Does Anyone Buy Schiit for the Sake of Schiit?
Most of us I think when buying something where workmanship and materials are less critical than price will go to a discount store like Walmart of Target (I think we've all heard they about calling it Tar-zhay because it's classier than Walmart) or Costco - the sort of stores where what you buy is not the best but it's always good for what you pay for it. I'm wondering, is Schiit the audio equivalent of Target? That is, does anyone buy it because the Schiit gear is particularly good, or merely that it's good for the price? The only Schiit product that I've ever bought is the Asgard as a headphone amp, since I don't use headphones that often, and I wasn't going to put a lot of money into it. Actually, I tried the Vali 2+ at first, and that seemed rather inadequate, so I sent it back and got the Asgard instead. It seems good enough, though I don't have much to compare it to, but it seems to struggle a bit in getting to higher volume levels.
I have owned the Schiit Modi and Magni for headphones. I listened to the work computer CDs and Spotify. It was much better than the add-on computer audio card and quite listenable. Was it audiophile quality? No. But who has the time or need for audiophile presentation while working? However, it was better than anything I had ever listened to before, on those computers, and it was reasonably priced. I think that the company is the best USA company for audio quality in their products price range. |
I just added a used Gumby and I think it has an enjoyable and interesting sound. IMHO DACs do not sound hugely different from each other, but the R2R NOS sound is definitely a little distinct. I think it's great to switch back and forth between that and my delta-sigma Mytek Liberty II. Can hear the difference...both good...just different... |
No better or worse to look down on those who spend less than to generalize about those who spend more and ascribe to these people motivations that you dont find kosher. Who cares why people buy what they buy and why even discuss it as it no ones business and you cant possibly know their motivations?
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Yes, they do. Well, I do. Good toys, very fair price and they hold their value well, so you don't bankrupt yourself swapping things in and out. Their store in Newhall is a blast, very nice folks. |
I did stay with Schiit for the sake of Schiit. I started with the Vahalla and experiment ed with it as a preamp and that got me into tube preamps. Then I slowly got into digital, and tried the Modi and was amazed at the improvement for dollars spent. Eventually picked up a Bifrost and did not find a major improvement but more of a different sound, more analog. Now I’ve had a Yggdrasil GS and find it to be excellent, especially when paired with my Rogue Athena. I would say that I did remain loyal because the good experience I had with them. |
I never really knew about Schiit until researching for a headphone amp for my Marantz UD5007 and Sennheiser HD800's/Audeze LCD's closed back headphones. After reading reviews on Schiit amps, I purchased a used Lyr 2 off CAM and swapped out the stock tubes for Russian ones and truly love this little guy! |
noske good points all around. I suppose a certain level of snobbery can be found with other "things" other than audio ie clothes, cars, homes etc. But in the end, live and let live. Whatever someone wants to spend on audio does not really affect me, we live in a world where advertising and psychological persuasion is everywhere. Often people are influenced to believe if you have the "exquisite gold plated widgit" you are more important or more beautiful or more something. And also society, as a whole, buys into that. |
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.
