Budget external DAC?

[KaminKevCrew]

ok...

 

i just watched a video of somebody talking about audio products..., Schiit was among them... and holy crap. Is it really pronounced like that!??!

Yeah, it is pronounced like Sh**t. I personally like their gear, despite what ShearMe's opinion on them is. I think that he is referring to the whole debacle about the AKG headphones that had a serious flex and deformation to the driver on power down. The owner made a huge mistake by telling the customers that it was normal operation, and that it was nothing to worry about. He has since remedied the issue, and offered to replace the problem for free to anyone that had that specific amp/dac. Anyway, they have pretty good gear, and the Fulla looks very interesting to me. I would have gotten one, if I didn't already have the Audioquest Dragonfly.

[creatip123]

Yeah, it is pronounced like Sh**t. I personally like their gear, despite what ShearMe's opinion on them is. I think that he is referring to the whole debacle about the AKG headphones that had a serious flex and deformation to the driver on power down. The owner made a huge mistake by telling the customers that it was normal operation, and that it was nothing to worry about. He has since remedied the issue, and offered to replace the problem for free to anyone that had that specific amp/dac. Anyway, they have pretty good gear, and the Fulla looks very interesting to me. I would have gotten one, if I didn't already have the Audioquest Dragonfly.

 

It goes something like this:

 

- The product (asgard) output DC current at powering off, at about 2.2V. This is the cause of the driver deforming.

- AKG responded that even 0.25V of DC current might damage the headphone. Remember, it's DC, audio signal is supposed to be AC

- The owner of schiit responded that it's only at 0.1-0.15V, which is not true, because it's later confirmed by measurement that it's about 2.2V

- This whole debacle made nwavguy, the original designer of objective amp, the public enemy in head-fi, and got him banned.

 

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html

 

That's nwavguy's pov, so it may very well be biased, but there are a lot of comments below the post to help build the real picture.

[KaminKevCrew]

It goes something like this:

 

- The product (asgard) output DC current at powering off, at about 2.2V. This is the cause of the driver deforming.

- AKG responded that even 0.25V of DC current might damage the headphone. Remember, it's DC, audio signal is supposed to be AC

- The owner of schiit responded that it's only at 0.1-0.15V, which is not true, because it's later confirmed by measurement that it's about 2.2V

- This whole debacle made nwavguy, the original designer of objective amp, the public enemy in head-fi, and got him banned.

 

http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/banned-at-head-fi.html

 

That's nwavguy's pov, so it may very well be biased, but there are a lot of comments below the post to help build the real picture.

Yeah, I've heard the story from a few perspectives. I don't really look down on Schiit too much though, as they were a new company at the time, and we all make mistakes. I think that it really shines in Schiit's favor that once they realized the mistake they had made, they made a recall to fit the fix for free. 

[creatip123]

Yeah, I've heard the story from a few perspectives. I don't really look down on Schiit too much though, as they were a new company at the time, and we all make mistakes. I think that it really shines in Schiit's favor that once they realized the mistake they had made, they made a recall to fit the fix for free. 

 

Probably the thing that got to the haters so much is that at first they tried to deny the problem even existed, despite of some claims of the same problems already reported. 

 

In a logical thinking, they should've done a crosscheck from the few first claims, is it true or not, before denying the problem exists. 

 

From what I got from that blog + a few reading:

 

- users reported the issue

- the company denied the existence of said issue

- whole debacle and drama 

- suddenly the company said, yeah, the problem is there, just send it back to us, and we'll fix it for you. no formal apologies, no proper explanations, nothing. It's like saying the earth is square today, and suddenly saying the world is round the next day.

[KaminKevCrew]

Probably the thing that got to the haters so much is that at first they tried to deny the problem even existed, despite of some claims of the same problems already reported. 

 

In a logical thinking, they should've done a crosscheck from the few first claims, is it true or not, before denying the problem exists. 

 

From what I got from that blog + a few reading:

 

- users reported the issue

- the company denied the existence of said issue

- whole debacle and drama 

- suddenly the company said, yeah, the problem is there, just send it back to us, and we'll fix it for you. no formal apologies, no proper explanations, nothing. It's like saying the earth is square today, and suddenly saying the world is round the next day.

Yeah, they did try to say that nothing was wrong. I know that at one point, the owner of Schiit did make a post on head-fi apologizing that they didn't immediately check on the customers' concerns. Other than that, as far as I know, what you've said to this point is completely true. (Also, note: I don't know how long it took to apologize to the community, so it may have been a ridiculous amount of time.)

[ShearMe]

That debacle is just a single issue. In general, things I've heard about the owner, and his overall attitude in other situations, leads me to believe he's not the nicest flower in the field. The majority of their products are clearly snakeoil. Naming your entire company off a dirty joke, while funny at first, eventually becomes childish.
 

ok...
 
i just watched a video of somebody talking about audio products..., Schiit was among them... and holy crap. Is it really pronounced like that!??!

Schiit has good marketing, looks good, and they have a non-crap product for basically every price point. They can be mentioned in nearly every conversation about source hardware if someone wishes. It would be difficult to be displeased with one of their products.

 

I simply try to offer an alternative whenever possible.