Schiit Bifrost 2

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by RobS, Aug 28, 2019.

  1. tranq

    tranq Friend

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    Bob my boy, I love ya. (Not just the bourbon talking)

    Many thanks.
     
  2. ohshitgorillas

    ohshitgorillas Friend

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    My experience using the Oppo BDP103 is that the Toslink is much worse than coax. The Oppo outputs both and it's very easy to switch back and forth; what I noticed was that Toslink was clearly less focused and clean.

    I'm not sure if that's a side effect of the Oppo's own internal shortcomings, or the Bifrost receiver, but given the jitter test results, I'm leaning towards blaming the Oppo. I recall the xDuoo X10TII toslink output was more closely matched (but still inferior) to its coax, but that was a while ago and I wasn't taking notes.
     
  3. Taverius

    Taverius Smells like sausages

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    Oh, I'm sure it's the oppo.

    Good toslink interfaces do exist, it's just that the spec allows for a rather large amount of jitter in order for the cheapest interfaces to be very cheap indeed (back when it was made accurate clocks expensive, especially on portable devices like the Sony discman and MD players) and the advantages of toslink - mainly, absolutely no ground loops or cable em interference - only matter for pro setup bird nests and basic consumer plug-n-play.

    As a result, in general, toslink sources are either very good (pro), utter trash (consumer gear), or absent (audiofool).

    There's very few things in the middle - strangely the spdif outs on the better gaming sound cards are fairly legit for non-pro gear.

    I guess when you put all that processing into time-domain stuff like virtual 3d audio it's a short step to stick a decent clock source to your optical out.

    Conversely anything for home theater dvd/br is usually absolute bottom of the barrel, since they're outputting compressed audio to an av receiver/amp anyway 99.9% of the time.
     
  4. McFly

    McFly New

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    So after months of using the Bifrost 2 its safe to say I'm still as happy as I was in my original post.

    I have repurposed it to a near-field setup with studio monitors. iMac - Bifrost - JBL305P mk2's

    Does anyone know a method of digital volume control on Mac OSX? or do I have to get an XLR volume control (would rather not take up any more desk space)
     
  5. Ksaurav402

    Ksaurav402 Friend

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    You can use the player to control digital volume unless you want volume control outside of digital domain, in that case you have to use any preamp, am I missing something? You can do setting inside your media player like Roon or Audirvana and Enable "allow media player to control volume"
     
  6. squishware

    squishware Friend

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    In my understanding this degrades the signal by altering it from "bit perfect". My policy is "friends don't let friends use digital attenuation". I mostly listen to albums and adjust at each monitor/sub with the indents its easy to match them. If I get the first song right I am generally good for the album. I will use digital volume if I am using a browser to watch a youtube vid but I think that is already going through the stack.
     
  7. Metro

    Metro Friend

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    To avoid losing resolution, your software player should be set to max volume, and you can use a passive volume control (such as JBL Nano Patch) between the DAC and powered monitors. It won't take up any more space if you can put it on top of the Bifrost.
     
  8. Ksaurav402

    Ksaurav402 Friend

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    He asked for digital volume control and hence my reply. Otherwise we have preamp to do this job.
     
  9. McFly

    McFly New

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    Thanks for the input - I was hoping the Mac could do a master volume control, separate from the software players. For now the player volume works, its just that my keyboard controls try to control the Mac volume instead the player volume. I often switch between music players, web players, production software, video software etc. I could be wrong - but windows does this i think?

    i.e. my lazy ass wants one volume wheel to rule them all - a physical overall volume control and leave all players at max vol. I hate scrambling to find the mouse to adjust each software's volume. This way I could use keyboard volume buttons or one of those lil USB rotary volume controllers (which still use desk space, just less than an XLR in/out device).
     
  10. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Used Emotiva Control Freak XLR if you can find one. Pretty sure there are pro monitor controllers that are similar as well, just a knob and XLR cables going in/out.
     
