[Puma Cat]

PART II: Eitr and S/PDIF

Right around July, I realized that I no longer actually needed to have my Mac Mini in my audio rack because it was connecting to the microRendu and ultimately, Gungnir via a network, so I pulled my Mac Mini out of the audio rack and put it in my bedroom office at the far end of the house. I wanted to get the Mac Mini as far away from the audio rack as possible given how dirty computers are with respect to noise pollution.

So, I disconnected everything, moved the Mac Mini to the bedroom office, and went to reconnect Gungnir to the microRendu via USB. Except that now, neither Roon or the Sonore would see Gungnir. At all... Whoops. I hooked up other DACs I had, like my AQ Dragonfly and LH Geek Out, and Roon/Sonore saw them and worked just fine. I then tried hooking Gungnir up to three different Macs directly via USB, and none of them could see Gungnir with either the Sound control panel, the Audio Midi Utility, nada, nyet, nothing. All the other USB DACs worked fine. Hmm....seems like when I disconnected the Sonore and other bits to move the Mac Mini out of the audio rack, I must have fried either the USB port or controller on my Gungnir. After some research, I assumed that the USB port/controller might have suffered a static electricity charge-induced failure when either disconnecting or reconnecting the microRendu. Schiit says that they repair a lot of static electricity-induced USB interface failures.

As I needed my USB functionality repaired, I placed an order for the new Schiit Gen 5 USB upgrade, which had literally been released that week. Since Gungnir was going to in to the Schiit-shop for a USB repair/upgrade I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and also ordered the Gungnir Multibit upgrade as well. This converts Gungnir from a delta-sigma DAC to a multibit R2R device.

Meantime, I pulled the Gungnir out of the rack, and I put my Schiit Modi 2 Uber that was being used for mybedroom headphone setup into the system and it worked fine with the Sonore (as did my Schiit Loki, Trickster God of DSD).

But, I wasn't that overly thrilled with the sound. Obviously, while the Modi 2 Uber is a good DAC, it does not sound as good as a Gungnir. It was acceptable; good, but certainly not great, it has a somewhat thin, dry & sterile presentation of the music compared to Gungnir, with a smaller soundstage (and nowhere near as good Loki, I might add, FWIW).

Turns out, when Schiit did the Gen 5 USB upgrade, they also released a cool new device, Eitr. Eitr is a USB/SPDIF convertor that utlizes the new Gen 5 USB implementation as a well as superior S/PDIF output circuit. Both the USB and S/PDIF circuits are completely isolated from RFI/EM using transformers rather than optocouplers, each has their own, independent linear power supply and each circuit was isolated from each other. Schiit pulled out all the stops on Eitr. I figured, hmmm, I could use Eitr with it's Gen 5 USB/SPDIF conversion functionality and connect it to Gungnir via it's coax SPDIF input while I wait in queue to send Gungnir in for its upgrades. So, I ordered it, and when Eitr arrived, I hooked it up to the SPDIF input of Gungnir using a single Zu Wylde RCA interconnect.

My digital music chain at this point was: Mac Mini in the bedroom sending files from Roon via wi-fi > Airport Express in the stereo rack > Audioquest Cinnamon Ethenet Cat 5 > Sonore microRendu 1.3 > Eitr > Zu Wylde RCA "analog" interconnect cable > Gungnir SPDIF input > C-J amplification chain. Well, it sounded pretty darn good, and more importantly, Gungnir was back in business while I waited in queue. Cool.

Meantime, I ordered an open-box Shunyata RCA terminated SPDIF 75 ohm digital cable. Once I got that, I replaced the Zu Wylde regular RCA analogue interconnect with the Shunyata 75 ohm digital coax SPDIF cable.

So now, my chain was essentially this: Mac Mini/Roon > Airport Express > Sonore microRendu > Eitr > Shunyata Venom 75 ohm SPDIF digital coax> Gungnir SPDIF input.

Another NOTABLE improvement: with the Shunyata 75-ohm digital cable the sound quality was demonstrably smoother, sweeter, more musical and dimensional and more full-sounding than with the Zu cable, and quite noticeably so. Soooo, now we're cookin' with gas...the system sounded VERY good and most importantly, my Gungnir was back in the system and performing to it's full potential. Here was the key takeway for me: using Eitr with a good SPDIF digital coax cable sounded notably better than the original Gen 2 USB input on Gungnir. I realized after using Gungnir for over three years that I had not actually been truly hearing how good it could actually sound! (remember that comment back in Part 1 of me ignoring Jason and Mike's comment about USB not sounding very good? Well, they were right...)