Does Anyone Buy Schiit for the Sake of Schiit?

Cost does not always determine quality. Many companies work hard to keep costs down. Direct to consumer sales low advertising budget. To say Schiit is low quality because you had one product and did not like it is what we typically see here. You “heard” they have bad customer service? People rendering opinions on gear they have never heard. If Schiit shut down for a year for r&d, then advertised for 6 months that their new high end line of product was coming out, signed a contract with multiple retail stores, then doubled the price when they put them in the stores man there would be saying how great they are. Thing is though everything was the exact product before the marketing campaign, retail launch. Buy what you want and let others buy what they want and only offer opinions from real experience.

Well, I am an audiophile with lots of experience (I am 65, bought my first pair of Advents in 1972 and started listening to state of the art equipment shortly thereafter, building a GAS Ampzilla in 1975, pairing it at the time with a Marantz Model 7).

To say that Schiit is not audiophile equipment is flat out dumb. I’d put my Yggdrasil up against any DAC on the market, at any price, and it won’t be embarrassed. Every piece of Schiit I have bought for myself or my family has been terrific, and not just for the price. I got my older son a Modi Multibit DAC this past Christmas  and damn!, the drive that unit has is unbelievable. The Schiit Vali headphone amp, combined with the Modi, did a superb job of driving my Sennheiser HD800S. Different but Not too far in overall satisfaction than what I get from my Woo WA6 with the Sophia Electric mesh rectifier tube.
 

so c’mon, cut out the superiority. They are all well made (I have bought a Saga, Vali, Modi, Loki, Hel, and Yggdrasil), no issues with any of them ever.

Audiophile equipment indeed, but without the stupid, gold-chain prices.

After hearing and reading a few reviews I bought a Loki it was a fun buy reasonably priced and it is fun changing the sound of my system. I initially was going to return the product and Schiits staff could not have been more helpful in that regard. I had second thoughts. So now it is up to its durability and reliability to win me over in the long run. 

What a crazy Hobby this is.  I haven’t had the pleasure of owning or hearing Schiit gear.  I have read about the history of their company, products, concepts of how they bring products to market.  Their model of using their technical expertise and experience to create products at more affordable prices while uniquely listening to their customer base, the customers being allowed to drive models / production while being made in the USA.  What about any of the above isn’t to like, weather you like the way their products sounds is subjective.  
 

The magic in this Hobby is that gear isn’t merely the sum of its parts.  A company can have a ton of R&D funding, put out products that have the best specs on paper but be bested by a one man shop who has a passion and talent to creatively implement those same parts differently, yielding different sonic results. But that “besting” is purely in the ear of the beholder.  
 

This hobby has so many success stories of passionate boutique shops making everything from speakers to DAC’s to Amps, to cables, to designing next level active speaker systems.  It also has mainstay house hold names like Mac, Krell, Luxman, the list goes on.  These iconic brands have their own large fan clubs.

So much depends on “you” what you think sounds good.  Some of the most heralded products are born from the marriage of highly engineered products that were tweaked, changed in ways that don’t necessarily make sense on paper but yield sonic bliss.  
 

Like their products or not, if you are into this Hobby Schiit’s model, success should be celebrated, admired.  Taking a Schiit on the company highlights the elitism, baloney that pushes people away from the hobby.  I hope we continue to see Companies like Schiit thrive and BTW, some of the other brands, products referenced in this thread are small, 1-2 man operations trying to replicate Schiit’s model / success.  

everything in life that can be bought is judged by what it provides relative to its cost... it is just that some judge this aspect more than others

schiit audio makes a lot of gear, some very inexpensive, some more expensive, all are well engineered and thought through - that said, it is a high volume outfit so you are not going to get super careful high end individualized care and service, but it is a pretty well run company that is by and large responsive to its customers

like all companies that make a lot of items, some items are better than others, from performance, value, market success perspectives - i would say its lower cost items are better, relatively speaking, as there is a degree of quality and assurance that is better than no name cheapo lowest-common-denominator stuff off ebay or alibaba... moving up in price there are more quality alternatives from other makers

it is what it is