  11. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    It’s been a while but the Audio Midi Setup app might have what you want. Be aware though that unless the player itself has an “exclusive access mode” to the dac all sound will be going through the system mixer and not be bit perfect. If it does have an exclusive access setting iirc you can set the bit depth higher than the audio file (e.g. 24-bit for redbook) and that will let you adjust the volume in software without mangling the data.
     
  12. Baten

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    You can use a software mixer like Soundflower to route the audio to the DAC and have volume control. You can take it up a notch and get this Droking USB volume controller which then gives you a system wide digital volume knob for the routed audio. I've done this and it works fine :)
     
  13. will_f

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    That would explain at least in part why my airport express sucked as a toslink source to my Bifrost 2.
     
  14. Daphnary

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    Hi Guys,
    I am complete newbie to the audiophile world. I have recently purchased the Dynaudio Emit M20 and Rega Elex R and as a source I a am using my PC motherboard DAC ... To be honest I am pretty happy with my system it sounds quite good, but after reading all the audiophile forums, I have decided to further improve the sound quality and buy an outboard DAC and I am thinking to buy the B2. What kind of improvements should I expect? and if anyone have similar speaker amps can you suggest if B2 is good match for above?
    P.S. Apologies for my English, it is not my native language.
     
  15. Walderstorn

    Walderstorn Friend

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    Can anyone do me a solid and do a quick comparison between BF2 with Matrix X-Sabre Pro? I believe @purr1n has had a chance to try both but if more people have heard both that would help a good friend of mine.
     
  16. EagleWings

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  17. animus

    animus Almost "Made"

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    Bifrost 2: Or, Adventures in DACs from the eyes of a portable audio freak

    This is the first blind buy I've done in a very, very long time. Last time I blind bought anything was some chifi IEM on Massdrop that lasted all of 30 seconds in my ears before I repackaged it and put it up for sale (true story). In either case, the Bifrost 2 has caught my attention based on recommendation from several friends and people I trust, as well as seemingly positive reviews comparing it to sources I generally like. Will the Bifrost 2 be the DAC to kill my DAC hunting nervosa? Let's find out.

    Unboxing and first impressions
    Fedex woke me up at about 2pm by calling me to let me know they were right outside my door with my long awaited package. My sleep schedule is 3 different kinds of fucked right now so I anticipated this would happen by setting my phone ringtone to max volume. Stuff works.

    Anyways, being my first Schiit product, the Bifrost 2 is quite a bit heavier than I expected. It's got good density to its build, which I like. One caveat though: the remote is somehow not as magnetic as I expected. The bottom end of it often droops when placed in the middle of the side of the Bifrost, which annoys me to no end. Placing it a bit further down helps, but I have no idea if the magnet in the remote is just weak or I got a bad one. I also notice really, really mild transformer hum when I put my ear to the Bifrost. Complete inaudible from where I'm sitting, and it's only audible transducer side if I crank the BHA-1 to maximum volume, in which it shows up in the left channel. Not that this will ever be relevant as that is an absurd amount of power output of course.

    I set down the Bifrost 2 on top of my BHA-1, got it crunching bits, turned on the BHA-1 for extra warmup measure, and went back to sleep. I plugged in my IER-Z1R for a split second just to make sure it was making sound, and what I did hear was pretty damn impressive. That bass slam is killer.

    Oh yeah, and the click isn't that bad at all. My WM1A clicks louder. Was totally expecting it to be a massive CLACK or something but it was pretty quiet. Maybe it's just me but I don't mind it.

    See you in a few hours.

    The listening session
    Audirvana Plus > Unison USB > Bifrost 2 > BHA-1 > IER-Z1R

    Wait a minute, you say. Is this guy auditioning a desktop amplifier and DAC... with IEMs? Er, well, yeah. Reason being is that my HEDDphone preorder is late. I was promised February but looks like they've kicked it back to March. Guess I'll have to wait until then to hear how it sounds with this setup, but for now my IEMs are the transducer I have the most familiarity with, and therefore the ones I will be making a judgement call on the Bifrost 2 with. This way, I also get to compare it to my WM1A, which is my reference player and perhaps my favorite source to date.

