[FrivolsListener]

It's rare for the main broadsheet to have any article on audio that's worth highlighting. Often the (very occasional) articles cover audiophools spending big bucks, sometimes in tiny listening spaces. Recently there's been some coverage on the renaissance of vinyl.

To my surprise, today's edition had coverage of the Magni 3! http://www.straitstimes.com/tech/audio/st-digitals-holiday-gadget-gift-guide-for-audiophiles

(You can see how USD exchange rate and shipping affects our street price for audio gear. )

They list the price twice as high as it is. Maybe they believed that $99 was a typo? EDIT: Or thatt's the exchange rate? Wow.

 

[jimmers]

They list the price twice as high as it is. Maybe they believed that $99 was a typo? EDIT: Or that's the exchange rate? Wow.

Exchange rate plus 50 percent, here it's exchange rate plus 60 percent (but including tax and delivery); that's based on the Schiit site price, which I don't think includes taxes as USA seems to have different taxes by state, city etc.

 

[T1YggCrackPi]

Exchange rate plus 50 percent, here it's exchange rate plus 60 percent (but including tax and delivery); that's based on the Schiit site price, which I don't think includes taxes as USA seems to have different taxes by state, city etc.

It's rare for the main broadsheet to have any article on audio that's worth highlighting. Often the (very occasional) articles cover audiophools spending big bucks, sometimes in tiny listening spaces. Recently there's been some coverage on the renaissance of vinyl.

To my surprise, today's edition had coverage of the Magni 3! http://www.straitstimes.com/tech/audio/st-digitals-holiday-gadget-gift-guide-for-audiophiles

(You can see how USD exchange rate and shipping affects our street price for audio gear. )

They list the price twice as high as it is. Maybe they believed that $99 was a typo? EDIT: Or thatt's the exchange rate? Wow.

My guess of the listed price is taken from one of Schiit's distributor in Singapore - SLT Technologies Pte Ltd. They list on Lazada locally @ $199. http://www.schiit.com/places/distributors

I do get minuscule savings ordering direct from the US, e.g. Loki Mini. Of course i hope the Schiit product doesn't break down, shipping will cost quite a lot for heftier weighty Schiit builds like the Yggy.

 

[wink]

If SOL is (Subjective ALERT!) affordable and attractive to me, then I shall likely wind up with an 8th turntable. If not, I am certain it will sell well enough that Mike and Jason will not have night mares involving a tide of tiny toads storming Castle Schiit waving flaming VU Meters and screaming "Blücher!!!!" at the top of their toadish lungs.

But you never know.. My minions await my bidding...

ORT

Yep, they start small.....
Six months later you get these...

...

...

...

..

 

[wink]

...and a good partner for Costanza......

 

[Pete-FIN]

What do you think of that idea? Is that good enough for a Home Theater Bypass, or do you have to have your dedicated I/O?

Jason, since you asked I'm gonna take the liberty to suggest, that you guys make an integrated amplifier with power amp input, and obviously make the input remote selectable. Just to give you an idea I modified picture of Ragnarok:

I think this would satisfy people with needs to connect AV receiver to stereo set up. And I think it would be very interesting to see 'no compromises integrated amplifier' from Schiit. In your product line up there is only one integrated, and it has no remote function, so maybe it would be a good idea to make a new one with more functions.

 

[haibrands]

Hey all,

I’m Jason Stoddard, the co-founder (with Mike Moffat) of Schiit Audio. You may have seen some of my posts on Head-fi. But you haven’t heard the full story of Schiit…why we started the company, how we’ve grown from June 2010 to today, the good stuff…and the bad stuff.

So, in a burst of insanity, I thought, “Why not turn this into a book?”

Why? Well, in addition to Schiit, I’ve written plenty of stuff, including about 30 published stories and 3 books. Jude and the team at Head-fi were kind enough to provide this space for me to serialize this story. The plan is to post a chapter a week until it’s done, which should take us through the summer.

Now, you may be wondering, “Why the heck should I read some crazy book about Schiit?” Well, there’s nobody forcing you to. But if you’re interested in the inner workings of a true by-the-bootstraps startup (did you know we started in a garage, with no external investment?) or if you’ve been thinking about starting your own business (beyond the usual platitudes of “hey, you should incorporate, and there’s this stuff called ‘cash flow’ and stuff), or if you’re just curious about how a modern audio company works (from who’s actually engineering the gear, to how it gets made, to the ups and downs of the day to day working of the company), you may enjoy it, or find it helpful and informative if you want to start a company yourself. I have no illusions that this will be the next business best-seller—if it ever makes it into print—but I’m having fun writing it, and I’m hoping you’ll like reading it.

