I think my Schiit Stack has Schiit the bed

[z1ggy]

Magni Modi 2 stack hooked up to my PC suddenly stopped working. It was giving me issues for a while where if I turned off my PC or restart, I would not get my PC to see the "USB" device which was my DAC. Somehow, unplugging it and randomly trying other USB ports worked a few times, but now this little trick stopped working.

I have confirmed the cable is good that I'm using, and I also tried another cable (from my printer) and I also tried every USB port, and confirmed said ports do still work. I emailed customer service and they said to try and run it in Linux or another OS to verify it's not a drivers issue. I have the latest drivers/updates for Win10, so I'm not sure if an update has made a connection issue or what.

Is the Modi toast or is this a likely software issue? What else should I do before I decide to just ditch it?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Someone else was complaining about a 15-year-old sound card no longer operating with the newest Win10 upgrade/patch. Maybe related?

 

[z1ggy]

Someone else was complaining about a 15-year-old sound card no longer operating with the newest Win10 upgrade/patch. Maybe related?

I don't know?? My modi2 is only a few years old and it worked fine up until maybe a few months ago when it would stop working after a restart or shut down. Now it just doesn't work, period.

I'm going to run ubuntu and see if it works on there and also my wife's win7 PC.

 

[Muadib]

Is it both pieces? By stack you mean a DAC and an AMP, right?

 

[z1ggy]

Is it both pieces? By stack you mean a DAC and an AMP, right?

Yeah I have the 2 pieces but with the DAC not working, I'd have to buy another cable to get my amp hooked right into the PC's USB or 3.5mm. However, I have a few decent quality headphones which I'm not sure I want running off my rinky dink motherboard.

 

[Muadib]

Yeah I have the 2 pieces but with the DAC not working, I'd have to buy another cable to get my amp hooked right into the PC's USB or 3.5mm. However, I have a few decent quality headphones which I'm not sure I want running off my rinky dink motherboard.

Man I'm old. The first thing I thought of was moving the stack to a CD player, and see if it works.

 

[z1ggy]

Man I'm old. The first thing I thought of was moving the stack to a CD player, and see if it works.

I..... I don't have a CD player, nor a record player, nor a Morse code machine.

I'm going to actually try to run it off my work PC tomorrow which is also running the latest version (I think..) of win10. If it doesn't work then I know it's the DAC which is messed up. If it works, then I know it's a problem with my windows environment, either a win10 update screwed it up or I need new drivers.

 

[Muadib]

Do you have a dvd or blu-ray player? They play CDs, and wouldn’t need drivers. Most have analog outputs too. Surely you have a CD?

 

[z1ggy]

Do you have a dvd or blu-ray player? They play CDs, and wouldn’t need drivers. Most have analog outputs too. Surely you have a CD?

What's a CD???

JK JK, but yeah my AVR does have analog out, so I can at least test the amp to make sure that's good. Not sure about if it has USB output though. My DAC is USB input, RCA out. I'll have to look.

I'm going to bring my stack into work tomorrow regardless (forget to bring it today) and run it off this PC - it's either going to work, or not work. If it doesn't work, then high likelihood it's my DAC, but if it does work... Then I've got a lot more work to do.

 

[Muadib]

Hopefully, it's a driver thing

 

[z1ggy]

Hopefully, it's a driver thing

Well it doesn't work in my work PC which is running Win10, but probably a different build. About to plug into a win7 PC. If that's a no go, I'm like 99% sure the DAC is toast.

 

[Muadib]

Schiit has a 5 year warranty on most of their products. Hopefully you are within that time window.

 

[z1ggy]

Schiit has a 5 year warranty on most of their products. Hopefully you are within that time window.

Well, I'm probably screwed anyway as I bought it "used" off eBay about 3 years ago. The seem really cool though so maybe they won't even ask for it back or for a refund and just send me another one as long as I provide them a valid serial number or something.

