Schiit Bifrost 2

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

  1. Taverius

    Taverius Smells like sausages

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    All the time actually, to the point where it's expected.
     
  2. Ice-man

    Ice-man Friend

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    All these years, I thought of the BF as the ugly step sister of the schiit DAC lineup. Now it may be Cinderella.
     
  3. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    Well, in the Ugly Duckling, the ugly little bird transformed to a beautiful swan in the end ;)

    By the way, Texas is also (still) around 100F! A little better than past weeks though.

    And adding to my impressions, I feel inverted outputs mildly better in staging depth. In theory both channels inverted would result in no change.. strange. Maybe placebo.
     
  4. fierce_freak

    fierce_freak Friend

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    Thanks for the impressions! I have one on its way - definitely looking forward to checking it out. I've only heard Yggdrasil and Gungnir Multibit A1, but my biggest gripe was the slightly grey background. I'd trade some technicalities for a blacker background, so your post is very intriguing to me.
     
  5. Biodegraded

    Biodegraded Friend

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    @Vtory , as you're refining your impressions: contrasts/comparisons of specific aspects with what you can remember from your time with the dac1421 loaner would be appreciated. If the sense I'm getting that Bifrost 2 is Modi Multibit with the addition of both steroids and ballet shoes is correct, it's reinforcing my sense that the dac1421 would in many respects be polar opposite / complementary.
     
  6. AllanMarcus

    AllanMarcus Friend

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    Can “dark background” be measured easily? Seems like it should be, or is it bias/subjective?

    Can the FR of a the output of a DAC be measured? Folks here are saying the Bifrost 2 has more/better bass. I just wondering if that can be measured.

    I may have missed it, but are there any measurements for the Bifrost 2 by folks here?

    My unit arrives Tuesday!
     
  7. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Frequency response of most DACs are flat as a board. Other measurement folks will tell you that there is very little you can measure in a well designed modern DAC that will tell you what it will sound like. Most anomalies are at inaudible levels.

    Schiit do a full suite of measurements from their AP555 for most of their products and have for a little while now. Here’s the FR from Bifrost 2 (balanced):

    6FDCD0C2-7CB3-40E8-BF32-361C01A90D03.jpeg

    Look under the “Specs” tabs on many of their products and you will see a link to the AP555 report at the bottom. Here’s Bifrost 2’s:

    https://www.schiit.com/public/upload/PDF/Schiit DAC APx555 Standard Test Suite_ Bifrost 2.pdf
     
  8. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    Good guess. But be careful. While Bifrost 2 differs from Dac1421 in tonality and brightness on highs, in other aspects, the two dacs don't oppose to each other much. Both very detailed and resolving. 1421 may have more crispness and edginess by comparison. Instead Bifrost 2 has more plankton and much more holographic staging.

    On the Modi MB front, it's the inverse story from the paragraph above. They resemble in tone (in Unison mode). But anything else tuned quite differently. Vertical delta is way more than I'd express 'steroid'.

    Not to mention, huge memory bias likely.

    Imho generally FR measurement in audible spectrum is useless as argued above. Out-of-band rejection result sometimes helpful but hard to generalize. Except a few remarkably f***ed situations such as Harmanized response, I'm afraid that bass difference is kinda immeasurable.

    Black/dark background is the same. There are a number of root causes that 'finally and combinedly' result in black background. Some may be correlated with some measurements to limited extent. To my knowledge, any single measured result failed to predict subjective perception having BOTH high sensitivity and specificity.

    I have some working hypotheses. For example, as I posted earlier, sufficiently high and even-ordered harmonic distortion paired with low noise floor has been moderately associated with my satisfaction. However, this has several problems including (1) no theoretical ground (most occurs below human hearing threshold) and (2) lots of exception (low specificity) -- I've felt good blackness with some amps that measured noticeably poor. Therefore I regard this as a personal myth for now.