    Did I mention the bass? Holy hell, the bass on this setup really hits hard. I've come to expect the Z1R to deliver slam down low, but this setup really gives even the best of the portable stuff I've used it with a run for their money. The main difference between the Bifrost 2 and the WM1A here is that the Bifrost 2 is a bit looser and bloomier. I could do without this, in all honesty, but it's not a dealbreaker level difference. Warm up noticeably improves this, past the 9 hour mark most of the hints of bloominess did away with themselves. At 24 hours I'd say I don't really notice it.

    What else... The timbre on this thing caught me off guard. Having heard the Yggdrasil in the past, I was expecting it to have a similar timbral thickness to that, if not more. But it really doesn't. The timbre... sounds like my WM1A? I'm not kidding. It's just a hair thicker and darker, and the tonality is not quite as lean and U shaped, but the same sort of slightly slow and gooey timbre is there. I do hear better texture rendering in the midrange as well as a more brassy/lower treble-y sound from cymbals from this setup compare to my WM1A, but the timbre is pretty much dead on to what I've been looking for. None of the weirdly glossy and mushy sound from the 9038 stuff I've heard, or the wimpy velvet sound and distinct treble timbre of the AKM 449X chips.

    I also hear absolutely none of the haze that annoyed me with the Yggdrasil. Greyground, tape hiss, haze, none of that weird stuff is present here when uncalled for like it was with the Yggdrasil. The background is inky black as it should be. Not much else to say here.

    Layering is pretty damn good on here and what I expected it to be. The WM1A has a tendency to oversimplify dense music: it doesn't get congested, it just seems to conflate instrumental parts and render them too similarly to each other. None of that here. A particular point of noteworth is bass articulation. I don't ever find myself fishing for bass guitars on my metal tracks, they're always there and they always sound distinct from the kickdrum, no matter how hairy things get down there.

    The staging was by far and away my favorite part about the Yggdrasil. It was unashamedly holographic and 3D, like my WM1A but with better image sharpness. The Bifrost 2 delivers on that part as well. I can hear stuff image below my ears, behind me, in front of me, it's just fun to hear sound coming from places you wouldn't expect. Who says headstage has to suck?

    My major issue so far, however, is that there is a subtle but present softening of transients with this DAC. Example: King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part I has a dynamic build followed by an explosion of sorts involving drums and bass right at the end. The build sounds fine, but the big dynamic shift doesn't kick me in the balls as hard as it should. Other tracks with hard hitting transients (ie. like 90% of my rock music) feel slightly blunt, moreso than they should. It generally feels like a lack of crispness in comparison to what I'm used to. I'm totally willing to believe that the USB is the bottleneck here, and the Lynx card I have coming in might resolve this. But it is worth nothing that the last 5% of contrast and edge is simply not quite there with Unison USB, which is what most peoples' use case will be. This could totally be the reason this DAC goes back to Schiit for me, I'll have to wait and see how the SPDIF performance is. Curious if anyone who has tried this DAC with a Lynx card could comment on this.

    But at the same time, a less dynamic and more melodic track like Book of Saturday right after gives me chills. The textural rendering and and general image presence is nothing short of spectacular on this DAC, which makes me want to like it, a lot. But I place far too much value in transients and if the Bifrost 2 is compromised on that front even in the best case scenario then it will have to go.

    Also important to note: The Bifrost 2 sounded a little rounded and compressed in the first few hours. It took about 7 hours for it to grow a pair of balls, and the slight bass bloominess went away more and more as time went on. It's not exactly a three week warmup time, but it's important to note that warmup still matters on the Bifrost 2. It's still not a D/S DAC in this regard, as nice as that'd be.

    Audirvana Plus > Unison USB > Bifrost 2 > BHA-1 > A12t
    Yeah, another IEM. The A12t is what I pull out when I want to hear classical music. You don't exactly need dynamic driver bass on Schnittke's third quartet, that requires timbre and dynamics to be on point more than anything else. Let's see how the Bifrost 2 fairs on this front.