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If I can act as referee of my own thread, I think the result is that there are indeed people who do buy Schiit for the sake of Schiit. I think it would have been a little less obtuse of me to look at the price range of Schiit products. They make an amp for $1499 and a DAC for $2199, which would be a mid-level product for more conventional audio manufacturers, but the overwhelming majority of their products are in the $500 or less range, which means the actual field in which they compete is makers who concentrate on gear in that range, of which there are several. In their chosen field they are indeed a major player, both in quality and price. I would also like to emphasize that I didn't necessarily pose the question thinking one answer or the other was more likely. |
My Schiit Aegir has won the day in multiple battles against seemingly sure victors, including Pass XA30.8, Van Alstine M225s… I learned there’s a reason the Aegir is on the Stereophile Class A recommendation list, and it’s not for “savin ya a dollar!” The lower cost is just icing on the cake, albeit glorious icing for sure. And my Yggdrasil OG provides amazing sound as well. There is absolutely nothing cheap quality-wise about Schiit products. |
Have to agree with those who are impressed with the Yggy - there are few DAC’s that sound any better, if any. Got the Yggy v2/OG (whatever) and it is superb in all respects. But... it all depends upon what electronics and speakers you mate it with, what types of interfaces you use, and whether it’s burnt in and warm - once again... "synergy" makes all the difference. And... I’ve also found that how a component "measures" is no indicator of how it sounds. In fact, many... if not... most components that measure well do not sound well... and... many... if not... most that do not measure well do not sound well. Its all about the quality of the recording / engineering / harmonics / etc. that determines how good or poor a recording sounds with any set up. And... the type of music makes all the difference - if you're listening to rock, rap, electronic, etc., you will never be able to discern the differences in sound quality of components, no matter what components you're using. |
Everything in my life is a compromise and “good enough”. I don’t have the house with the room to do justice to outrageously good equipment, and I don’t have the income to afford outrageous equipment. It doesn’t make sense to me to pay $10,000 for speakers in this room, using a $3,000 amp and $1,000 pre-amp, with source of a less-than $1,000 CD transport or $300 turntable. Neither would it make sense to play a $10,000 integrated through $3,000 speakers. I try to balance the quality of all of it together to arrive at “good enough” and “better than my 30 year old $300 Sony receiver with 35 year old Jensen speakers, playing my old Technics cassette deck”. I learn to be satisfied with what I have and can afford. |
I have bought some of their Schiit for a third small system in the garage. I enjoy it while I am working out there and for the price to performance issue it is okay at best ......I do know however that my neighbor who I love otherwise will tell me to ; '' turn that Schiit down '' when I may have it a little too loud. I hope this helps.... |
Why? |
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...
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I would definitely agree that the main selling point is value for money. As to whether somebody with a bigger budget is seeking Schiit out for its own sake, I couldn't say. I do know that I'm personally aiming a lot higher for my next purchase - the bug bit me and I need to go bigger and better. but "solid gear that basically anybody can afford" is a killer niche. i love what they do and i love that so many people are buying $100 dacs and getting an idea of what is possible beyond the thrifts, pawn shops, and best buys of the world. i'm one of them |
I think a number of people on this thread have imagined a chip on my shoulder that really isn't there. I would have thought that when I admitted that I didn't have enough direct experience of their products to make a judgment (i.e., two headphone amps at the lower end of their price range) I would have defused that. The purpose of the question is this: There are brands such as to pick some at random, Focal, B&W, Hegel, Luxman, Martin Logan, that you would seek out because you've heard them in someone else's system, or in a showroom, or even just from reputation, and your frame of mind would be "am I ever going to be able to afford one of these", and you endeavor to get to a point where you can. The question was whether Schiit was a brand you would be sought out for its own sake. I've seen Schiit equipment well-reviewed and held to be better than other competitive brands, so this is not impossible. It could very well be that a piece of equipment specifically engineered to meet a certain price point would be superior to a piece of equipment from a prestigious brand watered down to make an entry level product. I think it would be fair to say that the majority of the people who buy Schiit do it without ever hearing it beforehand. What generally draws people is that they can offer something credible at such a low price. In the case of the Asgard, which was $200 at the time, I was buying something for a not-critical use to me and felt I could get away with paying that little, much like I'd buy washcloths at Target because how good does a washcloth have to be? I am reasonably satisfied with my purchase, for which I actually have no point of comparison with other brands. |
