Principles

Should a company named Schiit have any principles? You bet! Every company should, if it plans to be around for more than a few months. In fact, we operate by a pretty stringent set of guidelines. You might be surprised by some of them.

Don’t talk Schiit. We don’t build ourselves up by cutting other manufacturer’s products down, in public or private. If you ask us “Why is Asgard 2 10000X better than the Arglebargle ABC?” you’ll get an answer that sounds something like this: “We don’t do comparisons like that, because we consider it a ‘hard sell,’ and, honestly, different gear sounds, well, different to everyone. So something we don’t like might be your sonic nirvana. We leave comparisons to reviewers, and owners like you. Sorry we can’t be more helpful.”

Don’t make up Schiit. We also don’t speculate on whether or not our products will help you achieve transcendant sound in your system. If you ask us a question like, “Hey, I gotta Craphound CD-2. Will Bifrost transport me to the heights of audiophile delight?” you’re gonna get an answer that sounds like, “Well, it depends on your system, and we really haven’t heard the Craphound, so we really can’t say. Sorry we can’t be more helpful.”

Support open Schiit. We're not big on closed, rights-managed, licensed formats. So when someone whips you into a frenzy about the latest unicorn format, we're afraid we won't be able to help. We'll simply keep working on the best ways to play the music you have and own—you know, like CDs, FLAC, and lossless high res PCM. (And if this format talk confuses you, just rest assured that our DACs will play the music you have, rather than something you have to buy.)

Admit our Schiit can stink. Hook up a Valhalla 2 to some HE-6s, and you’re not in for a very good day. Ask us what amp is best for your headphones, and we’ll tell you what we know based on experience, regardless of the cost of the product. We’ve had a ton of people asking about Lyr 2 who we’ve redirected to Magni 2. We’re not here to sell everyone on our top of the line products, regardless of application.

Tell people they don’t need no Schiit. We also get a lot of people asking about our products for $80 and $100 headphones. Guys (and girls), you should be spending most of your budget on transducers (that is, headphones and speakers), then looking at amps and DACs if necessary. The transducer will have the biggest effect on your system’s sound. Our amps won’t turn an $80 headphone into a $1000 headphone. Nobody’s amps will.

Say, “I don’t know Schiit” freely. We haven’t heard everything on the planet. We don’t have experience with $10,000 cables. Hell, we aren’t really all that big on cables. Usually. We’ve heard differences in cables with HD800s (yeah, I know, what’s our methodology, sighted bias, placebo effect, blah blah, woof woof.) But we don’t recommend cables in any case. We’re also not really into gold-plated fuses, billion-dollar regulators, or other tweaks. We’re not saying that it isn’t your route to audio nirvana, but it’s just not us.

Don’t use Schiity terms. We hate the word “user.” Same goes with “consumer” and “unit.” If you catch us using those, let us know, because we probably slipped into corp-speak mode for a moment, and we deserve a beating. You are a customer or prospective customer, not a “user” or “consumer.” You have an Asgard 2 or a Mjolnir or a Bifrost, not a “unit.”