Schiit Gungnir Multibit impressions

@atomicbob, do you have the distortion measurement for Gungnir Multibit A1—the DAC I was listening to? I'd like to see it, just out of curiosity.

 

I’ve read all 42 pages of this thread. Interesting discussion. As usual I’ve learned some things about measurements. All I can say is my Gungnir A1 Gen 5 with my amps, sources and headphones puts a grin on my face all the time. That’s really all that matters to me. Synergy baby! That’s where it’s at.

 

@Ringingears. I'm a strong believer in going with what you like... We all should be. Objectivity matters nothing if it doesn't bring you joy!

I think, for me, it's still a useful exercise to understand what I was hearing. I'm not here to prove a point, but I want to understand what I heard. I'm under the impression that if a DAC is "incisive" or "laid back," that those qualities come either from tonality, distortion spectra, or maybe to a lesser extent pre- and post-ringing. I can't see how a DAC can otherwise have a sound signature.

I still feel the best explanation is distortion harmonics, but if it's not, I'd like to know that; and moreover, I'd like to know what iis responsible!

 

Find something else and move on. If you don't like how it sounds, get something else.

 

All I have from the A1 was posted here . From the THD+N vs Frequency THD appears to be approximately -91 dB at 1 KHz which would be only 5 dB higher than the A2 measurement posted above.

 

@skem sorry for the knocking you earlier. Rumor has it that there is unit to unit variance with some Gungnir Multibit units not having the roundness and dullness, instead having etch and forwardness. Discrete transistor luck of the draw maybe. I’d say just sell it, get something else. A ton of stuff is available used cheaper than what you can move a used Gungnir Multibit for. Especially as your Gungnir Multibit is more special and exclusive!

 

No harm done, Psal. I sold it yesterday! (to a non-SBAF person). Trying your suggestion for Lavry next.

 

Is it Lavry so 2008ish? Haven't heard them in YEARS.

 

Still good, still warm, still detailed, and the saturation function on the ADC is killlluh

 

Aren't they chip DACs? I'm more inclined to attribute it to warmup more than anything.

 

He’s talking about the analog stage... and actually I think his is the most credible explanation yet. Could just be a pair of transistors with poorly matched curves.

 

Despite Gen 5 not having the same visceral "you are there" sense of immediacy as my CD player/spdif-bnc, I've been using it the past few days (Windows 10) and thoroughly enjoying it.

What Gen 5 does possess over the CD player is tonally it seems more accurate. More organic. Slightly more textured and nuanced (I can hear more nuance in Sinatra's voice, Steely Dan's electric guitar, etc). Slightly better microdynamics. And it is much much more euphonic. This varies from program to program. Windows Media player was the most "live" sounding while JRiver has the best microdynamics and sense of engagement... engagement through JRiver is actually very very pronounced and it is hard to stop listening.

But these very noticeable improvements only became impossible to ignore after running the music player and music files from my laptop's RAM rather than the hard drive. The difference was actually night/day. I use RamDisk. It is a bit of a chore because since I don't have a ton of RAM I have to manually load each album from my external drive (transfer to the RAM drive) every time I wanna listen. But the results completely nullify any minor annoyance. I get further slight improvement using Process Lasso, although the effect is much less pronounced through Gen 5 than previous USB implementations using Lasso, which says alot about how good Gen 5 is.

All this actually reminds me of my first year in this hobby in 2012 when I had a modest HD600/AudioEngine D1 DAC/amp setup (usb only). None of the nervosa was there and it sounded vastly better than anything I'd heard before, so I was happy. Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

I really wanna get my hands on @baldr and schiits new Gen x usb board as the welcome convenience of computer audio needs a level of sound quality performance to match. Gen 5 gets scary close to spdif.

 

@ColtMrFire that you are hearing differences suggests to me that you’re still having USB/chain influence rather than transparency. You might find this helpful, just replace “Eitr” with “Gen5.”

 

That post seems to open a can of worms for me. Is he claiming timbre needs to be "dry" in order to be accurate? And that a "euphonic" sounding source does not have accurate timbre? And that euphony and accuracy are mutually exclusive? I'm a little confused.

I'm at work so can't really listen to the link in that post. There's no doubt gen 5 does not have the visceral immediacy I associate with good spdif. But this varies from music player to music player. And if it did have that same visceral immediacy would it cease being euphonic?

I'm not well versed enough in this subject to offer an opinion about what's true and whats not so I'm open to being educated.

 

Go with what you like. Piano is a good test. Euphony is a personal preference. I used to like it but I grew tired of it after a while.

 

The light on my Gungnir Multibit doesn't stop blinking none stop, only for usb and even if cable its off. It still works soundwise but its pretty annoying, any idea what could be ?

 

Contact Schiit.

 

Some one could have solved this somehow, but yes, will do that .

 

AKA info@schiit.

 

I received the Gungnir DS I won on eBay on Sunday (for $580 shipped!) at 3:30pm today and have been letting it warm up for almost 3 hours. I just started "Somewhat Damaged" by NIN from the 2017 Definitive Edition of The Fragile because a) it's my favorite song, b) it has a slow build of layers with a lot of complexity and I feel is excellent showcase piece.

Holy. SHIT. Running fully balanced through Jotenheim to HD6XX is...it's making me tear up. This is incredible. I can't believe how much more impact there is in the bass, how f'ing REAL the opening intentionally-out-of-tune acoustic guitar sounds. I swear to God I can hear Trent's hands moving as the chords change and plucking the secondary guitar that comes in.

And then that sinister synth backbone of the song hits and it's overpowering. Throughout it all as the song slowly escalates to the explosion at the end, EVERY SINGLE LAYER is audible yet cohesive and I swear I'm hearing even more stuff despite having listening to this song thousands of times by this point in my life.

This is unbelievable. I truly can't believe how much better this sounds that my beloved Modi Multibit. I can't believe the Gungnir Multibit sounds even better than this. I can't wait to buy the upgrade in a couple months once I've saved the cash. I love this hobby so much.