advertisement


Schiit Wyrd Device - Not Recommended

DimitryZ

DimitryZ

pfm Member
I have had this in my system for a while, "buffering" USB outputs of a Win Surface and Ipad for streaming to various DACs.

Over the last year have been experiencing strange stutter on Qobuz hirez with Wasapi Exclusive drivers for several DACs from both the Surface and Ipad...

Removed Wyrd, problem seems gone and the sound seems a bit richer.

Was also dissapointed by poor measured performance of Schiit DACs as reported by ASR. Not a measurement freak by any means, but high priced DACs should measure AT LEAST decently today. Same for the expensive PS AUDIO DAC...dissapointing.
 
Schiit Wyrd to the side.... I think we have to be careful here.
Valve amplifiers regularly fail to measure as well as solid state amps.... But many people love them.
Vinyl is measurably inferior in many respects to digital... But its that vinyl sound which we all love and how many hundreds of times have digital products claimed to have an 'analogue' sound?
Don't let ASR tilt your hifi world view too much Dimitry. If the Schiit dacs sound great (and many people seem to think so) ... Surely that matters more than anything else?
 
PS Audio has such an excellent reputation and following in the audiophile community. I own a Nuwave phono and it is very good.

I thought their $6k DAC should sound and measure super well... At least the numbers looked really bad, I am glad I didn't attemp to afford a used version in the past.
 
Darren said:
Schiit Wyrd to the side.... I think we have to be careful here.
Valve amplifiers regularly fail to measure as well as solid state amps.... But many people love them.
Vinyl is measurably inferior in many respects to digital... But its that vinyl sound which we all love and how many hundreds of times have digital products claimed to have an 'analogue' sound?
Don't let ASR tilt your hifi world view too much Dimitry. If the Schiit dacs sound great (and many people seem to think so) ... Surely that matters more than anything else?
Click to expand...
You are generally correct...and yet shouldn't a $6k DAC offer better that 10-12 bits of effective resolution in 2019?

Tube amps and speakers are recognized to have some distortion issues that come wirh the package...solid state DAC should really do better.
 
DimitryZ said:
PS Audio has such an excellent reputation and following in the audiophile community. QUOTE]
There are good reasons for this. Track record being one of them. ASR's track record by comparison?
Click to expand...
 
DimitryZ said:
People may not agree with audibility of the measurements made at ASR, but I don't think there an active dispute about them being wrong or fake.
Click to expand...
Again.... I bet PS Audio think they are, at the very least, wrong.
 
ASR measurements seem very standard set. I suppose they can be consistently faked or altered, but I see no evidence of that.
 
DimitryZ said:
ASR measurements seem very standard set. I suppose they can be consistently faked or altered, but I see no evidence of that.
Click to expand...
I'm not knowledgeable enough to disagree.... I just know that PS Audio built a rep for great sound decades before ASR popped up. I dunno.
My ears are about the only thing I trust.
 
Darren said:
I'm not knowledgeable enough to disagree.... I just know that PS Audio built a rep for great sound decades before ASR popped up. I dunno.
My ears are about the only thing I trust.
Click to expand...
I get that...I can't really reconcile these things.

I own five mid-priced DACs - Oppo UDP-205, M2Tech Young III, CA DacMagic Plus, SMSL SU-8 and Topping D70. They all sound very good and they measure well. There doesn't seem to be a conflict...

Many high priced components both measure and sound great. But there are two other permutations that are possible...
 
If your ears are telling you one thing and measurements another then I think that the problem is that you're measuring the wrong thing or probably combination of things. Also are you sure that your measurement method is up to the job? Presumably you're using a microphone of some sort, is that accurate? How about the measurement electronics? And no, calibrating it with a steady single tone isn't good enough.

No measurement is valid without peer review of the method used, that's one of the cornerstones of science. And when you say 'measurement' that's the arena you're in.

It reminds me of the great Morecomb and Wise sketch with Andre Preview where Eric is supposed to be playing the piano part of Grieg's piano concerto. Eric complains to Andre that the intro is too short to give him time to get to the piano. So Andre asks him how short it is and Eric replies 'about a yard'.
 
2ManyBoxes said:
If your ears are telling you one thing and measurements another then I think that the problem is that you're measuring the wrong thing or probably combination of things. Also are you sure that your measurement method is up to the job? Presumably you're using a microphone of some sort, is that accurate? How about the measurement electronics? And no, calibrating it with a steady single tone isn't good enough.

No measurement is valid without peer review of the method used, that's one of the cornerstones of science. And when you say 'measurement' that's the arena you're in.

It reminds me of the great Morecomb and Wise sketch with Andre Preview where Eric is supposed to be playing the piano part of Grieg's piano concerto. Eric complains to Andre that the intro is too short to give him time to get to the piano. So Andre asks him how short it is and Eric replies 'about a yard'.
Click to expand...
There is nothing unusual or non-standard in the measurement methodology at ASR. They are all industry-standard peer reviewed stuff, using currently best available gear. Many or most serious manufacturers use the same gear/methodology.

PSA responded, and after a lot of juvenile vitriol and obfuscation, admitted that Direct DAC is just noisy, part of the design choices, but it's special in other respects. They then released a firmware upgrade that was supposed to reduce noise, but it did not.

The main problem is not with the digital system, which is clever and updatable but with transformer output coupling. Latter is needed as the transformer primary is part of the DA conversion process. Unfortunately, chosen transformer is not particularly good (designer explained that this was the best they could do at this price point), hence the noise and barely CD quality resolution/DR.
 
Last edited:
DimitryZ said:
ASR measurements seem very standard set. I suppose they can be consistently faked or altered, but I see no evidence of that.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't take any notice of ASR's measurements. Wait and see what proper well established audio testers like John Atkinson or Paul Miller make of this when they produce measurements of this equipment, especially with Miller's test suite which is the industry standard nowadays.
 
There are now two guys measuring equipment over at ASR both using AP’s latest x555, IMO Amir’s measurements have been revelatory.
Keith
 
I owned a PS Audio DSD DAC and it sounded really good. S/N ratio was poor but, along with the firmware updates, it was a great sounding DAC. Now I own a Matrix Audio Element X which, according to ASR, is the best measuring DAC currently available. Guess what - it also sounds great! It’s all down to one’s subjective view - measurements give one indication, your ears do the work though.
 
G T Audio said:
Wouldn't take any notice of ASR's measurements. Wait and see what proper well established audio testers like John Atkinson or Paul Miller make of this when they produce measurements of this equipment, especially with Miller's test suite which is the industry standard nowadays.
Click to expand...

Amir uses industry standard tests too, and can definitely be considered a "well established audio tester", so I think you are applying a double standard here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top