Disclaimer: there’ll be plenty of technical stuff in here, because, after all, I am an engineer. You won’t have to understand it all, but you may be more entertained if you have a techy side. Later on, there’ll be some early photos from Schiit, as well as a video or two, that have never been seen before.

For ease of reference, I’m putting the outline here. The chapters will be linked as they are added.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

All the best,
Jason Stoddard


Schiit Happened:
The Story of the World’s
Most Improbable Start-Up

By Jason Stoddard
Co-Founder, Schiit Audio

Dedications:

To Mike, for going along with this crazy idea.
To Rina, for support, naming the company, and tolerating the whole mess.
To Eddie, for helping us really get started when we needed it most.
To Tony, for testing dang near everything we’ve made.
To Alex, for taking over, making things right, and running the show.
To Dave, for doing the hardest stuff.

Content:

Forward: Christmas Presents Until the End of Time?
Chapter 1: The Line is Down. Here’s an Undocumented Test Rig. Fix It.
Chapter 2: 15 Years On the Marketing Front Lines
Chapter 3: From Death, Rebirth: Armageddon 2009
Chapter 4: “You Always Say You Have Schiit to Do, Why Don’t You Just Call It That?”
Chapter 5: $800 In Screws?
Chapter 6: The First Order Is…For Something We’re Not Selling
Chapter 7: Metal Debacle, Valhalla Style
Chapter 8: We Screw Up Sennheiser and Insult Some Big Guys
Chapter 9: Powering Up: Lyr
Chapter 10: Our First Employee, Our First Boardhouse
Chapter 11: USB Sucks! Or, Mike Joins the 21st Century
Chapter 12: Schiit Goes Evil?
Chapter 13: “Isn’t the Symbol for USB the Long Flat Rectangle?”
Chapter 14: Technical Help Via Time Warner, and The World’s Most Irritating Failure Mode
Chapter 15: DAC in a Toilet Paper Roll
Chapter 16: Growth, Garage Style
Chapter 17: Resurrecting the Circlotron and Other Mid-Centuryisms
Chapter 18: The Pinch-Off Problem
Chapter 19: Every Road is a Dead End: Early Adventures with Magni
Chapter 20: The HOA Problem
Chapter 21: You Catch a Cold, We Die: Bigger Products, Bigger Problems
Chapter 22: Introducing the Schiithole
Chapter 23: “I Didn’t Know People In the Private Sector Were As Lazy and Incompetent As the People In Schools”
Bonus Chapter: Perspective
Chapter 24: Getting Our Schiit Together
Chapter 25: Dead Media Ain’t Dead: NYT Strikes
Chapter 26: Finally, the $99 Solution
Chapter 27: Twilight of the Gods—Ragnarok from 2009 Until Today
Chapter 28: “You’ll Never Do Any Upgrades Anyway.”
Chapter 29: Worst. Customer. Ever.
Chapter 30: Death of a Product
Chapter 31: R&D Sometimes Means, “Try It, See if it Works”
Chapter 32: Name Me One Non-Standard Format That’s Succeeded, Ever, Or, A Trickster Cometh
Chapter 33: No Sample Left Unchanged: Digital Today
Chapter 34: Black Friday, and How One Company Out-Did Us
Chapter 35: You Want to Pay How Much? Or, How We Moved Again
Chapter 36: A Real Company?
Chapter 37: The Value of Diversions
Chapter 38: Wyrd Schiit
Chapter 39: Unto the Second Generation
Chapter 40: Schiit Goes Vinyl
Chapter 41: Completely Fulla Schiit
Chapter 42: One Year, Twelve Products

And now...

Schiit Happens:
The Ongoing Story of the
World's Most Improbable Start-Up

I had so much fun writing this book that I've decided to continue it on a roughly every-other-week basis. This part may end up being more nuts-and-bolts business, since that's what I'll be dealing with on a more consistent basis this year (rather than launching 10000 more products.)

And so, here we go...starting with a "selling on Amazon" primer like none you've ever seen.

Chapter 1: The Trials and Tribulations of Amazon
Chapter 2: When to Listen, When to Act
Chapter 3: Our Favorite Scammers
Chapter 4: Bridging the Gap
Chapter 5: A Life in the Day Of...
Chapter 6: So You Wanna Get Into the Biz?
Chapter 7: The Yggy Circus, Tidal Uprisings, and the Unknown Future
Chapter 8: Reacting to Now vs Planning for the Future
Chapter 9: Hints, Teases, and Solicitations
Chapter 10: Knowing Our Place?
Chapter 11: Food Scientists vs. Michelin Stars
Chapter 12: Measurements (With a Side Order of Sanity)
Chapter 13: Detours in Balanced-Land, or "Improving On 'Perfection'"
Chapter 14: We Launched a DAC and Got a Movement
Chapter 15: How Not to Start an Audio Company
Chapter 16: When to Say "When"
Chapter 17: The Multibit Revolution Gets Cheap
Chapter 18: Death (and DNR) of a Product
Chapter 19: The Most Difficult Design Brief
Chapter 20: Looking Forward to 2016
_

