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The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

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Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#41

Post by cthalupa »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #35
cthalupa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some of their products are worse than snake oil. When powering off, Schiit's Asgard amp can output enough DC to damage some headphones. Early versions of the product came without a power relay, with the implication being you should have the volume pot all the way down, and unplug your headphones before ever turning the amp on or off. That is fairly standard precaution with the higher end of audio equipment, which bo…

"NWAvGuy wasn't actually banned for his interactions with Schiit, but due to the very strict advertising rules at Head-Fi." And Al Capone was nabbed for tax invasion. If they want to lock you up, they will.

Have you spent much time on the Head-Fi forums? People get banned all the time for advertising things who aren't at all related to any sort of feud with forum sponsors.

nwavguy was specifically told to stop advertising in the manner he was, and he didn't. Plenty of other people have gotten the same PM from jude.

Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#42

Post by cthalupa »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #37
cthalupa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know of many big ticket amps you can turn on before you turn on your big ticket preamps and don't run a risk of having an expensive bad day. Why? Because you are amplifying the turn on signal from the source or preamp. Every time you have ever turned audio equipment on and heard that thump or pop, you are hearing the same phenomenon that ran the risk of damaging headphones left plugged in. It just so happens…

There's also nothing wrong with cars which don't pop the lock back open if the car is off and the key is in the ignition, except that when such a technology exists, is pretty cheap / easy to implement, and can save users potentially a lot of trouble, why would you not implement it? I would argue that there is something wrong with amps / pre-amps which pop when turned on: it's sloppy design which doesn't even save muc…

I should be more clear: I am a fan of relays. I think everything should have them for convenience and peace of mind.

But at the same time, I'm not willing to dismiss a product just because it lacks an optional feature that would have made it more convenient for me. I'm not going to say something is poorly designed and not worth the cost if every other thing it is meant to do, it does well. I'm more concerned with the core features of the product than added niceties.

My only issues were the idea that this was something that wasn't standard fare (since it is, though the publicity related to this incident has caused quite a few manufacturers to switch to including relays on everything - which I'm perfectly okay with!) and that it is somehow damning to the product design on the whole.

If I buy a Lotus Elise, there's a lot of nice functionality that probably wouldn't cost much to implement that I could find on cheaper cars that I'll be missing out on - but those weren't things I was looking for when I purchased the Elise.

Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#43

Post by superuser2 »

ferongr wrote: post #27
cthalupa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some of their products are worse than snake oil. When powering off, Schiit's Asgard amp can output enough DC to damage some headphones. Early versions of the product came without a power relay, with the implication being you should have the volume pot all the way down, and unplug your headphones before ever turning the amp on or off. That is fairly standard precaution with the higher end of audio equipment, which bo…

>That is fairly standard precaution with the higher end of audio equipment No it's not, that's called bad design. Unless high-end now stands for "poorly designed gear sold for 10 times what they're worth".

>No it's not

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I've worked in concert halls with half-million-dollar sound systems. You don't flip the power on upstream devices (DSPs, boards, etc.) while the amplifiers are powered on.

In nice, modern installs the system integrator will usually have installed a sequencer. You turn a key and what is essentially a glorified rackmount power strip emits a series of clicks as relays on a timer power on sections of the rack in a safe order. Otherwise it is up to the engineer to start up and shut down according to the correct procedure. A mistake will not necessarily damage equipment, but you will hear it pop - which may be anywhere from subtle to deafening. It is a dumb - and not unheard of - way to blow a speaker.

This is becoming less of an issue as digital audio networking (Dante, etc.) takes hold - there may be no analog connections between the mic itself and the amplifier - but it is absolutely standard with analog interconnections.

Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#44

Post by Curmudgel »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #37
cthalupa wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know of many big ticket amps you can turn on before you turn on your big ticket preamps and don't run a risk of having an expensive bad day. Why? Because you are amplifying the turn on signal from the source or preamp. Every time you have ever turned audio equipment on and heard that thump or pop, you are hearing the same phenomenon that ran the risk of damaging headphones left plugged in. It just so happens…

There's also nothing wrong with cars which don't pop the lock back open if the car is off and the key is in the ignition, except that when such a technology exists, is pretty cheap / easy to implement, and can save users potentially a lot of trouble, why would you not implement it? I would argue that there is something wrong with amps / pre-amps which pop when turned on: it's sloppy design which doesn't even save muc…

> There's also nothing wrong with cars which don't pop the lock back open if the car is off and the key is in the ignition, except that when such a technology exists, is pretty cheap / easy to implement, and can save users potentially a lot of trouble, why would you not implement it?