It still didn't work plugged into my win10 here at work, and my coworkers win7 machine. The CS guy from Schiit said the USB chip is probably malfunctioning and I'd likely need repair/replacement.

 

[Muadib]

Sorry to hear about that. So you plan to send it in?

 

[z1ggy]

Sorry to hear about that. So you plan to send it in?

Nope... they told me it was out of warranty. Modi 3 lists warranty of 2 years so...

Just going to buy a modi 3 and call it a day. The reviews on it seem very favorable, better noise floor, better output voltage and lower spikes on harmonics than modi 2. Little disappointing that the thing crapped out on me but it's not too expensive to replace.

 

[Muadib]

Nope... they told me it was out of warranty. Modi 3 lists warranty of 2 years so...

Just going to buy a modi 3 and call it a day. The reviews on it seem very favorable, better noise floor, better output voltage and lower spikes on harmonics than modi 2. Little disappointing that the thing crapped out on me but it's not too expensive to replace.

Sounds good. Good luck with the new Modi.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Don't you have another PC in the house? Or a laptop? or a tablet with USB?

Both my DACs run off USB from my PC (windows 10 fully updated) without issue. I really doubt that would be the problem. Could be something went wrong with your schiit. Not a fan of Schiit myself but they seem pretty popular. Took a tour of their facility a handful of years ago down in San Diego. I was never very impressed with their gear.

 

[Muadib]

Don't you have another PC in the house? Or a laptop? or a tablet with USB?

Both my DACs run off USB from my PC (windows 10 fully updated) without issue. I really doubt that would be the problem. Could be something went wrong with your schiit. Not a fan of Schiit myself but they seem pretty popular. Took a tour of their facility a handful of years ago down in San Diego. I was never very impressed with their gear.

You must have missed his post where he took his gear to work to test it there.
What is your problem with Schiit? I think they are popular because you get good value for the money. I also have a Schiit stack, and love it. However, I admit there's better gear out there, but you are going to pay for it.

 

[WhiteNoise]

You must have missed his post where he took his gear to work to test it there.
What is your problem with Schiit? I think they are popular because you get good value for the money. I also have a Schiit stack, and love it. However, I admit there's better gear out there, but you are going to pay for it.

Yeah I must have missed that.
I have not heard anything from Schiit that impressed me. I get it that lots of folk love Schiit. I'm just not one of them.

I do own a Schiit Sys but it rarely gets used.

 

[Muadib]

Yeah I must have missed that.
I have not heard anything from Schiit that impressed me. I get it that lots of folk love Schiit. I'm just not one of them.

I do own a Schiit Sys but it rarely gets used.

What did you replace it with?

 

[WhiteNoise]

What did you replace it with?

The Sys? I was using the SYS back in the day just to switch between two amps. I no longer need to do that so I bought a couple of preamps instead. One of which is the below
Wyred 4 Sound STP-SE

 

[Muadib]

The Sys? I was using the SYS back in the day just to switch between two amps. I no longer need to do that so I bought a couple of preamps instead. One of which is the below

Wyred 4 Sound STP-SE

My music server is from Wyred 4 Sound. It works well, but I'm waiting to see if they add Amazon music to it.

 

[WhiteNoise]

@Muadib I am a fan of W4S and for headphone duties use their DAC-2 and Preamp in conjunction with my amps.

I'm a tube guy most of the time but I like solid state as well.

 

[Muadib]

@Muadib I am a fan of W4S and for headphone duties use their DAC-2 and Preamp in conjunction with my amps.

I'm a tube guy most of the time but I like solid state as well.

I like both. My headphone amp from Schiit uses tubes, but my home system is solid state.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

@Muadib I am a fan of W4S and for headphone duties use their DAC-2 and Preamp in conjunction with my amps.

I'm a tube guy most of the time but I like solid state as well.

Interesting. Would have thought a tube guy would not prefer Sabre chip.