2016, Chapter 1: A Longer Discourse on Marketing
2016, Chapter 2: What To Do While Waiting For Ragnarok (Or, Alternate Strategies For Creating Your Own Well-Capitalized Company)
2016, Chapter 3: The Importance of Service
2016, Chapter 4: How We (Didn't) Move Again
2016, Chapter 5: The Subjectivist/Objectivist Synthesis
2016, Chapter 6: Being Comfortable with What You Are
2016, Chapter 7: On Modding, Hubris, and Reality
2016, Chapter 8: A Perspective on This Moment in Digital
2016, Chapter 9: The Elephant In The Room
2016, Chapter 10: Because We Can
2016, Chapter 11: The Road to Jotunheim
2016, Chapter 12: Word of Mouth at the Speed of Light
2016, Chapter 13: The Saga of Saga (and, um, Freya too)
2016, Chapter 14: Why You Can't Always Get What You Want
2016, Chapter 15: The Vidar Chronicles, Part I
2016, Chapter 16: Even More Fulla It
2016, Chapter 17: A Directional Assessment

—

2017, Chapter 1: Why We Do What We Do
2017, Chapter 2: "Obsolete."
2017, Chapter 3: Leaving Marketing
2017, Chapter 4: Deprogramming
2017, Chapter 5: Back to the Past
2017, Chapter 6: Conversations With a Stubborn Engineer
2017, Chapter 7: Learning New Tricks
2017, Chapter 8: The Vidar Chronicles, Part 2
2017, Chapter 9: Skipping a Generation
2017, Chapter 10: Failures and Flyers
2017, Chapter 11: Audiophile Confessions
2017, Chapter 12: Third Time's The Charm
2017, Chapter 13: Sailing Off the Edge of the World
2017, Chapter 14: Slouching Towards Kaizen

LOL amazing

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

I know someone has it al adapted to .pdf.
Anybody know where I can find this?

 

[Jason Stoddard]

Just a quick note: I'll be starting the end of the year wrap later this week, or maybe next. I'm dividing it into three parts, since (a) a lot has been going on behind the scenes) and (b) I'm kinda lazy, so breaking it up makes it look like I did more work. So, you'll soon have end-of-2017 chapters on What We Did Right, What We Did Wrong, and Where We're Going.

 

[Pietro Cozzi Tinin]

Ah, be sure to include a picture of the whole team in the last chapter.
Would be fun to see faces behind the names yes?

 

[Zadok]

Ah, be sure to include a picture of the whole team in the last chapter.
Would be fun to see faces behind the names yes?

Trade secret #23: never reveal your schiit

 

[45longcolt]

Just a quick note: I'll be starting the end of the year wrap later this week, or maybe next. I'm dividing it into three parts, since (a) a lot has been going on behind the scenes) and (b) I'm kinda lazy, so breaking it up makes it look like I did more work. So, you'll soon have end-of-2017 chapters on What We Did Right, What We Did Wrong, and Where We're Going.

Flashing back to The Firesign Theater; "Everything You Know is Wrong." Bet Jason knows that record.

And if you get a breather in 2018, please revisit the idea of a Loki Maxi. You would get the balanced in/out crowd. (And they can spend more, so you can move up in case size.) My wish is for eight frequency adjustments. Ideally, separate for each channel. Yes, sixteen knobs (a new Schiit record.) And a balance control, since you won't put one on the Rag or Freya.

In the meantime, stay safe and have a Merry Christmas.

 

[US Blues]

Loki Maxi. And a balance control, since you won't put one on the Rag or Freya.

+1 Balance control a MUST.

 

[wout31]

Start with basic troubleshooting--different cables, running ONE Vidar, looking for volume control on the player software, etc. This is all on our website under schiit.com/faq/system-problems, by the way, If you have problems beyond that, contact the distributor you purchased the Vidars from, or us, if you purchased directly, contact tech@schiit.com.

Contacted the distributor and sent the Freya and both Vidar's.
Only answer on return: everything works fine.
No further explanation, no measurement reports, no explanation th Vidar's went into clipping on 2V input. NOTHING.
Very disappointing result for all the effort and cost of shipping I put into it.

 

[ScottFree]

Just a quick note: I'll be starting the end of the year wrap later this week, or maybe next. I'm dividing it into three parts, since (a) a lot has been going on behind the scenes) and (b) I'm kinda lazy, so breaking it up makes it look like I did more work. So, you'll soon have end-of-2017 chapters on What We Did Right, What We Did Wrong, and Where We're Going.