Does Anyone Buy Schiit for the Sake of Schiit?

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.

I use the Bifrost 2 fed by uncompressed WAV files and the Euphony OS straight in to my tube amp. I'm very happy with my "budget" system. I listen comfortably without fatigue. "Audiophile" grade components? Not according to the vast majority here but I'm very content right now in this room relaxing to some Mingus as though I'm in the studio with him. Spend what you can afford on what makes YOU happy. At a certain point thousands more doesn't raise the level of listening pleasure in relation to the money spent. It does raise your status by impressing others here though....and gets you into their elitist club with Muff and uncle Biff.

@dancarlson10

That is an exceptional reaction. I sure do not have a technical answer to why your unit must have been defective, but it must have been. I have owned a dozen DACs an auditioned more, including an iteration of a Dragon… and the Berkeley Refersnce Alpha 3 ($22K).. As I mentioned I own a Gungnir and have had in my system a Yggdrasil, a Dragon is not in the same universe as the Schiit. Absolutely none of your criticisms of the Yggdrasil would be possible of a fully functional one. It is a shame you somehow got a bad unit. This is just not how they perform. I guess it happens. If I heard what you heard, I would send it back as well.

I don't since their DAC did not last 3 years.

Way overpriced looking that way. 

Better value at Monoprix than the two you cited.