John Darko
Unboxings — they’re all ‘show’ and no ‘tell’. Or as some of Schiit co-founder Jason Stoddard’s new Texan neighbours might say, they’re all hat and no cattle. Last Friday, I caught up with Stoddard (who was back in California) to discuss Urd, Schiit’s new CD transport that’s far more than just a CD transport. I removed the ‘show’ by unboxing Urd on an audio-only stream to leave Stoddard to do the tell: in addition to a StreamUnlimited CD tray and laser pick-up, Urd features two Unison USB inputs for connecting a computer, Raspberry Pi or third-party network streamer for three-way digital source switching.
Unison USB? Launched in 2020 and developed entirely in-house, Unison is Schiit Audio’s very own USB input architecture that waves buh-bye to rival solutions from XMOS, Microchip and C-Media. But Urd is the first Schiit product to feature a Unison USB output – which was also developed by Schiit’s other half, Mike Moffat – for hooking up to a USB DAC should Urd’s coaxial and AES/EBU outputs not suit your fancy…or your DAC.
In this podcast episode, I also ask Stoddard about Syn – Schiit’s surround sound-generating DAC/pre-amplifier – and his thoughts on Dolby Atmos.
Listen via SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn or the embedded player below.
Further information: Schiit Audio