    And people may have various 'implicit' definitions for each subjective term. This makes the problem super tricky.
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2019
  9. eyrepm

    eyrepm New

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    To those of you having heard it, how does it compare to Gungnir A1/A2 and Yggdrasil A1/A2 especially when it comes to type of sound? And what about compared to previous types of bifrost? Warm, laidback, neutral etc. it’s been switching around I’ve gathered.

    Considering switching from Gungnir mb a2 to bifrost 2. I really liked the very first bifrost with my setup, style wise, but not so much Gungnir. Then again, mostly everything else like detail and so on was better on the latter.
     
  10. Taverius

    Taverius Smells like sausages

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    Seems to be closest to OG Gungnir A1, which is what convinced me to spend frankly to much money on a DAC for a system that, I have to admit, spends 99% of its time playing bgm ambient while I read/sleep ... I've tried and the treble energy of Gungnir A2 is way too much in this 2ch setup.
     
  11. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    Tone and tonality-wise -- as replied -- Bifrost 2 is closer to Gungnir MB A1. My personal impression is somewhere between gungnir mb a1 and yggdrasil a2. Using Unison makes it closer to the former. Using my other digital transport is closer to the latter (to my ears). Warm to neutral-warm.

    Other sound presentation (details, staging, dynamics, plankton, texture, etc etc) is pretty much like Gungnir MB A2. Pushing it a little further to (good to great) DS-ish sounding.

    Damn, I can now confidently say that this dac is the world best sounding dac among mini to half size form factor converters. Shockingly good for this size.
     
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Y-splitter if you want to split SE outs. The opamps can drive 600-ohm loads, so split away.

    XLR to SE cables or converters are problematic in small or large ways. Keep it simple.
     
  13. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    It sounds like it'll be worth upgrading from Modi MB with latest ROM to Bifrost 2 if my input is USB? If that's useful, my headphone chain is: mac->modi mb->bottlehead sex->HD650 (no USB crappifiers or decrappifiers).
     
  14. TazerMonkey

    TazerMonkey Acquaintance

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    Granted, my Modi MB was on the V1 ROM and I was feeding the Modi with an Eitr, but the improvements in bass slam and blacker background alone have made the upgrade worthwhile. Not to mention the sleek black finish.

    [​IMG]

    I spent a couple of hours switching in Foobar2K between my Eitr/Modi MB stack and the Bifrost 2 and those differences were obvious every time. Between that and the new balanced functionality, I couldn't be happier than a pig in Schiit.
     
  15. GoodSchiit

    GoodSchiit Acquaintance

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    I’ve always stuck with the idea of balanced XLR outputs as a must have along with single ended. My only choice really was Gungnir Multibit but I didn’t want to pay $1249.

    Bifrost 2 is now on my radar. Looks spec wise as a top shelf product. I like all the updates with new USB (does it make my Wyrd redundant?) and the micro SD updates. Well done !
     
  16. Taverius

    Taverius Smells like sausages

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    Eh? There's no inherent advantage to balanced connections unless you're running 20ft+ lines in a pro setting.
     
  17. Sonorus

    Sonorus Facebook Friend

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    Unless it's a true balanced design.
    In that case balanced out is a tad better than the converted single ended
     
  18. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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  19. gixxerwimp

    gixxerwimp Professional tricycle rider

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    Why don't you try feeding your Modi Multibit with a good S/PDIF source (e.g. borrow an Eitr) and see if you can hear any difference? If not, then the USB improvements that Bifrost 2 brings aren't significant for you, and it's more about the other sonic characteristics.
     
  20. songmic

    songmic Gear cycler East Asia edition

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    The Wyrd was already redundant with Gen 5 USB. Theoretically, Wyrd could still help with the DAC module cards that go into Jot/Lyr 3/Asgard 3/Rag 2 because, unless I'm mistaken, they are USB powered. Whether those modules get the Unison treatment down the road, we'll have to see, since Schiit is discontinuing Wyrd.
     

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