Fantastic review, Serge. I'm sincerely pleased it worked out so well for you. Really liked your review starting out with the Norse legend (fantastic graphic, BTW), moving on to the design, specs, photos, and build quality, and then listening impressions. Your initial impressions, analysis, and experience mirror mine almost exactly, the main difference being I'm listening on big Dyn loudspeakers. I'm listening to
Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007, by Bach performed by Janos Starker as I write this, and I can not only hear the resinous quality of the bow on the strings, but the harmonic overtones overtones splaying off the walls in the room in which this is recorded, as well as Starker's
breathing as he's playing. It's amazing..
Gumby is a bit of a paradox in how it provides and drives all these musical attributes and dimensions because we're so used to a component being in one camp or the other. How can a component be resolving yet lush and romantic but transparent and also dynamic? Nuanced but forceful?
"I don't know, it's a mystery"-
Shakespeare in Love
These all sound like contradictions in terms, yet real music pulls off these contradictions with ease and so does Gumby. Its just so frickin'
MUSICAL. That sounds so much like a cliché, but with Gumby, it's not. I don't know how Schiit pulled it off, but they sure as hell did. It's transformed my digital playback system, and made the entire experience of listening to music all the more engaging and beguiling in the process.
Regarding the Analog Devices AD5781BRUZ DAC chips...yep, those are the real deal and at $45 a pop as part of Schiit's COGs and BOM for the DAC, these are not yer usual off-the shelf $3 D/S "audio grade" DAC chips....rather the ADs are actually a mil-spec D/A convertor that took Schiit some sophisticated and complex firmware programming and filter development to make work in an audio application; they did the heavy lifting on this during the long development period for Yggdrasil with the Analog Devices AD5791BRUZ and it was not a trivial development task by any stretch. The DAC chipset is a great example of where Schiit puts their money: for performance, rather than a fancy gold-plated machined-from-billet face plate (I'm looking at you, Bricasti), they put the money where it matters, into chipsets like the AD5781BRUZ.
The thing I find most ironic about Gumby is that there are folks that will not considering buying it simply because it does not cost enough, even though Gumby competes with some of the best ~$10K+ DACs I've heard.
Here's some suggestions for some other music to listen to with Gumby.
"Se Voce Ama"-Melody Gardot,
The Absence
"Cry Me a River" -Ray Brown,
Soular Energy
"Idle Moments" - Grant Green,
Idle Moments
"Blue Rondo a la Turk" - Dave Brubeck,
Time Out
"Asturias",
Suite Española, Albeniz, Conducted by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos
Oh, and BTW, a week or so from now, Gumby will sound EVEN better.
Enjoy!
