Does Anyone Buy Schiit for the Sake of Schiit?

@2psyop is it not more ridiculous to overspend on something without getting the quality you paid for?

Depends on what is meant by ridiculous. Some goods are purchased precisely and deliberately because they are expensive. What you actually get, including quality, may not be predominate motive.

This violates normal micro economic theory and common observation, but may be sort of explained.

I think an important consideration in audio gear is that the price is a signal in itself of quality; this is not that unreasonable. No short-cuts or compromises have been made with those thick front panels.

The snob effect is well known. There are other reasons, perhaps overlapping (conspicuous consumption, brand name, made in America - which of course Schiit is, etc), but that is a taste.

In the meantime, it does appear ridiculous, I agree. My amp goes to 11.

These kind of goods have a name, by the way - veblen goods, and they are everywhere.

@dancarlson10 what I took away was an edgy grainy coarse bright sound that made string instruments sound metallic, almost as if their gut strings they were playing on were made of plastic. Honestly I couldn’t wait to get it out of my system.

"there are fundamental problems in Schiit multibit DACs when it comes to doing what they are told to do: convert digital samples faithfully to analog. Whether we use balanced or unbalanced output, problems remain. And not just in one measurement but practically everywhere we look."

So, your subjective assessment is in line with what Amir concludes about Yggdrasil v2 based on the measurements of a few key parameters. I’m not surprised, but some audiophiles may prefer to cross a busy intersection at peak hour before consulting with ASR.

@mrskeptic They do almost everything themselves and don’t have to worry about markup from distributors and then retailers so they can keep the prices low.

This does present something of a conundrum to posh retailers who have stuff on their shelves with bone crunching price tags that need to be sold - would they dare to stock Schiit even if they could? Customers may find that they prefer Schiit if they audition. Ouch.

Isn’t competition a beautiful thing?

Yes, Schiit have very experienced and highly reputable engineers on board. I suspect this may be a recent (last couple years or so) development.  That Yggy thing I mentioned a few posts above was June 2018 - that was then, this is now.

@audition__audio I love the way people take criticism of equipment personally. Even more humorous are those of us who lecture others regarding spending habits and posit motivations for such "foolish" expenditures. Such insecurity must be grounded in jealousy

Why?