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okay people, itās been about 2-and-a-half days, and i am already having a problem. to cut it short, the right channel of ANY headphone or IEM i use has this scratchy and sibilant distortion. i tried swapping cables.
in the middle of writing this message, i have decided to swap back to the JDS Labs EL II to check if this was perhaps a DAC issue. I did the headphone shuffle, and the IEM cable switcharoo, and no scratchy distortion in the right channel for anything.
to triple check, i decided to swap back to the asgard 3, and then like magic, the scratchy distortion is gone. i have no idea why it started, nor why it ended. iām just happy that it magically fixed itself. will keep you all updated in case if it persists. in a state of panic, i have already contacted schiit, and i will updated them about my findings as well.
in the meantime, please look at how geometrically pleasant this asymmetrical triple stack is.
update: the scratchiness returned after some time, and again for no discernable reason. i decided to plug out the asgard 3 again and swap to the EL II. again, no scratchiness in the right channel when i use the EL II. afterwards, i swapped back and the scratchiness is gone in the asgard 3. what a mystery.
Update: the right channel will have a pop and slight hiss at times after listening to music for an hour or two.
Manā¦ I love my Asgard 3 but it seems like the QA on this product is not the best. Seems like every time I check back in here there is a new person with an issue which is a real shame because this is such a fantastic product at the price point. Hope they can fix whatever is going on there.
Thankfully they are pretty nice with return/exchange policy, they fixed my issue within 1 week of e-mailing them.
Could be down to sample bias.
In other words: For everyone speaking up with a problem, there could be twenty happy customers.
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Yeah, since you donāt know the size of the ownership base, you canāt determine the failure percentageā¦
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The end result is they are taking ownership of a product and even paying for the shipping back to them.
There are other choices out there and Schitt often states this.
My Asgard 3 arrived and worked wonderfully while I had it.
Alex
Owned 12 Pieces of Schiit over last 4 years including Asgard 2 and 2x Asgard 3ās. 4 pieces from new rest 2nd handā¦never a problem. Great sound awesome designā¦My Bifrost 2 is never leaving.
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My Asgard is in daily use since I got it mid March. Added the ESS dac a few weeks ago. No issues either. Using it as an desktop all in one connected to my android phone using UAPP to power my Etys and KSC75 and tbh if it would fail I would by a new one without hesitationā¦
Do you notice any volume difference using the new internal ESS dac vs. when you use an external DAC? The old DAC cards had this issue, and it was reported as fixed. Just curious your experience.
Nope. I didnāt notice any difference in volume. I am pretty impressed by the dac card to be honest. A no brainer in my book.
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Well Schiitā¦ I wasnāt going to spend money on this, but $100 for an integrated DAC card is hard to beat. Do you know if this card is limited to 24bit / 192kHz like other Schiit DACs? Or have they enabled it up 32bit / 768kHz? My guess is 24/192, but a guy can dream 
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It is limited to 32/192 but the unison usb is worth it. I ran the card with my Pixel 4a using UAPP and my Macbook Air using HQPlayer and there is no audible noise, volume set to 100% on low gain. Not even with my Etymotics.
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What HQPlayer settings are you using with this DAC? Have you found something that works well?
My take on how some of the Schiit amps compare!
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I used sinc-S / poly-sinc-ext2 (both work great), NS-9 and upsampled to 192kHz. But to be honest most of the times I use my Pixel 4a with UAPP streaming Qobuz via wifiā¦
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You really wanne make me buy a Lyr 3 after you convinced me to buy the Echo MK2?
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Looks good to me! This is in line with what I tend to use for PCM only DACs.
ā¦ and there goes my $$$ . Just ordered the DAC card, 2 day shipping. Boom!
Congrats. I doubt you will regret that purchase.
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Just installed the ESS dac on the A3.
So far I am very impressed and do not noticed any volume difference before and after installing the card. I may actually prefer this combo vs modi 3+/A3 stack. I noticed itās a lot more fun and engaging. Mainly using focal elegia and clear mg.
I maybe bias toward ESS since I spent a lot of time on the su-9 (and I like that dac a lot) while waiting for the jot/bf2.
Also got my jot and bf2 3 weeks ago (after 20 weeks of wait). So a lot of listening session to do.
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