Digital Drive: REVIEW: Schiit Audio Gungnir DAC Processors by dls123

Model:	Gungnir
Category:	DAC Processors
Suggested Retail Price:	$849
Description:	DAC
Manufacturer URL:	Schiit Audio

Review by dls123 on March 06, 2014 at 09:29:24
IP Address: 50.92.70.70 Add Your Review
for the Gungnir

Hi all,
OK, first the caveat, I am not affiliated in any way with the manufacturer. Not a paid review, etc…. I just acquired a Schiit Gungnir DAC. I rebuild/restore/repair tube gear for my living so rest of system is a totally rebuilt and upgraded Harman Kardon Citation I preamp and Citation II amplifier, driving a pair of Joseph Audio RM25si Mk2 speakers. I will refrain from the usual "Schiit" jokes, except to say that this thing is some seriously good Schiit! I have an old Consonance ref 2.2 CD player with tubed output stage and was looking to finally move most of my CD collection to my now retired old laptop, an old Toshiba running Vista 64 bit. So I bought a 2 Tb external drive and downloaded a copy of JRiver and off to the races. I found the Gungnir on Amazon as an open box special for $799. Bought a decent USB 2 cable and started in. The cable is a 5 ft. Audioquest Forest USB 2 cable that cost all of about $35. As has been posted all over the web, the Gungnir has a long break in period. Out of the box it sounds very good with tons of clean, well defined bass, but the highs, while detailed, are a bit forward and slightly fatiguing. After about 10-15 hours though it mellows right out and the highs remain detailed, but sweet, and you can listen all day. That said, at 50-75 hours I have on the unit it is still improving subtly. The midrange, while very good, is getting even better. I would say this is a stunningly good DAC! I have experimented with running a CD on the old Consonance and playing it directly from the CD player and also through digital coax to the DAC. Have A-B’d them and while it does show the Consonance is still a really good CD player, it cannot compete with the DAC. The Gungnir bass is better defined. Not more prominent, but you can better hear the resonance in the body of a string bass, etc… The highs on the CD player are quite good, but the DAC is better so the imaging is better. The air around instruments is much greater than with the CD player. You can almost hear the music breathing. If there is a decay or echo in the recording it is just stunning. Of course all of these are keyed to the great HF response of the DAC (and the fact that the rest of the system can reproduce them). I listen to a lot of gear after I rebuild it for folks and I am pretty stunned by this DAC. Even old recordings like Ella and Louis, or Miles Davis Love Songs are just fantastic. Yeah, that good! The best thing though, is that when I listen to the ripped copy of the same CD on the laptop in JRiver through a USB 2 connection to the Gungnir I cannot tell any difference between the USB and the coax input from the CD player as a transport. So the USB implementation on the DAC is very good indeed. I tried the optical input by connecting my Squeezebox touch to the Gungnir and it synched and worked perfectly. Slacker on the Squeezebox via optical to the Gungnir sounds pretty darn good for a low res feed, but even red book CD’s are far better.

Some internet postings have mentioned communication issues between the PC and the Gungnir. I simply downloaded the USB windows drivers from the Schiit site, installed them as directed and JRiver communicates perfectly using either ASIO or WASAPI. The only thing I had to do was to select the “Disable Event Style” box in JRiver on the WASAPI settings. Both work perfectly and I could not detect any difference in sound. So left it on WASAPI. Others have mentioned that they thought coax input sounded better than USB 2, and others like me can discern no difference. My system is very revealing so if there was a large difference I would hear it. I am 57 though, so if there is some incredibly subtle difference, my ears may not detect it! That said, it is pretty clear that a PC running JRiver will communicate perfectly with this Gungnir through a decent USB 2 cable of 5 ft.

