Schiit (MultiBit) Bifrost

Music is great, and I reckon as how everyone in this thread has spent many hours listening to it; I don't imagine there'll be any argument from anyone on that front. But analytical jiggery-pokery can be interesting, too -- and heck, is probably responsible for 3/4 of the posts on this forum, whether it be SKiring's careful blind tests or Purrin's elaborately-detailed spider charts.

I can understand that it'd be frustrating to pour your heart into designing something and then listen to people discussing at length whether anything you did mattered at all, but to imply that people who enjoy that sort of analysis aren't "enjoying life" is rather more dismissive than seems warranted.

 

"Having fun with your gear" has many interpretations. I have plenty of fun with measurements. But if you let it eat your life (same way chasing car-priced gear, etc can eat your life), you're doing it wrong. IMO.

 

Well said @schiit

 

Hunh, well personally I like to blind fold my partner and... oh wait, wrong forum. Dopey ol' me.

 

hehee

 

Would it be weird if one's safe-word is Yggdrasil? Just asking, not like my partner chose that word. That's just like an example. Really.

 

wish I could afford a Yggdrasil - but I would be happy with a Bifrost Multibit or Gungnir Multibit!

 

From what Bob is always blabbing, you'd probably be happiest with a Bifrost Multibit.

 

I agree, someone I talked to that knows Schiit products better than anyone thought the same thing.

 

Purrin's elaborately-detailed spider chart analysis where Schiit comes out on top - now that guy, he's having fun. We'll put his chart on the brand's Facebook page for marketing. The rest who are doing the same but report back less discernible differences to their ears? We'll need to have both company founders 'subtly' let them know they need to get a life. That's how it works right?

It goes without saying that all of us here are trying to make our own personal musical enjoyment better, and each of us have our own unique approaches in this quest.

 

I think in that thread it was noted that the differences on those spider charts are only obvious to "experienced" listeners. One wonders how they got that way, if not by listening to gear. I assume that is why people are on this forum in the first place.

 

It's a bit of a catch 22. An audio forum is almost by definition populated by people that obsess over every aspect of it. So occasionally, when a thread conversation might seem to someone as being on the excessive end, one might jump in and try to point that out. And there is a legitimate point to reminding people not to get too wrapped around the audio axel, but at the same time, this is the nature of the place. I suppose it might feel a bit like criticism, but I think it's just as easily taken as a something Ferris Bueller famously said: "Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it". But I wouldn't take it the wrong way. And for the flip side, a little obsession can also be a good thing.

 

I mean, was Tyll's Big Sound project getting "too wrapped around the audio axel" or letting it "eat away at his life"? Maye someone should have stepped in and pointed that out.

Something to think about.

 

Have you read this thread? Both paranoidroid and skiring did spend days on their blind tests, rather than just instant-switcheroo-ing. And sure enough, that did work better.

As to the obviousness, I'd actually love to see you do a super-obvious blind test, the kind you can't possibly get wrong -- level-matched Yggdrasil vs. ODAC over a period of a week, say -- and see what comes out of it.

 

All of this ^^
This is the only way I can compare gear.

Edit: make sentence make sense

 

I don't see a huge advantage to that over level-matching, but it seems like a reasonable way to do a blind test, if you're playing long sections and not switching back and forth quickly (where if anything it seems like it would obscure differences).

And so like I say: I'd love for you to do this. Because there are plenty of people doing blind tests who are sure going in that they won't hear differences, and it's not surprising that they don't. And there are some people doing blind tests who aren't sure what they're going to hear (like skiring and paranoidroid here), and it's very interesting when, after careful testing, they do (or don't) find relatively small differences.

But what I pretty much never see is people who are super-confident of the obviousness of differences doing blind tests and coming out the other side with results that reflect that confidence. And maybe that's a self-selection thing, where the people who are the most practised at discriminating audible differences don't see a reason for it... or maybe it's that the differences really aren't that obvious after all. I don't know, but I'd very much like to.

EDIT: Posts crossed in the composing, you're already ahead of me!

 

Sweet! But in all seriousness, I'd want this test to be easier for you. I want this test to be one where you can't even really imagine getting it wrong, where you're like "I set up all this stuff intending to do the test over days, but it was so blindingly obvious I got 20 of 20 just flipping casually within an hour" and are comparing the best of the best with something ODAC-like.