Schiit Bifrost analog board variations...
 

I was just looking through the 6Moons review as well as new posts about the stock and Uber upgrade board. Am I missing something here or was there a revision on the stock analog board that was never mentioned? If so, I wonder what the changes were and why. I did notice the two boards missing the four smaller Wima caps and ALL of the small transistors and resistors. Looks like it was all changed over to surface mount components.


I'll explain below.

This image is from the 6Moons review. As you can see, the chip is centered and the caps are symmetrical around the chip. There's a total of eight Wima caps (4 large, 4 small), and a bunch of those small black transistors.
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/schiit2/open6.png


In this image from a member on Head-Fi, it shows both the stock board (right) from his Bifrost along with the new Uber board (left), both of which have the chip off to the side, the caps a little asymmetrical and the two larger electrolytic caps laying on their side. Unfortunately, there's a glare on the bottom of the right board so I can't see what it says as far as version goes.
http://cdn.head-fi.org/1/12/900x900p..._IMG_4392.jpeg


Any thoughts or links to said changes somewhere? Just curious more than anything else.

Charles- perhaps if you email Jason at Schiit he'll be willing to talk about these changes. Schiit has been open and informative about their products, they may be flattered that someone noticed the change.

True, but I'm sure they have much better things to be doing with their time than answering my silly questions such as the one above, and if they ever plan on building a phono preamp. I'd certainly buy one!

The new Stereophile (August 2013) has a review of the BiFrost and I'm pretty sure they mention that the boards have been changed.

Yeah, someone else was telling me about that review which I believe that test unit came with the Uber board that they were probably referring to. What I'm talking about is the board in the 6Moons review vs the stock board in the forum member's Bifrost.

Maybe the 6Moons unit was an early hand assembled one, and once into full-on production they went with all surface mount bits and bobs. I don't still don't know if that explains why the main chip on that board is off to the side vs being centered like the 6Moons specimen.

I just read that review and found it lacking. It is well-known that the Bifrost needs 300+ hours of break-in time (well-known around here, and there's no better place to find this crucial information), and I am not sure the test unit got a proper break-in. Additionally, the write up regarding comparisons with other DAC's seemed fragmented, I never got the sense that the reviewer listened to the Bifrost on its own terms.

Overall my feeling is the review did a disservice to people who might be seeking information to make an informed decision about purchasing this DAC.