Schiit Gungnir Multibit in the house

[Feanor]

My new, Gungnir Multibit arrived today. It replaces my Bifrost Multibit now sold to some luck buyer. The Gungnir is up & running but, of course, requires some burn-in to reach full potential; how long the will take I don't know but I'm hoping it's not nor than the typical 20-30 'till it's 95+%.

As some will know, the Gungnir Multibit is Schiit's mid-range "multibit" offering. The whole range of three devices deliver "closed form" filtering by way of a DSP chip and conversion by way of a high-accuracy, "ladder", a.k.a. R-2R DAC. High-rollers who are interested will undoubtedly want Schiit's top of the line Yggdrasil model. For me however, the mid-range Gungnir, (US$1250), hits the top of my budget range.

With the notion of some sort up upgrade in mind I did consider a few other options before deciding on the Gungnir, the main ones being:

• Wyred 4 Sound Dac-1 LE
• PS Audio NuWave DSD

However a few factors settled my choice for the Gungnir Multibit:

• i was highly impressed by the Schiit's low range Bifrost Multibit
• I not really concerned with the DSD, (which the R-2R DACs won't handle). Nor, for the matter, the very new MQA format which is proprietary and might or might not amount to anything
• Also, I'm not intending in the forseeable future to get into computer-based oversampling and filtering programs like HQ Player or Bughead Emperor. Not that the Schiit Multibits entirely preclude these programs, but at least I'm won't be getting the higher performance computer they require.

Versus the Bifrost Multibit, the Gungnir MB has higher specification DSP and DAC, balanced output, as stronger power supply, and something called "Adopticlock" that has to do with jitter reduction.

I'm using the Gungnir balanced outputs because my ARC LS9 preamp and Pass X150.5 amp are balanced. Sound quality is supposed to be better via the balanced output: we shall see. The downside is the my preamp's volume control must be set lower on account of the 6dB additional gain from the balance outputs.

I shall provide further listening impressions in a few days.