Does Anyone Buy Schiit for the Sake of Schiit?

i will give a quick rundown of my 4 experiences with schiit gear

- bifrost mb dac - for 400 bucks second hand, a credible dac, nice warm tone, not the most resolving, little grainy... top of case sheet metal edges a little unfinished to me -- for the same price, i liked the chord mojo (original) better, though of course it is both portable and ergonomically challenged in a home rig at the same time - i felt the bifrost mb was a decent value, on par with other good offerings albeit with different strengths and weaknesses (musical paradise, older van alstine tube dacs, around the same price), at this price it made the right tradeoffs, which is to fight digit-itis and add some warmth and body to the music

- gumby - at 950 used, a step up, once again on par with other ’good’ dacs in the price range -- ayre codex, mhdt stockholm - quite natural sounding, better resolution without stridency, nice expansive image, better sibilance control - a notch better than rme adi2, topping d90 mqa which to me sounded robotic/digital, and border patrol which was too smoothed over, lacked drive and inner detail - loud clicking relay noise in the gumby bugged me when switching tracks, once again a credible upper tier performer among better 1000 dacs

- loki - got one for fun to mess with when i was trying to tame the hot treble in the spatial m3 sapphires... no brainer for 200 bucks... did the job without damaging the signal, nice it could be switched in and out easily, no obvious electronic artifacts - excellent - keeping it to have around if ever needed again

- aegir amp pair - bought for 1200 used, very well built, substantial, for my big spendors or harbeths which are medium efficiency not demanding loads -- the sq is exceptionally good used as xlr monoblocks, excellent tone/timbre with good drive and a real sense of purity for the $, was not quite as resolving as better hegel or pass but within a hair... those amps of course 2-3-4x in price... kept the pair... really like em... 

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