Does anyone know if this DAC suffers from the compression I’ve heard in the lower end of the Schiit DAC’s?
Not to my ear, no. Nor does Modius. I think that compressed sound is something Schiit has successfully addressed in the latest generations of their entire line.
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I do not hear any compressed sound on mine, either. Just musical sweetness!
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Thank you! Loving your vids btw.
No problem. I love to talk Schiit!
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A little bit of a random question - are there any issues with connecting both the SE and Balanced outputs of the DAC at the same time? (To two different amplifiers.) I don’t seem to hear any change in sound quality when I do this, but curious if anyone else is doing it and what your observations are.
thanks!
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I haven’t noticed anything when I connect both balanced and SE - works great! I know some other DACs like the Ares II say not to do that but I haven’t seen anything regarding that from Schiit.
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+1 to @alphamarshan. I’ve been running both the BAL and SE outputs together for a long time and have had no issues.
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Wavethory is pretty spot on, the older schiit dacs suffered from it for sure (outside the yggy and gumby) but at this point the modern schiit dacs do not really have that problem imo
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It’s because the ares 2 has no output stage lol. It’s output impedance is 1.2kohm and 2.4kohm over balanced.
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Schiit often connects both outputs AND even uses Y-splitters for the SE outs to go to two amps at the same time…spoke to them several times on this.
Y-splitters cheap easy vs a switchbox, which is fine as well as long at the mechanical connections and soldering is done well…
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Well, you have already had lots of replies, but I ran splitters out or each output for a long time and now run both SE and XLR out to switch boxes and on to various amps. I have not noted any degradation.
Funny enought I actually contacted Schiit about this very question and was told to only use one output at a time. In fact the guy said to unplug whichever one I wasn’t using. That seemed a little extreme to me. I suppose that if you hear the difference with high end headphone cables, power cords and USB cables, then maybe you would notice some degradation when the DAC is multi-tasking. 
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Thanks for all of the excellent replies!
For me the key point is that the RCA out and XLR outputs have separate driver circuits (same as on the Modius), so using both at the same time will have minimal interaction. So I’m going to use both outputs! 
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Wait really? That was an official representative saying that? That seems a little bonkers to me - I mean isn’t that the point of having multiple outputs? Most people will immediately think to hook up their respective XLR/SE outputs to whatever they have available. 
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I guess he was a stickler for purity. 
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It’s likely moreso preventing risk/liability in case something went wrong (so if something somehow goes wrong they can just say “we told you not to do it”). FWIW I’ve had no issues using both outputs at the same time and haven’t really noticed any sonic degradation
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Depends on how the Single Ended output is done.
When it is derived from half the balanced output, loading both would skew the balanced output.
The better solution is to have an internal bus in the unit from which both single ended and balanced are created independently.
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Help me understand “skew” ?
What exactly is skewed?
Thanks
Alex
Got an email yesterday that Schiit has shipped my Bifrost2 back, having fixed the balanced input. Super stoked!
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