Schiit not that Good?


Schiit was at AXPONA again this year. They were showing a Salk music server streaming into a Gungnir Multibit (?) feeding a Freya and two Vidars. Speakers were the Salk Song 3As.

 

So what happened?


Esoteric was just next door. This allowed attendees to move immediately from one room to another. Esoteric was showing a full stack of thier latest separates plus a VPI Avenger for analog. Speakers were a pair of Cantons I didn’t get the model of.

 

The Schiit room, while not bad, was completely destroyed by the Esoteric room. Esoteric played one SACD that unfurled a massive soundstage that I could sense even not being in the best seat. The sound of the Esoteric system, both via SACD and vinyl was dynamic, resolving, extremely musical, collected, vibrant, both large and delicately structured. It was a system that got all the minor details right. Such a good setup. The Schiit setup, while unoffensive, clean, and musical in its own right, simply couldn’t face the Esoteric in inner detail, soundstage, reality and low-level dynamics.

 

Why did the Schiit system fail so hard vs the Esoteric? Part of the reason might have been the junk cabling used by Schiit. Peaking behind the system I was Blue Jeans speaker cables and mess of power bricks, basic cabling, etc. I don’t know how much of the Schiit’s performance was compromised by inferior cabling, but I’m curious how close it would have come to the Esoteric had Schiit paid some basic attention to that area.


madavid0
I have cycled through a number of pieces of gear over the past 5 years from various brands and now have a Schiit stack. There is no doubt that the Schiit gear is very good value and sounds fantastic with my current ATC-SCM’s. I think that the Vidar power amp is particularly nice value for it’s output, the Saga/Freya preamps great sounding but wonky UI (why can’t I turn off the tubes to save life!), Gumby DAC top notch (but maybe not as good a value?). Hard to go wrong with their stuff - at least you know you aren’t getting taken to the audiophile cleaners .... ;)
There's barely any reason to turn off the tubes as preamp tubes generally last a fairly long time anyway, and if you are switching from one of the other modes you don't want to wait a minute for the tubes to warm up…if the passive or FET mode is where you want to stay, I think you can remove the tubes, although I found with rolling some NOS Sylvanias in there the tube mode seems to sound better than the other 2, and I need the gain anyway with my single ended little amp.
Gotta love any AG member with the name of wolf_garcia!!! The first several times I heard Jerry play live Wolf was the guitar he played, still remember that sweet, beautiful sound....

Rule of thumb:
Sound quality depends on:
1. Room acoustics -- 40%
2. Recording Quality -- 30 %
3. Speakers -- 25%
4. Electronics -- 4%
5. Cables -- 1% (proper shielding and grounding only. Rest is snake oil)
So, if the sound quality difference was so prominent, it has nothing to do with DAC... Shiit is a great DAC.