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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
seanheis1
625 posts
 
The best sounding rooms were either only lightly treated with ASC, or used other brands of room acoustic treatment entirely.

I would put that up above cables as being the cause first.

Best,

E

I don't know E. Maybe speakers might be the cause first? Maybe edging out even the speaker cables? Tough call. It's a challenge to make a cable that passes sound intact. I'm surprised there aren't more patents on this tech. 
techno_dude
382 posts
 
Esoteric is up  there with the best digital gear.

Shiit still beleive oversampling is a bad thing...  when we all know the best digital players are  << pcm ing >> everything to dsd.
chrisoshea
380 posts
 
As the old line goes "YMMV" on every piece of gear out there. I have two Schiit boxes and love them....Esoteric gear sounds great to me as well. A true Apples to Oranges comparison, cool to be at a show and enjoy so many different ways to reproduce music at so many price points in one place...I attend RMAF in Denver every Oct. for many years...in this hifi world, there is Truly Something For Everyone who keeps their ears and minds open....Love to all
nquery
103 posts
 
I have cycled through a number of pieces of gear over the past 5 years from various brands and now have a Schiit stack. There is no doubt that the Schiit gear is very good value and sounds fantastic with my current ATC-SCM’s. I think that the Vidar power amp is particularly nice value for it’s output, the Saga/Freya preamps great sounding but wonky UI (why can’t I turn off the tubes to save life!), Gumby DAC top notch (but maybe not as good a value?). Hard to go wrong with their stuff - at least you know you aren’t getting taken to the audiophile cleaners .... ;)
wolf_garcia
6,708 posts
 
There's barely any reason to turn off the tubes as preamp tubes generally last a fairly long time anyway, and if you are switching from one of the other modes you don't want to wait a minute for the tubes to warm up…if the passive or FET mode is where you want to stay, I think you can remove the tubes, although I found with rolling some NOS Sylvanias in there the tube mode seems to sound better than the other 2, and I need the gain anyway with my single ended little amp.
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