Two other things. The old CD player had a very slight hum at full volume with no disc playing. Pretty darn slight, but there. With the Gungnir idling away and the volume all the way up on the preamp there is absolutely no hum whatsoever. This is a tube preamp and power amp and you have to have your ears to the speakers to hear any noise whatsoever at idle. Exact same cable set. So clearly the folks at Schiit know how to do grounding. I would love to try the balanced outputs on the Gungnir, but don’t have a preamp with balanced inputs. I bet they work very well though! Also, I have an assortment of under $100 power cables that I have collected over the years. Not insanely expensive AC cables made of unobtanium. Just $50-$79 cables. I installed one in place of the stock AC cable that comes with the DAC and could immediately hear an improvement. So you should probably get a decent AC cord. Or buy some Belden or other good cable and a good set of plugs and make one for $40.

Bottom line, this thing sounds fantastic! Really. It is detailed, yet warm and rich. The air around instruments is very apparent. Be patient and let it break in for 50+ hours. Let’s just say if you paid $1000 for a CD player that was this good you’d be very happy, and for $1000 you can have the DAC, a copy of JRiver, a decent USB cable, and change in your pocket. And the flexibility of being able to use optical, coax, and usb inputs. I downloaded some free high resolution samplers, and the 96K and 192K files play perfectly. JRiver lets you see the audio stream specs and it confirms that the high res files are being sent to the DAC at the right resolution, and you can hear the Gungnir relay click when you go to 96K or 192K files, so it works perfectly. These sound better than red book, but red book sounds pretty nice! Better than the same disc played on the good CD player. Actually the high resolution files are incredible and rival my turntable setup, and the convenience of the PC running JRiver is hard to beat. You can even have another laptop control JRiver from the couch…but you knew that. Or get Foobar or other free player. What I have not done is to listen to multiple DACs. I have a cheapo Chinese DAC (Grant Fidelity I think) in the basement and it sounds nice, but the Gungnir is in a totally different league, not even close. I have not heard other $700 - $1500 DACs though. So all I can report is that the Schiit Gungnir sounds incredibly good to my ears, and I listen to a lot of gear. I suspect it will continue to improve, but if it stopped here it would be more than good enough. I paid $799 on Amazon for an open box one, but if I had paid the $849 direct from Schiit for the USB version I would still feel that it was a bargain. So again, I cannot tell you what this DAC sounds like compared to the lower cost Bitfrost, or other DACs in the $700 - $1500 price range, or much more expensive DACs. Just that it works perfectly on coax, optical, and USB 2 talks with Jriver perfectly (on my old Vista laptop). I am sure it would work with Foobar or other software as well, but I have not tried them. Of course, computers being what they are, others may have issues, but I have not. I have listened pretty much exclusively to the USB 2 input via JRiver on a windows laptop and it sounds fantastic. If there is some uber expensive DAC out there that sounds better, so be it, but the Gungnir sounds wonderful, high res files rival the turntables, red book sounds fantastic, and all of the inputs synch perfectly. What’s not to like? I really doubt you would be unhappy with this DAC if the rest of your system is good enough to discern the sonic differences between it and lesser models. Great value, and seriously good Schiit!

Happy Listening!
Don

Product Weakness:	Absolutely none that I can discern except that it takes 50+ hours break in. At 75 hours it is stunningly good, so be patient.
Product Strengths:	It sounds wonderful and synchs perfectly with everything I have tried via optical, coax, and USB2. It is also dead quiet at idle.

Associated Equipment for this Review:

Amplifier: H-K Citaiton II, fully rebuilt
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): H-K Citation I, fully rebuilt
Sources (CDP/Turntable): Thorens TD 124, 125
Speakers: Joseph Audio RM25si Mk2
Cables/Interconnects: various good ones
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Jazz, classical, and pop
Room Size (LxWxH): 20 x 32 x 8
Type of Audition/Review: Product Owner

Amplifier:	H-K Citaiton II, fully rebuilt
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	H-K Citation I, fully rebuilt
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Thorens TD 124, 125
Speakers:	Joseph Audio RM25si Mk2
Cables/Interconnects:	various good ones
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Jazz, classical, and pop
Room Size (LxWxH):	20 x 32 x 8
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner