Dac: Does anyhting beat the Schiit Gungnir Multibit (Gumby) in the same price range?

Cleo,

Absolutely agree that there must be something special in Bitstream. I have a Marantz SA-1 that uses dual DAC7 (TDA1547) 1-bit Dual Bitstream. So far no digital I have owned or tried have ever touched it. And yes, I have had a loads of different digital from the latest and greatest to some very expensive players and combos.
Discrete R2R is another hidden miracle. I ordered Denafrips Ares for my TV and it`s absolute joy. It belongs to many, many times higher echelon considering it`s price. It`s the smallest brother so their higher dac`s like Venus or Terminator may be a serious contenders for my reference digital.

By reading the above posts, one can surmise that most have not heard the Schiit Gungnir, so can’t offer an opinion to the question posed. Then there are those who are recommending DACs over the Gungnir that are in another price category(again, some without even knowing what the Gungnir sounds like), which of course does not answer the question or help the OP.

There do seem to be a lot of DAC fans out there, however. I can’t answer the question either. I bought the Schiit Bifrost Multi bit a week ago at half the price of the Gungnir Multibit, and it’s a jaw dropping value for the performance attained.

If the folks at Schiit can build such an excellent DAC at the $600 price point with the Bifrost Multibit, I’d love to hear what the Gungnir and yggdrasil can do. Schiit is a unique company. They started out building their units in the one partner’s garage, and they’ve always built them in the USA from American made parts. Really! I don’t know how they can compete price wise, but they sure do. They are both heavy hitters in the audio electronics industry and teamed up to start Schiit.

I had initially bought the Schiit Modi Uber DAC, and it easily outperformed my Audioquest Dragonfly Red though it’s almost half the price of it. I started reading up on the Bifrost Multibit and decided to purchase it. I asked to return the Modi and they agreed even though it was 7 days outside their return window. They even waived the restocking fee! The Bifrost blew away the Modi Uber. It’s amazing how good the Bifrost makes the mp3 music on my iphone sound!

I auditioned both the Gumby multibit and Metrum Musette at the same time and in the end, kept the Musette.

Love my Gumby. Great DAC in the $1250 price range.

Mmmm.. difficult question to answer.

'Different' is easy, but 'better'? That's highly subjective.

In that price range, I like both the Teac UD-503 and Yulong Sabre DA8 MKII (distributed through Grant Fidelity).