Thanks! To be honest I have never owned anything quite like this. The whole system has come together nicely, but this DAC is unreal. It has handily exceeded any expectations I may have had for it. I will be posting night 2 impressions shortly.
I’m quite sure there are DACs out there that are better, but they are most likely at a price point that is out of the question. But that doesn’t matter, really. I love the way this one sounds. I think this is a fantastic piece of audio gear and I will be very happy with it for a good long while.
Night Two, 8/03/21
Here we are, second night in with the BF2. I was home a bit earlier today, so I got to power it up at 1745 so it could warm up. I used the S-8 stack and speakers for a while, went off to dine, and now, we are back and have moved to the Frost. This time, however, the tube is getting the evening off. Tonight I moved the Sundaras over and I am jumping on the SP200 to see how it plays with the new DAC. I’m almost 2 hours in, and thus far the results are very surprising.
I’m gonna be honest here, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot. I don’t know why. I have sold this mighty little SP200 amp short before. That won’t happen anymore. The Frost seems to love it. The THX brings out a whole different side to this thing. Yes, I said it - This DAC has multiple personalities!
When paired with the tube it has this powerful presence, but with a warmth, grace and richness that just sweeps you away. It’s natural and smooth but with great strength, balance and depth.
But the SP200 has awoken something within it that is quite unexpected. The power and depth is still there, but now it’s more forward and fun. Incredible resolution, but it now possesses speed and punch. And I’ll be damned, zero treble schrill! If the SP200 had one fault, it was that treble schrill. And now the Frost has somehow gotten rid of it. An amazing thing, this DAC is! I’m extremely impressed with it.
Thank you, Sir. I know I am kinda praising pretty heavy here, but I’ve never heard anything this good. As much as I enjoy music, I have never had much in the way of gear to play it on. As you can imagine, this is a real eye opener for me. Is it end game? Hard to say, but if it were, I would be A-OK with that.
it is never end game. lol…but I would say that for the price it is very hard to top. glad you enjoy it…oh, the B2 seems to have nice synergy with my ZMFs!
HA! I know! I have already caught myself sneaking peeks at other head phones now! But my purchasing trigger finger is not overly itchy at this time, so that is good. And to be honest, I am not too sure where I go from the Sundara. This will take some thought and a lot of research, which is actually half the fun!
One thing is for sure, No more looking for a DAC. I’ll be OK there for quite a while (he says while looking at the Frost and then at the S-8 stack that is driving the speakers and going Hmmm… Shall I get another Frost for the speaker rig?!?)
Realizing I might be shooting myself in the foot here…there really isn’t much to compare…BF2 is far superior (I run BF 2 to most my setups). For size and form factor=all in one the Multibit module is solid. It’ s suppose to be comparable to the modi multi which is a nice piece of kit…
Well, we are nearly three weeks into the Frost experience and I gotta say I am just as smitten with this thing as I was when it first arrived. This unit makes everything around it better. I am seriously considering connecting the Frost to the DA-8S so that I can see how she sounds over speakers.
The only probelm with this is… What if it sounds noticeably better than the SU-8? I guess I’ll just have to cross that bridge when it comes. I don’t like the idea of switches, because every hop the signal has to take it loses a little something. I dunno, first things first. The testing will be fun…
I am alone on this but I will say it anyway…
The BF2 is marginally better than the SMSL SU-8, but to me it wasn’t worth the huge price differential.
If you have the money to splurge though, why not?
On the upside, it works well and has a killer warranty.
I hear you. I have Been resisting doing the test because I really didn’t want to tear up the cable plant just for a test, especially since I really enjoy the way the S-8 stack sounds. But if I don’t do it I will always wonder about it, so I reckon I am gonna give it a shot and see how it goes. If it only produces a marginal improvement things won’t go any further. If however the improvement is dramatic, I will mull options. I have heard good things about the Little Bear switch, so that might be a good way to go.
Use a set of Y-cables and you can get at least two amps running.
I use a dac with SE and Balanced outputs…
So the balanced goes to an am that has balanced inputs…this is one.
The RCA outs go via a set of y splitters…amp 2 and amp 3.
Then the preamp out of one of them goes to a speaker amp, this is amp 4.
Then the dac I have has an internal headphone linestage “amp” and this is number 5.
No switch needed and I can easily listen quickly with 5 different amps.
I was using Y cables out of my DAC and feeding four amps (2 Via RCA and 2 via XLR). I then bought some switchers (RCA and XLR), so that I could run up to seven amps. I am now thinking of getting rid of one amp and the switchers and just going back to the split cables. Since I don’t plan on running more amps, the extra gear (cables and switchers just doesn’t make sense). I am just over-complicating stuff and the wire management is truly ugly!
Raptor got his around the same time as me and figured its time I share my thoughts in 1 place rather than separate replies on reddit
Thoughts on the Bifrost 2 vs. Topping E30
First impressions:
Build quality okay, the black paint is cheap (literally a speck fell off so there’s a silver dot on it now, within first hour of owning it if it wasn’t there out the box, and I never stacked it, was just on my test bench. (need to fix with a sharpie pen or something). The button also looks cheap, they should have gone with chrome or aluminum, not flat grey which looks like out of place plastic. The aluminum one on the site looks better, wish they used the same parts, problem solved.
Felt initially it was worth the upgrade over the E30, the two products are a $500 difference and I had no buyers remorse out the gate
bass felt punchier and more defined, sound had a bit more clarity in the mix. Had the same impression on a second amp.
No idea if the USB input is any better, people online say its better, havent felt like buying cables just to test, since USB is my preferred input anyway. I never noticed USB noise in the signal on either device, as far as I’m concerned this is a wash since I dont have a noisy source that needs a fixin’
Reviews online said the balanced output was better than single ended. This is false. Bought cables to test in a volume matched A/B scenario, zero difference in Placebotown.
Then since my setup got dismantled I decided to try and do a better A/B test on my integrated amp using Airplay optical as the source, and just plugging back and forth. 2 seconds lag but fair enough of an assessment
Soundstage definitely shifts wider, E30 was more narrow. Felt like the bass was hitting me in the forehead, then with the Bifrost it shifted below/behind my ears. Might have also been more resolving, where you can hear more of the actual string on a bass guitar, for example, or just the percussion. Cool improvement.
More smoothed out and less fatiguing. The amp in particular is a real force and I found it has a certain “electric” intensity on the highs that can be fatiguing over time and force me to roll off the treble to compensate for it. I found with the Bifrost that effect was lessened. No pain.
Is it worth it? It’s an upgrade. It’s not $500 better. I concluded it was more like $100 better, but chalk this up to just how I value DACs in the chain. It was helping the sound but not like $150 in new NOS tubes will do to a improve a sound. Probably not like going from a $250 to $750 or $500 to $1000 amp or headphones, either.
It’s an appreciated improvement but at over 3x the price it’s not exactly a revelation. I still had to sit there and assess what was better in the A/B scenario, it wasn’t jarring. Over time, assuming I never need to upgrade, the improvements will be appreciated, and I like that my sound is meaningfully better. It just comes down to how much you value diminishing returns in the sound plateau. That said, Youtube reviewers are full of it with the superlatives.
edit: All observations were made with Sennheiser HD800’s