Great post! thanks... I will only add that my not so silly moral imperative is the ratio S.Q./ price tag, it is a "relative" tag on our flowing navigating audio journey...Relative yes for each of us , but very important for most of us... i am with you for the gear criticism jealousy... Criticism of gear is sometimes like boasting about ONE piece of gear though the inverse of jealousy....Not always useful... Reviews made some sense in great numbers to make a choice...Especially if we comparatively analyse them... i am in the impossibility to listen to the gear before choosing it.... I read hundred of reviews before choosing each piece...i choose my dac and amplifier and the speakers this way with success...No regrets after 7 years with the same gear... The brand names of my piece of gear matter for me yes, but way less than the controls method and devices used in and for their embeddings electrical, mechanical and acoustical working dimensions...because many other good pieces of gear could have replaced them, but nothing can replace embeddings control in S.Q. improvement... Even not most upgrade on the same massive scale of improvement caused by these control methods..... Thats all i have learned in my last INTENSE 10 years of my audio journey now.... 😁😊
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Eq. ing the room is more powerful than EQ. ing the gear... We listen to the gear+room not to the gear alone... Acoustic is more powerful than tone control... But for all those with no dedicated room a LOKI can be useful i dont doubt that at all... My Sansui AU 7700 had 6 buttons for filters and refined tone controls... And i dont need them now... I use them for many years BEFORE acoustic treatment and before room mechanical control implementation... |
Yeah what I like to do is buy equipment for $50k and think it sounds 100 times better. I like to buy into hype. There is nothing more satisfying to me than to buy an audio system more expensive than my house and try to get someone over to listen with me only to find out people think it’s stupid to spend outrageous sums of money on audio gear. That’s what I’m all about. I agree with the posters before me everything is a comprise, but rather calling some piece of audio "walmart gear", is it not more ridiculous to overspend on something without getting the quality you paid for?!?! |
johnwolfpell: I've used EQs professionally (graphic, notching parametric, etc.) in my pro sound musician life and home audio for decades, but hadn't even considered one in my hifi rig for many years as I'm more of a purist when it comes to that sort of thing. I tried the original Schiit Loki and was blown away at its transparency and lack of any tonal degradation when it's in the system. I use it in line between the preamp and power amp in the "on" but bypassed mode as suggested by Schiit. I actually bought the newer version, the Mini +, and stuck it in the hifi, moving the other one to the video heap. Just a great EQ, and I imagine the Lokius and Loki Max work fine. |
I have owned their Mjolnir Headphone Amp and the Bifrost 2. Both were excellent for their price and perhaps "punched above their weight". They don't try to play in the stratosphere of the hobby. They have carved out a niche and have some clever marketing behind them. You could certainly get a lot less for your money. Kudos to them. |
I have been very satisfied with my Schiit gear, Gumby and Freya +, though admittedly I have not done any DAC comparisons. The Freya + was a significant upgrade to my NAD integrated's preamp. Had to return the first Freya for an unknown problem in one channel. Customer service was professional and timely. Same with my Gungnir MB upgrade and queries on delayed orders. As with any support organization mutual respect goes a long way towards good service. Overall I would say they offer a very high value product line.
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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 |
What a crazy Hobby this is. I haven’t had the pleasure of owning or hearing Schiit gear. I have read about the history of their company, products, concepts of how they bring products to market. Their model of using their technical expertise and experience to create products at more affordable prices while uniquely listening to their customer base, the customers being allowed to drive models / production while being made in the USA. What about any of the above isn’t to like, weather you like the way their products sounds is subjective. The magic in this Hobby is that gear isn’t merely the sum of its parts. A company can have a ton of R&D funding, put out products that have the best specs on paper but be bested by a one man shop who has a passion and talent to creatively implement those same parts differently, yielding different sonic results. But that “besting” is purely in the ear of the beholder. This hobby has so many success stories of passionate boutique shops making everything from speakers to DAC’s to Amps, to cables, to designing next level active speaker systems. It also has mainstay house hold names like Mac, Krell, Luxman, the list goes on. These iconic brands have their own large fan clubs. So much depends on “you” what you think sounds good. Some of the most heralded products are born from the marriage of highly engineered products that were tweaked, changed in ways that don’t necessarily make sense on paper but yield sonic bliss. Like their products or not, if you are into this Hobby Schiit’s model, success should be celebrated, admired. Taking a Schiit on the company highlights the elitism, baloney that pushes people away from the hobby. I hope we continue to see Companies like Schiit thrive and BTW, some of the other brands, products referenced in this thread are small, 1-2 man operations trying to replicate Schiit’s model / success.
