Schiit CCTX Meet: was Schiit Syn Discussion

Oof! What a campaign slogan!

 

Jason wrote a Schiit Happened chapter about this. Within DD and DTS there have been different standards over the years, and HDMI standards have lax enforcement so you can be stuck with a host device that supports all the latest features but not your receiver, or the receiver does but the TV can’t, etc.

 

I ordered one to try out in my PC gaming setup. Also, to try it in the living room 2ch setup to see if it improves the TV experience. Will report back when I gain some experience.

 

Why do you need multi channel amps? Got an amp for your mains? Ok cool, buy 3 Rekkrs ($300) and bridge them for each of the center, rear left, rear right.

I really don't need this because I don't care for surround. But kinda want it. And the 3 Rekkrs. Sigh...

 

None of them

 

Ahh yes, I’m sure when most people consider investing an additional $850 in their system their first thought is three Rekkrs and a Syn.

 

I was just pointing out that you don't need a multichannel amp like someone mentioned above.

Also, since it has analog input, you can still use your fancy shmancy hi-fi DAC with no digital fuckery afterwords.

 

What do you mean? Can't decode PCM or AC3? It has to decode PCM. No?!

Edit:

"But you don’t support any standards?
No. And by not supporting any standards, Syn never goes obsolete when standards change."

 

I will admit, there was a time where there was just AC-3 and DTS for home and theatre, and it was fine. They decided they wanted more with Blu-ray and 4K and adding more channels and the height channel was a dream for the Dolby engineers since the beginning of Dolby Digital that became Dolby Atmos. It is still all pretty heavily compressed format and the reason for the need for Dolby HD. DTS was not nearly as compressed and one of the main reasons I thought it sounded better.

Either way, it has been a challenge to keep up with forward and backwards home surround tech as it seems it has been a moving target the past 10-15 years, and then HDMI standards.

So I take it this is some kind of Pro-Logic kind of surround device since it only decodes PCM and most devices when going to stereo will do a surround fold-down mix to Pro-Logic. I am only guessing that the Pro-Logic copyrights are now expired and no longer have to do this. It also seems to be a DSP based Pro-Logic type decoding. I mean, obviously with the width and crossfeed. I guess this makes this more of a "this will work a long time" device instead of being tied to a specific set of surround formats. If compatibility is your big thing.

I will never understand putting the mic jack on the other side of the headphone jack, making you have the Y-cord in front of the controls. Many headsets use combo jacks. or if they are Y-split, they are not that wide, and usually only have 1/8" headphone jacks.

 

It's an interesting product, and you have to give it to Schiit for constantly innovating/keeping us guessing. But I think I'm with @AllanMarcus here. In fact, I did just this a couple years ago: cheap AVR, two pairs of cheap (and surprisingly capable) Pioneer speakers, center, basic sub... I think I got it all done for around $1500? And the big advantage with the AVR is that you can use the built-in calibration software to pretty easily set levels and sub crossover, etc. It was a lot of bang (and boom, given most contemporary movie soundtracks) for the buck.

Running the Syn out to powered monitors is interesting, but... long RCA connects criss-crossing room aren't as easy to hide under a rug as speaker cables are. And, again, you won't get any automatic calibration.

An enthusiast would probably just go the AVR route. Someone who doesn't care about audio and just wants surround will probably do the same via Best Buy or Amazon. Or they'd go the lifestyle route and get a sound bar or a Sonos system.

Personally, if I was going to do a lifestyle surround system, I'd take advantage of the Bluesound 5.1 functionality and have discreet, wireless surrounds tucked away on bookshelves for the rears.

But, anyway, skepticism aside, I hope Schiit sells a bunch of these. I can maybe see the use case for gamers in small home offices, etc.

 

To be honest I am more curious from a gaming perspective than anything else. In SP games it can be a fun thing to have.

 

Im also with Allan on this one.

If the argument is that you can plug your optical cable into this from any tv and get surround sound, then the whinging about formats is irrelevant, because you can get DD5.1 or DTS that way just the same, every movie has fallbacks for basic DD and DTS.

I also dont think the formats have changed that many times. the whinging itself really sounds to me like the text version of an infomercial where somewhere can't can't out of their blanket on the couch so you need a buy a blanket with arm holes.

We had a major change when Blu ray launched where we got DTS-HD MA and TrueHD (As well as DTS-HD and DD+), but that was almost 2 decades ago now. and then we got another change when we got object based audio with Atmos. but again, those object based formats can fall back to one of the previous standards.

the complexity here may come from object based sound standards, but again, the fallbacks work fine, and for someone considering a device like the Syn, they aren't after that anyways.

HDMI also doesn't really cause issues here, even very old HDMI standards work with TrueHD and DTS-HD MA, not to mention the selling point being optical from the tv...which will always work for dd5.1 and DTS.


I think this is a neat toy, I just dont see the market for it.

 

It does not decode DD5.1 or DTS. PCM only.

 

yes....Im talking about using a 400 dollar receiver as Allan said instead of the Syn.

 

We'll have a full Syn setup at the Schiitrless meet this afternoon...with Rekkrs. Yes, in a loud brewery. Yes, it will be fine. Less power, more better! With surround set free!

And, with respect to AVRs...barf. The whole experience. UI, sound, nervosa, etc. Remember, Mike did the first upgradable surround processor in the 1990s, and some of the earliest DD/DTS stuff, and I've chased this surround dragon for a looooonnnnnnnnngggggggg time, with some of the highest-end stuff out there, waaaaayyy better than $400 receivers.

Here's something to think about: want to add surround, center, and sub to your super-high-quality analog source--without messing with that source at all? Syn does that. And lots of other stuff.

 

After reading Jason's blog I'm very keen to try this for myself. It feels like a product you need to own and tinker with (instead of arguing over specs and such), and more importantly hear for yourself.

Only hurdle I see is the limited number of HDMI inputs on my television for multiple sources (Xbox playstation, streamer, Nintendo, etc.) I'm thinking a decent HDMI switcher could solve that?

Also, a long optical cable run from a projector should be much cheaper and easier than the equivalent hdmi.

 

Why is it lacking Unison? Or am I missing something here?

 

All-in-one bedside headphone home theatre. Actually not too crazy. I'll have to try and find more verbiage about the headphone amplifier and dac included. I'm just waking up HA HA HA

 

Best of all, you can throw away the HDMI switcher when it goes obsolete. Or proves to be incompatible. Which will probably be soon.

For those of you not using a smart TV, I use an HDMI de-embedder to get optical output for the projector room. Those also have the benefit of being throw-away-able when they stop working.