Schiit not that Good?


Schiit was at AXPONA again this year. They were showing a Salk music server streaming into a Gungnir Multibit (?) feeding a Freya and two Vidars. Speakers were the Salk Song 3As.

 

So what happened?


Esoteric was just next door. This allowed attendees to move immediately from one room to another. Esoteric was showing a full stack of thier latest separates plus a VPI Avenger for analog. Speakers were a pair of Cantons I didn’t get the model of.

 

The Schiit room, while not bad, was completely destroyed by the Esoteric room. Esoteric played one SACD that unfurled a massive soundstage that I could sense even not being in the best seat. The sound of the Esoteric system, both via SACD and vinyl was dynamic, resolving, extremely musical, collected, vibrant, both large and delicately structured. It was a system that got all the minor details right. Such a good setup. The Schiit setup, while unoffensive, clean, and musical in its own right, simply couldn’t face the Esoteric in inner detail, soundstage, reality and low-level dynamics.

 

Why did the Schiit system fail so hard vs the Esoteric? Part of the reason might have been the junk cabling used by Schiit. Peaking behind the system I was Blue Jeans speaker cables and mess of power bricks, basic cabling, etc. I don’t know how much of the Schiit’s performance was compromised by inferior cabling, but I’m curious how close it would have come to the Esoteric had Schiit paid some basic attention to that area.


madavid0
damn man, totally off topic, but growing up in Hawaii must have been amazing...
Wolf, Partly because of your experience with the Freya, and partly because of research I’ve done online I have ordered the Freya but won’t have it for probably three weeks.

The damn things are so popular that they can’t keep them in stock, apparently.  Any criticisms that I found on the Freya have to do with tube issues which I am not concerned about having no desire to go down that rabbit hole anyway.


I  have a Loki which I really want to use and like. The concept is great and I like the ability to control the EQ is some situations (old classical vinyl and early blues) 
I have 3 different systems and its buzzy and noisy in all three,
1.
Office Croft Micro 25/ Croft 7 Power amp Harbeth P3ESR (Nordost Purple Flare Speaker cables/ Kimber interconnects) DAC Arcam IrDAc2
2.
Living Room -Cary SLP98L (Primo NOS 6sn7 tubes)- Project Phono Box RS/Prima Luna Prolog 7 Mono Blocks, (Primo NOS tube Upgrades) all Nordost (Cables-Red Dawn Speaker and Blue heaven Interconnects) DAC Arcam Ir Dac
VPI Classic/Hana SL (Kimber Upgrade) 
Primo Power cables/Kimber- X 3 CablePro Noisetrapper NANA power strips
I offer this info to show that the Loki is the company of decent gear,
it is basically, a dead quiet system with the blackest noise floor until I add the Loki. 
It buzzes in every position I place it. 
I have written twice to Schitt for comment and I requested information on a better quality power supply as I think the super cheap power supply's that ship with Schitt is in fact total Schitt. I have never received a reply.
I actually visited their store in Santa Clarita CA and was met by a rude young man who seemed bothered by my desire to ask questions about the gear on display. 
I will try a 120v 16W power supply from a different supplier in the hope I can get this little thing to work.
 I wish this company well and want them to succeed but their customer service for me is non-existent. I did wait for a while to comment on this thread, hoping for a reply to from Schitt to my latest email? no such luck. 

PS, I had a friend borrow the Vidar power amp to drive his Quad ELS 57's and hated that combo. He said it was harsh. He did not spend much time with it. It may have sounded better if it had more time to break in? 
PS
I have a Schitt SAGA preamp (primo NOS Kenrad 6sn7 tubes) that works just fine in my bedroom set up. 







Sorry, I dont understand:
Why would anyone expect a $1,000 system sound better than a $50,000 (or more) system?

But if you look at this as purely a bang for buck question,
the Schiit wins outright.
I own a Freya and love the fact that it uses 6SN7 tubes that can be "rolled" to your listening pleasure. Bought it when the Freya 1st came out. I use the Tubes Mode most of the time, but it is really good to have the Passive, or JFET modes as well to play the same songs and hear the differences between them. The Passive Mode is very transparent and I have found some days that I would have a Passive Mode listening session and enjoy it just as much as I would in Tube Mode. The JFET Mode adds a hair more body than the Passive Mode, but is a great experience as well. I also had been using a Schiit Modi Multi-Bit for a year and then upgraded to a Audio Alchemy DDP-1 that has a DAC and Preamp both in one unit, and a external power supply that is very robust, to say the least. So I went straight from my Audio Alchemy DDP-1 to my Krell KSA-200S amplifier and with some really good cabling the sound was improved an order of a magnitude. I also use a Singxer SU-1 USB Bridge connected thru AES/EBU going into the Audio Alchemy DDP-1.
So I had an idea.... I had read one of the friends of the Schiit Company had used the Freya in a way that was kind of different. So I thought to myself that I would try to send my XLRs out of the Audio Alchemy DDP-1 to the Freya, and then out the Freya to the Krell amp. Figured that I could use the DAC on the Audio Alchemy DDP-1 and the Freya for the preamplfier. It didn’t turn out the normal way at all. The Freya runs full tilt (no volume control) and the Volume Control from the Audio Alchemy DDP-1 works to control the volume. That’s the "kind of different" mentioned above. Now you say to yourself.... why would you put another piece in the system chain? Wouldn’t it sound better without the Freya. Well the answer came out in the 1st ten minutes of listening. The Freya Tube Mode just gave the perfect amount of "Tube Goodness" to my Martin Logan Montis speakers. So much that I couldn’t take it out of the chain, unless to remind myself of what the Freya added to a Solid State Krell, and the whole presentation. The best part was the ability to use one of the other Modes (Passive, or JFET) with the remote control on the Freya.

8 months later, I’m still every once in a while listening to my system in Passive or JFET Mode. The ability of these 3 Modes alone, will be of major use for owners of the Freya. All of the Modes sound amazing. I like the Freya and the choice they made with the (4) 6SN7 Tubes. They are one of my favorite Tubes. I think I’m up to 18 of them. I’m sure that going up in price about 5 times of the Freya could bring you a Audio Research Preamplifier used that would kick it’s ass. So that’s my take on the Freya. Highly recommended. And at $700, it got me tubes and balanced XLR with remote control. Try to find that at any price less than a few thousand dollars.