Schiit Audio Bifrost Vs Grant Fidelity TubeDac-11

[koushik]

I am researching and reading lot of reviews on different sites for budget DAC at around $400. By that I almost zerode it to Schiit's Bifrost DAC till I came across few more budget DACs like
1.Peachtree DAC-iT
2.GF TubeDAC-11

Tubes in the analogue o/p stage got my interest. Would like to know others' view on these DACs or any similar other DACs

 

[Srinath_seshadri]

Grant Fidelity Tubedac 11 is on its way to my evil hands.
Expect it to be first taken apart before its powered up LOL.

Cool.
Srinath.

 

[subhobh]

Wow, would be interesting comparison. Please post the outcome.

 

[mavinvinci]

another DAC for Schiit coming with great expectation..

Schiit Yggdrasil DAC Review (pre-production): a short preview of your next DAC

 

[koushik]

Grant Fidelity Tubedac 11 is on its way to my evil hands.
Expect it to be first taken apart before its powered up LOL.

Cool.
Srinath.

Cool! Looking forward to hear it from you.
Do you have access to any other DAC(s) to make a comparison?

 

[GeorgeO]

Are Grant Fidelity products still available? Ian Grant died last year and I thought his business was wound up. I know a lot of their stuff was on clearance.

 

[koushik]

another DAC for Schiit coming with great expectation..

Schiit Yggdrasil DAC Review (pre-production): a short preview of your next DAC

There was suppose to be a new DAC from them early this year what they called as "price not a factor" DAC. Is this the thing? The review is awesome that I read.

 

[koushik]

It is a $2299 piece
Schiit Audio, Headphone amps and DACs made in USA.

 

[Srinath_seshadri]

I have a $40 TDA1543 dac to compare it to. LOL.

My friend has the equipment to separate the good, from the great. However He is also biased in favor of what he owns. I may sit there and make my own descision. But it takes several hours of listening. Something I cant always do. My TDA1543, he listened to it way more than I did, I loaned to another friend, who doesn't have the components though. Effectively, the tubedac 11 will be judged against the TDA1541 and TDA1543 equipped CD players I got, and not against a real high end dac.
Cool.
Srinath.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

It is a $2299 piece ... ... ...

At direct-selling price. No cut added for distributor and retailer.

If we were to do this by price label, it should compete with stuff very much more expensive. That is a part of what Schiit tries to do.

Yes, I'm a bit of a Schiit enthusiast. Like with Blue Jeans, one day I'll try to put my money where my mouth is ...but DACs are a bit more expensive than cables!

 

[koushik]

Hey Thad, believe me, I like them too since long time back & that's because of Mike Moffat

 

[Srinath_seshadri]

My grant fidelity tubedac 11 was finally subjected to blind listening tests by my wife, and non blind listening test by me.
I ran it against a TDA1541 equipped Rotel CD player.

The setting that we both liked the best was to run digital via spdif to the dac and tube out from that dac.

The small surprise IMHO, was that the second favorite was the TDA1541 out to analog in of the tubedac11 and tube out from that.
Overall, I think the tubedac 11 is great, but its not too far ahead of a TDA1541 coupled with a tube buffer.

Cool.
Srinath.

 

[Srinath_seshadri]

I actually am impressed the tda1541 in the CD player came out tha twell when you send it into the tube buffer.
Its possible that the tube buffer mainly lowers the noise floor a good bit, so all the highs and the intermediates seem higher.
I am also running it with a bad chinese tube. I have a box full of tubes I can try out, old raytheons, old GE's and everything else. I just need to find it in storage.

Cool.
Srinath.