Schiit Urd video overview

“Schiit Urd”. Say it out loud and you’ll think that the Californian/Texan audio manufacturer has reached the natural conclusion of its branding joke but those better clued into the company’s thinking will know otherwise: that the Urd follows Schiit’s Norse mythological product naming scheme. Urd is the goddess of fate who also represents the past. And Schiit’s Urd (US$1299) is perhaps the most rearward-looking product in its line-up; now that the Sol has gone bye-bye. It’s a CD player. Except it isn’t. The Urd contains no internal DAC — its digital-only connectivity makes it a CD transport.

In the age of convergence where many integrated amplifiers or headphone amplifiers ship with an internal DAC, why double up? We can connect the Urd to any product with an AES/EBU or coaxial input. But what if your only available digital input is USB? Now comes Urd’s first party trick: co-founder Mike Moffatt has moved his Unison thinking from input to output to render the Urd UAC2-compliant. The upshot is a CD transport that can inject ones and zeroes into any UAC-2 USB DAC.

Now comes another wrinkle. With the Urd occupying your DAC’s single USB input, how do you hook up your PC, Mac or Raspberry Pi-based streamer? The Urd covers that use case with two Unison USB inputs. We then use the input selector button on the front to tell the Urd which input to suck on: USB1, USB2 or CD. A neighbouring output selector button tells the Urd whether to output via USB or S/PDIF (which activates both the AES and coaxial sockets). Now the Urd is a USB-S/PDIF converter.

For the Urd’s disc tray mechanism, Schiit connected with StreamUnlimited. The Austrian manufacturer’s optical storage ‘SUOS’ side-gig (headed up by ex-Philips engineers) offers the JPL-2800 tray loading mechanism and whilst I’ve not had that model number confirmed directly by Schiit, the Urd’s aluminium CD tray, “vibration damping” ABS plastic underside and side-mounted steel guiding rods point to no other model (that I can find).

As shown in the video above, Cambridge Audio’s EVO CD – another Future-Fi-rigged CD transport – uses the very same tray load mechanism. Much like the Cambridge unit, Schiit knows of its CD transport’s niche appeal. It won’t be for everyone. Just as the EVO CD is intended for EVO 75 and EVO 150 owners only, the Urd is aimed at people who want USB hook-ups, the USB hub functionality and, maybe, a product that’s assembled in the USA.

🎥 Camera: Olaf von Voss / John Darko
🎬 Editor: John Darko
🌈 Colour: Olaf von Voss
🕺🏻 Motion GFX: John Darko
💰 Ad segment: Jana Dagdagan

🎵 Song IDs? Playlists of all music heard in this video – and other videos – can be found on PATREON: http://www.patreon.com/johndarko

Further information: Schiit

👉 As mentioned in this video…

Schiit Urd
📖 https://darko.audio/2023/07/schiits-urd-shreds-the-cd-player-rulebook/

Podcast: Jason Stoddard talks Urd / Syn
🎧 https://darko.audio/2023/07/podcast-schiit-urd-syn-w-jason-stoddard/

Cambridge Audio EVO CD
📺 https://darko.audio/2023/07/cambridge-audio-evo-cd-video-review/

Rotel CD 11 Tribute
🛒 http://howl.me/chXS7SQVV5W

FiiO KA2
🛒 http://amzn.to/46oZp0i

iFi 4.4mm to XLR cable
🛒 http://amzn.to/46jyLpK

The Future Sound of London – Mind Maps
📖 http://fsol.bandcamp.com/album/mind-maps-4

Pale Saints – In Ribbons (2023 Remaster)
🛒 http://amzn.to/468YFNq