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LM358today at 4:30 PM1 replyview on HN

>They seem to make decent products

I don't agree with that sentiment. Their designs are subpar and the quality of the soldering is (maybe was) unacceptable:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/h...

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/b...

The above review specifically goes into the problem from OP.

There's also their amplifier with a rather non-standard architecture that tries to solve a non-problem (injecting feedback in a NFB loop - I might remember wrong, if so, forgive me) which leads to it measuring double digit (!) THD if you feed it a sine wave. I'm not an experienced engineer but it is IMO a non-starter to have an amplifier try to decide what is and isn't a musical signal as part of its protection circuitry, short of detecting DC offsets or shorts (pun not intended). I'm not in the market for a 1800$ amplifier that goes bzzzt if you feed it music it disagrees with [1]

https://www.stereophile.com/content/schiit-audio-ragnarok-in...

>Noise from using USB power delivery for audio devices is common.. that’s why you can (and should) use the dedicated power input to you DAC/amp

I don't disagree with your point. However, a company designing products like these should be able to design a filter for this usecase unless you're trying to use your DAC as a a measuring device, or there is something seriously wrong with your motherboard. I honestly haven't heard of any other brand product with this problem unless it's ~20 years old and in need of repair. It doesn't cost much in the BOM, however it does cost in engineering hours/competence and QA and this is something that should have been caught by the latter.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMbY4sZvIw

Edit: I just want to add that I don't want to hate on Schiit. Honestly I'd like new audio companies to succeed and I applaud them for rejecting MQA back in the day and for not going all-in on the audiofool bullshit one sees too much of. But seeing such poor engineering and QA leaves a sour taste in my (electronics engineering) mouth. Maybe they have improved lately, I wouldn't know. I'm not really in their market anyways.


Replies

pacificat0rtoday at 4:35 PM

Wow, that's exactly what I have, a MODI 2. Time for a change I guess

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