If you drive an armored car, then you wouldn't want the doors to automatically unlock whenever you put it in park. An ICE agent was killed three years ago in Mexico because of this feature.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/armored-suv...

Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#45

Post by LewisJEllis »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #38
loosescrews wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for cnkeller, but I first got a Modi and Magni. The Modi was good enough, but the Magni wasn't. The problems with the Magni were that it wasn't grounded and its volume pot sucked. The lack of grounding made it very susceptible to interference and crappy volume pot made fine adjustments in volume impossible. I replaced it with an Asgard 2 and have been satisfied ever since. I suspect that the newer cheap…

It's pretty sad IMO when anyone selling a >$100 amp cheaps out on the volume pot, since it's a really obvious thing to upgrade, and Alps Blue Velvet pots are used in almost every hobbyist design. I would further question where else they tried to save money. This is a big part of why I like open-design amps / hobbyist / community-designed amps / kits.

Note: the Magni is a $99 amp.

Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#47

Post by dsissitka »

cthalupa wrote: post #41
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"NWAvGuy wasn't actually banned for his interactions with Schiit, but due to the very strict advertising rules at Head-Fi." And Al Capone was nabbed for tax invasion. If they want to lock you up, they will.

Have you spent much time on the Head-Fi forums? People get banned all the time for advertising things who aren't at all related to any sort of feud with forum sponsors. nwavguy was specifically told to stop advertising in the manner he was, and he didn't. Plenty of other people have gotten the same PM from jude.

He wasn't banned for advertising.

  It wasn't his posts.  Yesterday, he sent a hostile, unsolicited private message to one of our moderators that was forwarded to me.  Among other things, in that message he brought up his attorney, and I have no patience for those who resort to what several moderators (myself included) interpreted as a legal threat (however veiled) as a bullying tactic.
  
  For that, it's at least a tentative ban for him.  And that's as much as I'll say about it, because we generally do not discuss bans publicly.
Jude @ http://www.head-fi.org/t/562736/what-causes-this-amp-related...

Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#48

Post by cthalupa »

dsissitka wrote: post #47
cthalupa wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you spent much time on the Head-Fi forums? People get banned all the time for advertising things who aren't at all related to any sort of feud with forum sponsors. nwavguy was specifically told to stop advertising in the manner he was, and he didn't. Plenty of other people have gotten the same PM from jude.

He wasn't banned for advertising. It wasn't his posts. Yesterday, he sent a hostile, unsolicited private message to one of our moderators that was forwarded to me. Among other things, in that message he brought up his attorney, and I have no patience for those who resort to what several moderators (myself included) interpreted as a legal threat (however veiled) as a bullying tactic. For that, it's at least a tentativ…

Ah, yep, you're right - it's been quite some time since everything happened, and I misremembered it slightly. Though, what ultimately set it in motion was the advertising.

  What he took exception to was my request that 
  (a) he remove the link to his blog from his signature, and 
  (b) that he refrain from linking to his blog frequently.

  When he was asked these things, he took great exception to
  the request; and, not surprisingly, even more so when the
  links were removed. What he doesn't post 
  (and what I have the messages to prove, as I'm sure does he) 
  is that I told him he was more than welcome to post his
   information here, instead of posting teasers here and
   then linking to his site to finish. I told him at some
   point he might be able to do that here; but, again, not
   before he had shown that one of his primary reasons for
   being here wasn't to redirect to his blog.

Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#49

Post by cnkeller »

sondr3 wrote: post #19
cnkeller wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any experience with the Wyrd, but I have a MacPro connected to a Bifrost DAC and Asgard 2 amplifier running to a pair of Sennheiser 650 headphones (work/live in a noisy environment). Completely satisfied.

Did you upgrade straight to the Bifrost/Asgard or did you have something like the Vali/Modi before or? I currently have those, but I'm looking at upgrades some time in the future.

Good question. I went to the Bifront/Asgard setup directly without prior Schiit experience (though I did have Sennheiser experience). My previous setup was constructed for a different environment, e.g, speakers and a Denon with a built in DAC/amp.

I can absolutely tell the details in certain albums using the new setup. Hearing the difference between FLAC/ALE and something encoded at 320bps or higher is really dependent on the material though.

Re: The Story of Schiit Audio (2014)

#50

Post by yitchelle »

ScottBurson wrote: post #46

“Yeah, but sometimes you just gotta say, ‘what the heck!’” (Except without the h and e, replace with f and u.) ?? You call yourselves Schiit Audio but you can't bring yourself to write "fuck"??

That's why their name is Schiit Audio, not Shit Audio. It all part of their cunning marketing plan.
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