Does Anyone Buy Schiit for the Sake of Schiit?
Most of us I think when buying something where workmanship and materials are less critical than price will go to a discount store like Walmart of Target (I think we've all heard they about calling it Tar-zhay because it's classier than Walmart) or Costco - the sort of stores where what you buy is not the best but it's always good for what you pay for it. I'm wondering, is Schiit the audio equivalent of Target? That is, does anyone buy it because the Schiit gear is particularly good, or merely that it's good for the price? The only Schiit product that I've ever bought is the Asgard as a headphone amp, since I don't use headphones that often, and I wasn't going to put a lot of money into it. Actually, I tried the Vali 2+ at first, and that seemed rather inadequate, so I sent it back and got the Asgard instead. It seems good enough, though I don't have much to compare it to, but it seems to struggle a bit in getting to higher volume levels.
Using your Walmart/Target analogy, I think Schiit is more the audio equivalent of Trader Joe's. American company, reasonably prices, has a definite style that is not for everybody's tastes, but has many enthusiastic fans. Some might say overly enthusiastic? They generally have had more hits than misses in their product line.
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@gs5556 + 1 Well said and spot on! |
When Schiit came on the scene I definitely put my foot down. I would never even consider the company because of the name. Then a couple years ago a friend of mine needed a budget DAC. I researched the heck out of it… and could not get out of the fact that for budget gear you have to consider Schiit. So, I bought a Gungnir multibit DAC as an experiment (you can see my systems under my UserID), I was impressed. So we bought a Yggdrasil DAC for him… really very impressive for the money. Just for fun I bought a Schiit preamp and headphone amp just to play around with, and for my office system. They are very good values for the money… despite their name.
Schiit is not audiophile equipment by any stretch of the imagination, nor do they claim to be. But it is really good sounding audio equipment for the money. A good way to dip your toe in audio and see if it is for you. |
I tried the Yggy Dac in my system out of pure curiosity. They have a 15 day return policy so no harm done should I return it. After I let it burn in for 5 days I gave it a serious listen over a few days. It was utterly unnatural sounding. I used my nice tyre 2 power cable and interconnects with my Wadax streamer and what I took away was an edgy grainy coarse bright sound that made string instruments sound metallic, almost as if their gut strings they were playing on were made of plastic. Honestly I couldn’t wait to get it out of my system. It might be hifi or whatever people want to call it, but it isn’t music or anything close to what I experience when sitting as a front chair violinist in a great American orchestra as my profession. For 300 dollars the AQ dragonfly cobalt is eons more natural sounding, fluid, nicer more natural timbre, and my tyre 2 power cable and interconnects are sitting on the floor not being used. I will be saving for the new Wadax arcadiaX and in the meantime am very happy with the cobalt. Just my 2 cents. |
