Schiit Unison USB

I mean, once I saw lighted LED memory sticks and fans, you know it is Loony Tunes.

 

It's the way of the world these days, these are the same people that drive around with nuclear LED headlights and obnoxious fart cans on their shitbox cars

 

But can Hel run Crysis?

 

Will it blend?

 

@schiit Did you contact all the techtubers for sponsored videos? That's pretty much mandatory these days

 

Does Unison USB increase jitter performance on the DACs that have Adapticlock? Or does that not matter? It's interesting the Bifrost 2 doesn't have Adapticlock, is that because Unison provides lower jitter than VCXO solutions?

 

No, it’s because it’s a Bifrost.
Adapticlock is for Gungnir and up.

 

Unison USB DAC upgrade boards are out folks:

https://www.schiit.com/products/unison-usb

$200 for Schiit install, $150 for self install.

Looking forward to impressions.

@schiit any material differences between the “official board” and the Beta boards we were testing with?

 

Pay attention to the shipping rates. I went to order and it was more than double what it is for a Magni for a self install option. Email sent to Schiit to confirm this is correct.

 

Seems to be the same for me regardless if I pick Schiit install or no install - must be showing the Schiit install always right now.

 

Would 150 self install quality for the 2 year warranty?

 

Same as the beta boards, as far as I know.

Per the page: For factory-installed upgrades on out-of-warranty products, this re-activates the warranty on the complete product for 2 years.

 

Laura fixed the shipping for self-install. Should be good now.

 

LOL Could you imagine the incoming pains in the ass if the answer to this was Yes?!

 

@schiit For those of us in Europe, will we be able to get our Gungnirs upgraded by sending them to the local distributor or do we have to send them across the pond using the standard purchase in the website?

edit: the answer was yes, distributors can do it.

 

All my impressions of Unison are with the original Bifrost.

I had the Beta board and it was superb. It adds cleanness where you did not think you needed it. The ISB haze is cleared up and the closest to a true AES/EBU. I mean, it is almost better than S/PDIF in the clean articulate nature of it.

I had Gen 2 board and it Unison smokes it. I have heard Gen 5, and that is close, but just more extra goodness with Unison.

I think part of all the Bifrost 2 hype an SQ is around in somewhat due part to Unison, but also not. There are many comparisons trying to isolate the beauty of Unison, but in a normal Bifrost or Yiggy is a definite upgrade, matter of fact, the last upgrade. That's kind of why I want one for my Bifrost. It was a real OG and has had every DAC upgrade up to MB.

Unfortunately I wish I still had mine. It developed a timing gitch and I had to send it back, but it was never sent back to me.

 

Answered on Head-Fi: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...bable-start-up.701900/page-3757#post-15442419

"All of our distributors will be able to do the upgrade on all models."​

 

Put the Unison in my Yggdrasil A2 today, thanks for the guide (gen 5) Marv.

It sounds very good to me, quite engaging. I have been listening to the Pi2AES (AES) for a month or so and that is great, but this is great too. I'm actually surprised people are saying the Unison is behind the Pi2. Of course the chain matters. here's mine:

NAS/Qobuz > Roon or upnp > Yggdrasil (Pi2AES or Unison/Rpi4-GentooPlayer) > Freya (tube) > Jot R > Sr1a

It would be very difficult to properly compare the two with level matching, but I'm going to stick with Unison for a bit. It just draws me in a bit more, seems like I can hear dynamics and details I wasn't noticing before.

But, who knows, this stuff is so variable.

 

I'm dying for the 1st Gungnir M/B unison impressions. (I don't think I missed them)

Wondering if it's worth it to dish the 7 beans for the unison-M/B upgrade, or just go Bifrost M/B & sell the Gungnir D/S (or maybe use it for TV duty).

Either way I'm assuming Schiit will have all unison boards at CanJam, so I'll get some answers there I guess too...looking forward to it.

 

I got the Unison board installed this morning in Yggdrasil A2. My first impression listening to this cold, plugged in for 15 minutes is that I’m not noticing anything worse than the Gen 5 board on a perpetually warmed up A2. This is encouraging since when I had the A2 upgrade done, initially it sounded as good as a warmed up A1 and then got a lot better after about a day. I’ll abstain from further comment until the Dac And board have a little more time to settle in.