    Did I mention Schnittke's third? Yes I did. The Bifrost brings the dynamics on full display here. I don't know what was missing with the Z1R, perhaps it was transient sharpness? But in any case, the dynamics on this setup are nothing short of thunderous, enough to scare me a little on tracks I'm familiar with.

    Now that I think about it, perhaps a little too thunderous? It feels like the Bifrost 2 leans towards compressing softer sounds upwards, rather than pushing louder sounds down like a lot of mushy soft sounding gear does. It also, as mentioned earlier, seems to blunt transients just slightly. The former is a somewhat subtle effect, and it sounds impressive at first on the right music. But it combined with the latter causes the Bifrost 2 to lack a some energy to it and I find myself wanting it to hit me just a little harder sometimes. It never does.

    On the note of the former point: On an older orchestral track like my SACD rip of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, I find myself more acutely aware of the background noise of the recording and the fine details like performers shifting or pages flipping. I'd wager this is where the famed Schiit "plankton" comes from. Bear in mind, I would say most other sources truncate this information entirely. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, but it makes for a more interesting, though perhaps slightly unrealistic presentation.

    That aside, the standout layering is still really good here. I don't ever lose track of any of the 4 instruments no matter how noisy things get, and they get really noisy. Another note: The absolute phase switch is weird. Most of the time I can't tell the difference, but occasionally I find it can make things sound slightly different. Usually it's a lead vocal or saxophone or violin. Things tend to sound just a tad thinner and rougher, on a level that could possibly be placebo. Who knows.

    In summary, I like the Bifrost 2 a lot. At less than a grand this is probably the best DAC I've heard at that price. It easily wins my favor over the ADI-2, which I've frankly always found dull, lacking in bravado, and flat. It also provides a scary good competitor to the Soekris 1421. I personally prefer the more nuanced and euphonic presentation of the Bifrost 2 to the Soekris' more initially impressive but somewhat unrealistic attack and decay transients, though I can totally see why the reverse would apply to someone else. But it reminds me of my experience with another audio product I liked a lot but didn't like enough to buy: the Focal Elex. The Elex is amazing at its price, but at the level of expectations I play at, it just falls slightly short. And in that sense so does the Bifrost 2, though on a lesser scale. At the same time though, the Elex is pretty much my favorite headphone and unequivocal recommendation under a thousand bucks. In that same sense, I think the Bifrost 2 is its counterpart in DACs. Price performance king, but by no means flawless. Or in other words, better exists for a reason. For now I think the Bifrost 2 can be adequate enough, if the transient bluntness can be solved with a coaxial input. But I find myself wondering what the Utopia to Schiit's Elex is, and if I'd do myself favors moving to it or looking elsewhere.

    In any case, thanks for putting up with the thoughts and ramblings of a rando, and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my thoughts and opinions on the Bifrost 2. I initially intended to make this post a full exploration of the DAC with my Lynx card when it came in, as well as eventually the HEDDphone, but this post is simply far too long as is. Maybe next time.
     
  18. Taverius

    Taverius Smells like sausages

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    Wasn't the OG Multibit 699?

    Also, can we make that an official award?
     
  19. squishware

    squishware Friend

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    I am still loving the BF2 balanced direct into the LSR 310S sub>MKII 305P JBL monitors. I listen many hours a day and leave it powered always. It does need to be power cycled about weekly for me. Try it! it's like a new DAC the day after a power cycle.
     
  20. will_f

    will_f Friend

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    I turn off my BF2 probably every couple of days. In all honesty I can’t say leaving it on for extended periods or turning it on 30s before listening makes a meaningful difference to me. Music source, mental state, environmental noise, level of distraction, and listening volume make such a huge difference to how I perceive the sound that subtle changes get lost in the noise (so to speak). Perhaps a consequence of age and my musical preferences.
     

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