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After hearing and reading a few reviews I bought a Loki it was a fun buy reasonably priced and it is fun changing the sound of my system. I initially was going to return the product and Schiits staff could not have been more helpful in that regard. I had second thoughts. So now it is up to its durability and reliability to win me over in the long run. |
Well, I am an audiophile with lots of experience (I am 65, bought my first pair of Advents in 1972 and started listening to state of the art equipment shortly thereafter, building a GAS Ampzilla in 1975, pairing it at the time with a Marantz Model 7). To say that Schiit is not audiophile equipment is flat out dumb. I’d put my Yggdrasil up against any DAC on the market, at any price, and it won’t be embarrassed. Every piece of Schiit I have bought for myself or my family has been terrific, and not just for the price. I got my older son a Modi Multibit DAC this past Christmas and damn!, the drive that unit has is unbelievable. The Schiit Vali headphone amp, combined with the Modi, did a superb job of driving my Sennheiser HD800S. Different but Not too far in overall satisfaction than what I get from my Woo WA6 with the Sophia Electric mesh rectifier tube. so c’mon, cut out the superiority. They are all well made (I have bought a Saga, Vali, Modi, Loki, Hel, and Yggdrasil), no issues with any of them ever. Audiophile equipment indeed, but without the stupid, gold-chain prices. |
Cost does not always determine quality. Many companies work hard to keep costs down. Direct to consumer sales low advertising budget. To say Schiit is low quality because you had one product and did not like it is what we typically see here. You “heard” they have bad customer service? People rendering opinions on gear they have never heard. If Schiit shut down for a year for r&d, then advertised for 6 months that their new high end line of product was coming out, signed a contract with multiple retail stores, then doubled the price when they put them in the stores man there would be saying how great they are. Thing is though everything was the exact product before the marketing campaign, retail launch. Buy what you want and let others buy what they want and only offer opinions from real experience.
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I won't buy something just because of the name. I buy audiophile gears based on extensive quality reviews and trials. I purchased Schiit Modius and I kept it because I think it is a dac outperforming may DACs I had tried below $500 and other had reviewed below $1k. It takes away digital glare so I could listen to music many hours without fatigues, while still retains details and commendable SS width and depth. The only thing remained to be seen is its long-term reliability. I found the forumers who praise the Schiit as very good to excellent "budgetary" products but NOT audiophile grades are rather snobbish. If you do not beleive they are audiophile grade then do not buy it, because you are downgrading yourself to a non-audiophile at the same time. Why do you proclaim yourself to be a audiophile when you purchase and actually enjoy with a non-audiophile product? Snobbish! That is the first explanation I could think of. In addition, they are one of direct-sale companies that aim to serve well the audiophile community with quality yet affordable audiophile grade equipments. This business model puts themselves a competitor of not only other manufactures but also dealers. That is the second explanation I could think of. If you proclaim yourself as a audiophile and enjoy using the Schiit product, give the appraisal that Schiit actually deserves. Don't be that stingy. |
I have one of the last batch of their Sol turntable. From what I've heard in the comparable range, the Sol blows away the competition. It's no question that Rega, Thorens, etc. make nice turntables, and I know if you dropped some $ tweaking them, they do get better with upgrades. Even right out of the box, my Sol was a great sounding unit, and eventually I did some accessory purchases and some DIY tweaking too. It now absolutely sounds fantastic and completely runs circles around a Rega P3. I really wish they'd bring the Sol back into production or at least produce a few more tonearms so I can easily swap cartridges. My only regret was not purchasing extra tonearms when I could. -Lloyd
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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. |
