning their journey. But I hope that their audio explorations lead them beyond Topping and Magni Heresy, so that listeners can wake up and see what an innovation-wasteland they are unwittingly bringing into existence. Thankfully, I don't think we'll ever have to worry about the day when Schiit stops doing things "for fun" and because they're "passionate about them."

 

^This

I’m not offended at all. I feel like if I was coming from Schiit’s perspective, I wouldn’t agree with some of how you’ve characterized them, but Jason liked your post, so who am I to say.

It does annoy me when people make judgements about businesses when they really don’t understand what’s actually going on.

From my perspective, I think they’ve been evolving all along, adapting to the market and constantly getting better, and at the same time, dealing with their growing pains.

Sure they have gotten even sharper and come up with new strategies and tactics around being even more customer centric, but to say they weren’t customer centric to begin with (or at least for a fair number of years now) IMO is not correct.

This focus on making products that measure well is a response to the market and the criticisms of Schiit due to ASR. But it doesn’t actually or inherently make things “better”. Heresy doesn’t make Magni sound better - at best, the same, or at worse, inferior.

My fear in this would be similar to @monacelli in that these Thunderdomes actually sell more well measuring products becuase of specs and not becuase of sound quality. However I am confident Jason wouldn’t allow this to happen anyhow. Heresy is still a damn clever business strategy though.

The blind testing, Thunderdome (in general) and other customer service improvements Schiit have done this year and over the last number of years, are absolutely improving their customer centricity and shown they’re a smarter business than ever before, so I’m fully onboard with acknowledging that.

Again, no offence taken, but I still disagree with this signifying a turning point in their customer centricity and a final realization of what business they’re in.

 

I don't care about the measurements, I'm talking about engaging on forums, devoting more time to customer service, and addressing quality issues in a more reasonable way and timeframe than before. I don't give a shit about publishing measurements.

I think maybe you guys aren't understanding what I'm saying completely, and that's probably because of the context in which I posted it. I failed to explain what I meant and that's my fault. I'm not talking about "customer-centric" as a euphemism for anything. I'm talking about literally, actually being customer-centric. There is no double talk here.

This is the Magni 3+ and Magni Heresy release thread. I think you guys assumed I was saying differently because of the topic that is currently being discussed, but my post wasn't relevant to the last 20 or so posts, it's only intended to be relevant to the actual thread topic. Read it like a reply to the OP, not a reply to the previous few posts.

 

Ok then, yes - wires crossed. The context for me was this thread topic, plus the recent review on ASR. In other words, the focus on measurements and specs.

The fact that Schiit have gotten their schiit together on all fronts including customer focus is not something I dispute at all, and completely agree with.

Mods please move to a separate thread if needed.

 

I appreciate the response!

I think the AP analyzer has improved their designs a lot in terms of resolving things like the dither error the Modi mb suffered from and other odd issues. It makes it much easier to find issues than their old analyzer did. I want to say Jason said something about this in his Schiit Happens story but I might remember it wrong.

Maybe I am wrong but it seems like the movement Amir inspired led to Schiit buying one. Maybe I am wrong and they had already decided to do that but that is what I mean.

To be clear all the credit in terms of actual improvement goes to Jason and his team. I think the adversity they faced pushed them to new heights and it has been a landmark year for them.

These are the best products they have ever put out.

As for people talking about Amir doing blind tests, there is no point for him to do any. He already actively believes he can't hear a difference so he won't be able to. You have to enter them with a open mind.

Ps those who want a Magni with a big pot look at Asgard its great!

 

Was it actual adversity or a tempest in a teacup? Maybe I'm out of the loop. I can't imagine many redditors/ASR types buying an Yggdrasil to begin with.

I do recall Jason talking in Schiit Happened about buying more analyzers long before any of this came about.

 

As I understand it there was some kind of glitch that impacted the modi mb which is what the V2 firmware fixed. I assumed it was picked up by the AP given that it wasn't found earlier. Is that wrong?

I am sorry to bring up Amirs work but when he measured the original it had a large error in linearity. The new v2 doesn't have it based on schiits published measurements which suggests to me that their old analyzer didn't show any errors. Reading the threads on it seemed to be some kind of dithering error.

Edit: Seems they were aware of the issue and chose not to fix it as their thought it sounded better based on previous post, didn't see that before I replied.

As for your second point... maybe but I just didn't see anyone really asking for better measurement devices before then at least not in significant numbers. Companies react to the demands of the market.

It wasn't just Schiit, none of the Chinese companies like topping had AP units either until they saw a market for it.

I try to see both the positive and the negatives of things. I think the positive thing Amirs emergence brought is more emphasis on acquiring high end analyzers which leads to higher quality products on the market.

I think the big negative of course is the emboldenment of a sect of the community that dogmatically believes all truth in the universe can be found in a AP analyzer. To the point that they will insist all blind test results must be false because it doesn't fit their world view. Also that for some reason no longer cares about high output impedance on amplifiers but that is a big aside.

 

You would have to talk to Jason but if you read his posts both Schiit and ASR got APx555 analyzers in the summer of 2018. Hard to tell who was first they both got them about the same time. Does it really matter?

 

Yes, that is wrong. These measurements preceded those you cite by a substantial amount of time.
Schiit Modi MB technical measurements

No one could hear the 'glitch' so no one paid it much attention until someone got a new analyzer and made a BIG DEAL out of something no one could hear. Especially true if made to double blind ABX test the audibility, which was never done by those complaining.

Again, it wasn't a big deal until someone made a big deal out of it. And again you could have viewed measurements here:
Schiit Modi MB firmware v2 update technical measurements

It doesn't take an AP to tell the difference as demonstrated here:
Field guide to determining Modi MB or Bifrost MB v1 or v2 firmware

This is exactly what is wrong with the situation. Everyone is aware of <redacted> measurements, few question lack of consistent setup, consistent methodology, consistent presentation of data. Those that do are usually subjected to tremendous ridicule that they should dare question their measurement messiah and the AP. Look at the measurement suites in the links given for this website and note ability to compare many things in a consistent way. This is the way industry labs, subject to regulatory review, work.

 

In the end nope! I am just glad they did as now they can produce stuff that makes everyone happy and that is great for consumers and great for Schiit as its a greater market segment.

I am just observing phenomenon, to the outsider it appears as if ASR had a influence. Rather that is the reality or not I have no idea.

 

I know Nelson Pass designs are very well received and he doesn't chase measurements. THD figures for his First Watt line range form as low as 0.01% up to 1%! And these are all relatively low power amps.

 

It's especially tragic how the have-nots actually look to Amir as some *benevolent* leader, when he's just another slick member of "the haves" exploiting them for profit and giggles. Democratic People's Republic of ASR.

 

Honestly, I think you guys are attributing too much power to <redacted>. I don't feel like they're important enough that we should be worried about their wider impact on the landscape of this hobby. One side seems to be saying that they're a worrying force, and the other says they're a good force, but both of those points hinge on the assumption that they are a force, and I just don't see it