Schiit is an interesting company. The 2 principals of the company have decades of experience in high-end audio (Sumo/Stoddard & Theta/Moffat). Theta was a particularly visionary brand in early digital...one that resonates to this day with the growing popularity of multibit and NOS DACs. After 20-30 years in the high-end 2-channel trenches, these men started Schiit. In a way, that’s when things got way more interesting.
Headphone audio was never as big as high-end 2-channel audio (which itself was never close to big using any standard business metric). But headphone audio was vestigial back in the day. But since 2010 when Schiit was started, headphone audio has grown a LOT. It’s still not truly big, but it’s certainly bigger than before. And Schiit clearly had something to do with that growth.
Schiit was among the first headphone audio companies to offer a coherent product & model set, affordably priced and offering clear upgrade paths within the Schiit product domain. These guys really know what they’re doing as businessmen. This includes watching other meta-trends in audio, like the resurgence of vinyl, which was repeatedly declared dead yet never went away. And so Schiit launched a turntable a couple years ago.
As for me, I have a lot of headphone gear--not just the headphones, but also electronics (8 amplifiers, several of which are also preamps; 3 DACs; SPDIF/DDC boxes; etc). My headphone audio tastes (and wallet) took me higher up the audio food chain than Schiit. But I’ve run into them often.
Schiit is a big exhibitor at headphone audio shows. I mean large booths, multiple representatives staffing it, lots of product. They do it right. I’ve heard a number of their products at shows. I admire the clever design and product differentiation of the company’s gear.
I only bought one Schiit product. It was B-stock (a SPDIF converter). It didn’t work well, so I called, hoping to get the "no returns for B-stock" policy waived. No such luck. Schiit is matter-of-fact to the point of bluntness in their dealings with customers. No warm hugs and favors. That's who they are; they don’t apologize for it.
I have no axe to grind with this company. If you're getting started in headphone audio, you would do well to check out their stuff. Beyond their low-end lineup, their big DAC, Yggdrasil (not cheap, but also not terribly expensive by high-end standards) competes well with other big DACs (some far more expensive) in the high-end world.
In fact, that DAC’s name illustrates my only real beef with Schiit. The names (and nicknames) drive me nuts. Hard to say, hard to spell, hard to remember. The names seem affected. Beyond that, I wish them well...
