Which headphones of Drop's currently available?
I have some rewards points to burn but there's no obviously good options on Drop right now for headphones Contenders Ultrasone - maybe? I don't own any Ultrasones, so curious. Looks like garbage travel headphone which could be useful also. Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. - Maybe? I have the DT 880 Good price point, really uncomfortable headphones but could be interesting to try the upgraded version. E-MU - strong contender but $400 is a bad price point for what it is. Which of the above would you choose and why? Nothing else on Drop is relevant to my interests, because Already own 6xx 820 800 s Ether cx Garbage / Consumer grade Meze 99 - garbage bass canons, hard pass No gaming headphones obviously Sennheiser wireless - no to wireless/bluetooth Hifiman - I have 2 of drop hifimans and they make really bad cheap shit on Drop, hard pass on HE-R7DX Aeon - I own the closed, Drop refuses to address #padgate so no reason to buy open Beyerdynamic 177x - wireless, nope Too similar 8x / 560s...
Mar 28, 2024
Schiit Product Page: http://schiit.com/products/jotunheim
Link to Schiit DSD setup in different OS configurations: http://schiit.com/guides/dsd-setup
Only the Loki is called out in this 'How To'
The Jot DAC chip (AK4490 x2) is capable of handling DSD, but Schiit just doesn't support the format. The DA9 uses AK4497 DAC chips, which are new and roughly 10x more expensive than the -90, BUT this cost will come down making the present DA9 cost overly high in the next year time frame....
I highly doubt that listed specs is true. It is also obviously incomplete as well.
Take the O2 for example: https://www.innerfidelity.com/images/JDSLabsO2ACPowered.pdf
The crosstalk is -120 at 10 Hz but it steadily increases to -60 at 20 kHz. So that -120 dB doesn't specify at what frequency it is at or what the maximum crosstalk is within 20Hz to 20kHz
That SNR is also very suspicious. First of all it has negative sign on it WTF. If it was a typo though, I have seen plenty of Chinese manufactured AMP/DACs that list the DAC CHIP SNR rather than the unit's SNR.
But let's assume it is 130 dB though. The Yggy for example is >117 dB SNR at 2V. The DAC Chip spec: https://www.akm.com/akm/en/file/datasheet/AK4497EQ.pdf lists its SNR of 128 dB at 2V (or 131 dB at 2.6V). So either the SNR increased by 2 dB or their whole unit manage to only loose 1 dB, for $1000 this is actually a steal!
Keep in mind that Schiit is currently back ordered on the USB DAC, but they should have more next week. I inquired since I'm considering buying another Joutenheim for the office. I love it that much.
When I am back from traveling I'll take a picture of my setup.
I understand cost is relative to what you can afford, but for many, the Joutenheim is most likely going to be a better option if you are not looking for DSD playback.
Only unbalanced mode cross talk seems to be on the low side, balanced numbers are more than impressive, check it out.