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Schiit Bifrost review

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psyopwak

Active Member
Here is the FIRST impression of the Schiit Bifrost with about 20 hrs of playing time.

The unit sounds pretty good out of the box. I am playing a Rega Apollo CD transport as a source and switching over to a Squeezebox Classic (3) with MOG playing wireless from an in-home router. I am using an optical TOSLINK out (not USB) to the Bifrost.

The unit has a very clear and (analytic) sound which I would not describe as warm. This tends to support what I heard about the Bifrost. It sounds much like my Benchmark USB DAC1.

The transients are very good and there is a very good channel separation. It is dead black quiet in the quiet passages between the music. The tonality of instruments are actually more accurate with this unit than on my Benchmark. Later I will do an A/B comparison to see if my initial impressions are on the mark.

There is a VERY distinct upgrade in sound from the stock DAC in the SB3 and this Bifrost. There is really NO comparison. I know the DACs in the later Squeezebox versions are better.

Music I have sampled;

Bonnie Raitt- Slipstream (notable are 1Right Down the Line, 2Not Cause I Wanted To, 3Ain't Gonna Let you Down, 4God Only Knows)

Bonnie's voice is very tender and soft on 2 and 4, Guitar and decay of tone is very convincing on 3, drums are tight on 1)

Lou Reed- Rock and Roll Animal (guitar is majestic and simply astounding on this album)

John Lee Hooker- Best of Friends and Mr. Lucky (notable is Boogin Chillin with great percussion beat and guitar and I Cover The Waterfront with the best blues duet of Van Morrison and JLH you could hope for)

Joni Mitchell- Court and Spark (notable is Down to You with remarkable piano and vocal range)

Sting- If on a Winters Night- (a sleeper/ great musical album)

Diana Krall- Live in Paris (notable is A Case of You with extraordinary vocals and piano of Joni Mitchell's ballad)

Strengths thus far on this DAC- Great separation on channels and instruments, accurate tonality but not warm or soft. Very quiet on black passages, lets every sound come through clearly.
Drawbacks would be that it is not warm or mushy sounding. Very neutral.
 
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My results mirror this. I upsample the majority of my files to 24/192 (uncompressed wav), and I'm getting incredible clarity and true, true fidelty, faithful to the master in terms of neutrality and sparkling realism. Rooms have a very natural small decay, and voices are so accurately reproduced that I sit agape with amazement at Jerry's voice on Stella Blue. China Doll from Mars Hotel is eerily coming to life before my ears with Sansui 8080DB, Klipsch Fortes and schiit bifrost with 24/192 upsampling via dbpoweramp Music Converter (free version, which I heartily recommend). Forget more storage room for more songs and evaluate your collection. Pick and choose your best audio artifacts and upsample! Start a thread about your findings! Everything I've treated like this sounds huge! What A Wonderful World by Joey Ramone is guitar- and drum-rich... Modern sounds like INXS are phenomenal. Morrison's baritone's in the room here too.
 
Here is my SECOND impression of the Bifrost with about 60+ hours of playing time.

I have now played with the Pure (Iphone dock) and Iphone/MOG as music source. The Iphone and Pure dock do not yield the same results as the SB classic when both were fed into the Bifrost. The SB classic does sound better at this point in time. The weak link now seems to be the Iphone.

As far as how well the Bifrost is sounding. It sounds very close to my Benchmark USB DAC1 and it costs about 1/4 the price. I am using my Grado SR 60's instead of my speakers to be really accurate on my impression of the sounds I hear.

I will break it in for another 20-40 hours and then switch to a pair of Magnepan speakers in a side by side death match with the Benchmark. In that review I will speak more about the quality of tones, sound stage, range of freqs, vocals, separation of instruments and smoothness or harshness in the sounds.

For now as budget DAC, it is (in my mind) a very good DAC. It is a no frills DAC, for sure. But if high quality sound is your main concern, this would be a very good low end choice.

BTW, I have ONLY used the Toslink connection for the inputs.
 
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Toslink for me too. I'm 6 months into mine and have been totally enthralled with it. Having no experience other than the bifrost, I'm pretty satisfied, and until I have a buttload of extra cash I won't be upgrading.
 
How is that pronounced "**** , shite or sheet ".:scratch2:
 
Here is my 3rd impression of the Bifrost. Yes it is good ****.
I have now used it for over 100hrs. I am listening to Magnepan MMG speakers which have much clarity for this last review. Before this I was using
Grado SR-60 headphones.

My impression is that it's performance is about 95% of what my Benchmark USB DAC has given me. That is saying alot, since the Benchmark was at the 1K mark when I bought it about 5yrs ago.

That being said, it is picky about what source drives it.
My Pure Ipod dock with Iphone streaming MOG does not fare as well as me Squeezebox 3 (SB3) streaming MOG. And the Marantz SACD universal player with CD's sounds better. Finally, my Rega Apollo with redbood CD has sounded the best. Listened to Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" Legacy Edition on MOG and CD for all comparisons. There was much more delicacy with the SB3 and the CD's on the CD/SACD players. Accurate tone of instruments is important to me. Tonality was dead on with the CD players, just acceptable with the SB3. A bit thin on the Pure dock/Iphone. (The SB3 surprised me with it's match to MOG. If you can get one used with a good power supply, I don't think you'd be disappointed with what it can do).

The Bifost's front panel white led power light is a bit on the bright side and the power switch is on the back of the unit (these are some quirky things about the unit.) All systems with the Bifost were presenting a very reasonable black background.

The equipment I am using with the Bifrost is my day to day 2nd audio system;

Magnepan MMG's
Parasound A21 amp (solid state amp)
Parasound P3 preamp
SB3 with Jerome Ind. external power supply
Marantz DV-8500 SACD/DVD/CD player
Rega Apollo CD player
Pure Ipod dock/ Iphone
Schiit Bifost DAC
HOSA toslink optical switchbox


The Bifrost is a very good buy at the price. I was contemplating other players, but the Bifrost seemed to be a no-frills, just sounds good unit built by some guys who knew how to design a quality DAC. Turns out it is a great DAC. Although I know there are many good DACs out there, I am happy with this sub $400 unit.
 
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I realize this is an older thread but I couldn't resist the price so I bought a Bifrost for my office system. I should get it early next week and I will report back...just for another review as I know many have contemplated purchase of this DAC.
 
For those with the Bifrost, there's a $70 DAC board upgrade available from Schiit ($70 if you DIY, $100 if you have them do the upgrade). It's called the Uber upgrade - not sure if I'm going to do it yet, but seems to have positive reviews on Head-Fi. Supposedly stronger and tighter bass and maybe a bit more bright/detailed.
 
Yes, I have the analog upgrade. Been using it for 3 to 4 weeks and the improvement is remarkable. They made it better, more analog sounding. Upper end is smoother, and so is the midrange, Better separation of sounds and more present dynamic range.
 
psyopwak said:
Yes, I have the analog upgrade. Been using it for 3 to 4 weeks and the improvement is remarkable. They made it better, more analog sounding. Upper end is smoother, and so is the midrange, Better separation of sounds and more present dynamic range.
Click to expand...

Did you do the install yourself? I heard the LED alignment is the tricky part.
 
The install of the new analog card was not too difficult. Took me about 20 minutes. I have a set of tools for opening a Macbook Plus from Ifixit.com. But I think I also needed a bigger better phillips with a rubber handle. Take your time, use a wrist strap for static discharges.

The improvement in sound was surprising...:music:
 
psyopwak said:
The install of the new analog card was not too difficult. Took me about 20 minutes. I have a set of tools for opening a Macbook Plus from Ifixit.com. But I think I also needed a bigger better phillips with a rubber handle. Take your time, use a wrist strap for static discharges.

The improvement in sound was surprising...:music:
Click to expand...

I went ahead and ordered the board. Should be here soon. I figured for $80+ all in, it was worth the effort and cost to improve the sound. Looking forward to it.
 
captouch said:
I went ahead and ordered the board. Should be here soon. I figured for $80+ all in, it was worth the effort and cost to improve the sound. Looking forward to it.
Click to expand...

I think you'll find for the cost of the new board, it will be the best budget upgrade you could make. The Schiit sounds as good as my Benchmark at half the price. The Benchmark has some options the Bifrost does not, but the Bifrost is really impressive with regard to sound. IMHO:smoke:
 
So I've had the Bifrost in my office rig now for 3 days...sounded pretty darn good right out of the box! I A/Bed it to my (former) PS Audio DL-III and there wasn't a whole lot of difference. Although not fully broken in, the Bifrost did sound a tad harsh in the upper registers but already that seems to be smoothing out day after day.

I think the DL-III does sound a bit better but not by a whole lot - I can't put my finger on it but the DL-III seems to be a bit more "organic" sounding perhaps. I am sure the Bifrost will catch up as it gets more hours on it. So far...thumbs waaaay up!
 
iamjaymo said:
So I've had the Bifrost in my office rig now for 3 days...sounded pretty darn good right out of the box! I A/Bed it to my (former) PS Audio DL-III and there wasn't a whole lot of difference. Although not fully broken in, the Bifrost did sound a tad harsh in the upper registers but already that seems to be smoothing out day after day.

I think the DL-III does sound a bit better but not by a whole lot - I can't put my finger on it but the DL-III seems to be a bit more "organic" sounding perhaps. I am sure the Bifrost will catch up as it gets more hours on it. So far...thumbs waaaay up!
Click to expand...

Does yours have the Uber upgraded board? Just installed mine this afternoon - sounds great!
 
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