Dac: Does anyhting beat the Schiit Gungnir Multibit (Gumby) in the same price range?

The Museatex Bitstream is a very musical DAC.  The older original upgrade was an overall improvement in clarity, details, and better defined bass.  That being said, if you can find the BiDAT, it was a much better unit than the Bistream.  Just better in every area and retains the musical sound.  There are differences between newer DACs and the older Museatex DACs but not game changers in my opinion.  Museatex was designed by Ed Meitner (EMM Labs) who I think helped Sony/Phillips get the digital sound working.  He knows his digital stuff.

R2R again in my opinion sounds better but it also comes down to implementation in the design.  Not all R2R DACs are better.  There are plenty of cheaper priced DACs today that sound reasonable for the price.  I have yet to hear one that really does what some of the higher priced DACs do but it all comes down to ones ears.  For example, recently at my friends home he as a lower priced DAC (he is not an audiophile by any means).  In comparing two DACs at the different price levels, he thought that the lower priced DAC was clearer sounding, with more details.  My opinion was completely different.  The higher priced DAC was much easier to listen to, had more dimension, instruments had better space and tonality, and more 3D sounding, less HiFi sounding.  We did not really go into comparing them it was just his first impression.  To him, he could live with the lower priced DAC because he really could not understand the differences.  To me the cheaper DAC was hard to listen to because it was so flat sounding in comparison and not musical in comparison.  Tone was an issue for me, piano and the sax just did not do it for me.

Happy Listening. 

@pmboyd if you are interested. Someone is selling an upgraded Bidat. http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/649348362-museatex-meitner-bidat-for-sale/

I purchased a HOLO Spring DAC Lv 3 Kitsune, I’ll compare with my other DACs in the coming weeks and post it here and also over at HF where I’m known as Audio-68.

Cleo,

Absolutely agree that there must be something special in Bitstream. I have a Marantz SA-1 that uses dual DAC7 (TDA1547) 1-bit Dual Bitstream. So far no digital I have owned or tried have ever touched it. And yes, I have had a loads of different digital from the latest and greatest to some very expensive players and combos.
Discrete R2R is another hidden miracle. I ordered Denafrips Ares for my TV and it`s absolute joy. It belongs to many, many times higher echelon considering it`s price. It`s the smallest brother so their higher dac`s like Venus or Terminator may be a serious contenders for my reference digital.

By reading the above posts, one can surmise that most have not heard the Schiit Gungnir, so can’t offer an opinion to the question posed. Then there are those who are recommending DACs over the Gungnir that are in another price category(again, some without even knowing what the Gungnir sounds like), which of course does not answer the question or help the OP.

There do seem to be a lot of DAC fans out there, however. I can’t answer the question either. I bought the Schiit Bifrost Multi bit a week ago at half the price of the Gungnir Multibit, and it’s a jaw dropping value for the performance attained.

If the folks at Schiit can build such an excellent DAC at the $600 price point with the Bifrost Multibit, I’d love to hear what the Gungnir and yggdrasil can do. Schiit is a unique company. They started out building their units in the one partner’s garage, and they’ve always built them in the USA from American made parts. Really! I don’t know how they can compete price wise, but they sure do. They are both heavy hitters in the audio electronics industry and teamed up to start Schiit.

I had initially bought the Schiit Modi Uber DAC, and it easily outperformed my Audioquest Dragonfly Red though it’s almost half the price of it. I started reading up on the Bifrost Multibit and decided to purchase it. I asked to return the Modi and they agreed even though it was 7 days outside their return window. They even waived the restocking fee! The Bifrost blew away the Modi Uber. It’s amazing how good the Bifrost makes the mp3 music on my iphone sound!