Does Anyone Buy Schiit for the Sake of Schiit?

i think it’s good gear. i’ve owned a few different things from them. i don’t have the same frame of reference as most posters here, my equipment is "budget level" compared to most of the systems on here, but i know what sounds good to me. the schiit gear is a great entry point to better sound and i could easily live with it for the long haul...the way i see it, the less i spend chasing "the ultimate system", the more i can spend on records.

i aspire to own a legit world class system one day, but i’ve got little kids and a mortgage.. affordable workhorse components that perform well, like schiit, are a godsend to guys like me

....I have enough schiit in my life already, don't need to go buy it....more than enough to hand some out to the unwary....;)

I used their Freya Plus preamp for a couple of years and when paired with the right NOS tubes it was easily worth twice what they charged for the unit.  Eventually I upgraded but to this day would recommend someone getting into this hobby to give it a listen and perhaps even pair the Freya Plus with the Aegirs. Coupled with a nice set of speakers they would be off to a fine start. 

@dancarlson10 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.

"there are fundamental problems in Schiit multibit DACs when it comes to doing what they are told to do: convert digital samples faithfully to analog. Whether we use balanced or unbalanced output, problems remain. And not just in one measurement but practically everywhere we look."

So, your subjective assessment is in line with what Amir concludes about Yggdrasil v2 based on the measurements of a few key parameters. I’m not surprised, but some audiophiles may prefer to cross a busy intersection at peak hour before consulting with ASR.

A lot of time and effort goes into their stuff and the main two guys have many years of experience in the business. In my experience most of the people who bash them do so because of the price to quality myth. Humans usually equate higher prices with better and that's not always true. They do almost everything themselves and don't have to worry about markup from distributors and then retailers so they can keep the prices low.

Keep in mind that most audio stuff is marked up at least 100% from it's production cost so a piece of Schiit that sells for $250 is equivalent to something that would sell for $500 from a retail store and probably more if it's tarted up like Dagostino or similar.