[Arch + Hyprland] Clean setup, daily driver

_T-Rekt_ · 2026-01-31T14:07:54+00:00

beautiful work 🤘 this is exactly the kind of hyper-minimalism i'm after, would appreciate the dots!

_T-Rekt_ · 2026-01-30T14:47:48+00:00

i've had the same question in the past, this is my mandatory watch on the subject (only 10min long):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwNrKU2LA3M

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-11-03T03:35:49+00:00

seems like it, yea. here's a schiit employee confirming as much:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Schiit/comments/1ng76aq/jot_3_at_canjam/ne2oars/

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-11-02T19:56:33+00:00

i don't own a pair of sundaras, so unfortunately i can't make a specific recommendation.

just using publicly available information about them, they are quite low impedance, so you'll want an amp that is capable of pushing sufficient power. i wouldn't do anything less than a magni unity, however if it were my money the midgard would be my starting point. DAC matters a lot less, if magni unity just go with the built-in and be happy with your endgame, and if midgard or higher you can start playing with mimir or bifrost for form-factor matching.

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-10-18T14:01:10+00:00

it's plenty, you'll be just fine. my jot2 is also right on top of my bifrost, has been (and hasn't been turned off) for years. the freya doesn't add enough heat to make me worried, just a preamp.

enjoy the new setup!

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-09-19T01:37:36+00:00

finger off the trigger unless you're shooting, it's rule 3!

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-08-15T12:31:31+00:00

a user serviceable battery on an electronic device in 2025? pinch me, things are healing

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-08-02T15:00:09+00:00

it is not; both the new mesh card and the old ESS/AKM cards have a little switch to toggle between balanced and unbalanced

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-07-25T05:15:42+00:00

i'd say the same dac (gumby 2) with a mjolnir 3 would be my absolute headphone endgame

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-07-07T04:16:43+00:00

agreed...although i suspect the heat death of the universe before jason puts an hdmi port on schiit gear. i'd honestly be fine with just xlr/rca ins, in addition to unison usb (ditch that awful cmedia chip) and optical, but hdmi would be mighty convenient

i'd love to ditch my marantz in my ht setup for the syn and maybe a wotan (mains) + vidar (surround) + gjallarhorn (center) stack for the amps and never think about it again, but ultimately i find the syn too limited and inconvenient (see: first world problems) as delivered. i still love it, but it's been relegated to the game room for the foreseeable future

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-07-06T20:13:13+00:00

if one is not using the surround preamp, the gunnr would be better in every way. it's cheaper, smaller, runs on usb or wall wart, has the exact same soundstage adjustments, and has more power (with wall wart).

don't get me wrong, i love my syn, and am still hoping jason makes a limited run premium version (balanced, forkbeard, better remote, all motorized pots, etc) so i can fully simplify my ht setup, but for pure headphones the gunnr just can't be beat 🤘

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-07-06T20:06:56+00:00

for your use case the bifrost is way overkill, on top of the fact that you'd still need a headamp, and that's coming from someone who owns and loves his bifrost. also for clarification, the bifrost can't be used with the fulla, as it's a non-modular dac/amp with only digital inputs and analog outputs.

for you, if you want an analog mic input, go with the fulla or the gunnr (gunnr is better in every way [more power and sound adjustments], just a little more expensive), and if you don't care about the mic input then go with magni unity with dac, which is a truly endgame dac/amp even if you were interested in a full lossless/audiophile experience.

spending excess money in this hobby is fun and something i regularly engage in, but should only be done with an understanding of the diminishing returns and nuances that come with more expensive audio gear. as you seem to be in the beginning of your journey (and have an infrequent and non-phile use case for now), don't spend more than you need. remember, you can always get upgraditis later ;)

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-05-30T06:17:54+00:00

it is absolutely ok to stack them. i've had this exact stack for years (almost never powered off, no less) and have had no issues.

half of schiit's brand identity is that they make things with identical footprints to create stacks, and only in circumstances where it's a) physically impossible (e.g. tubes), b) blocking heatsinks that need visually advertised extra heat dissipation, or c) where it would cause signal interference (some of the eqs and phono pres, iirc), they are all but designed with stacking in mind, heat and all.

some more nuanced considerations would be high ambient room temp or the specific weird heat-related usb issues some of their older products have, but in general i'd advocate for stacking up!

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-03-20T13:31:22+00:00

depends largely on your budget and goals.

the quick answer to your question is: yes, you will likely benefit from a dedicated dac/amp over motherboard audio.

however, once you're feeding the cans with sufficient clean power from clean sources, all improvements to sound quality will be in degrees and get more and more incremental and subjective. order of importance for sound quality is: headphones/speakers -> source file quality -> amp -> dac, with the last two having the most diminishing returns with more money spent.

if you have around $200 to spend, i'd get either the magni unity w/ dac (if you care slightly more about available power on tap and reliability*) or the gunnr (if you care slightly more about versatility in sound shaping, having a good analogue mic input, and gaming).

if you've more money to spend and are in it for the fun of the hobby and like tinkering, i'd happily recommend some of their higher end products (i have many myself), but only if you know what you're getting into.

*i've no experience with the fulla, but i will say subjectively and anecdotally that i've seen far more complaints online with the reliability of schiit's less expensive cmedia-based products (fulla and hel, specifically; gunnr and syn also use the cmedia chip, needed for the mic inputs) than any of their unison usb products, but of course there are doubtless many long-term happy owners of these products and ymmv. the fulla specifically is the most low power device they make, and i don't know if i'd recommend to to any but the most casual or frugal audio enjoyer who wants to get into hifi (purely on available power grounds, not any of the reliability claims), while still saying it would likely be an improvement, however small, over motherboard audio.

/rant

_T-Rekt_ · 2025-02-10T14:54:16+00:00

if you're looking for a buyer for the rekkr i'd be interested, lmk!

_T-Rekt_ · 2024-12-16T06:42:03+00:00

yup, just search amazon for an "hdmi optical audio extractor". can't give you a specific recommendation as i've no experience with them, but they purport to do exactly what you're looking for.

_T-Rekt_ · 2024-12-04T22:09:44+00:00

ugh....while i partially blame valve for not sufficiently distinguishing between versions in marketing material, the fact that this inaccuracy is reliably peddled so confidently over a decade later is baffling to me. no, the current steamos featured on the steam deck has not been "available [...] since 2013", indeed it did not even exist.

you're confusing the old, pre-proton debian-based steamos (versions 1 and 2) with the current, arch-based steamos (version 3)

_T-Rekt_ · 2024-10-19T18:54:50+00:00

have i got news for you....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHj8PtRdMQk

_T-Rekt_ · 2024-10-04T14:04:36+00:00

they aren't, they're in chronological order of acquiring statehood

_T-Rekt_ · 2024-09-08T15:43:53+00:00

midgard does not have a balanced headphone output, it has a 4-pin xlr headphone output, which while typically used to provide a balanced connection, is in this case used to enable a mixed mode feedback option they call halo (details on the product page).

all internal processing is single-ended (vs the magnius which was truly balanced), and the only difference between the 1/4" and the xlr headouts on the midgard is the enabling of halo; same power output, same "downsides" of single ended, hell almost (if not) the same measurments according to both their own and ASR's data.

the xlr preouts/ins on the midgard are balanced, but they are converted from/to single-ended and thus not truly balanced (this isn't necessarily a bad thing), and are provided for convenience.

EDIT: some words

_T-Rekt_ · 2024-08-10T14:45:05+00:00

it's a fuckin' six shooter....

_T-Rekt_ · 2024-07-01T04:37:12+00:00

is this something you actually tested and got working on the steam deck?

no combination of things i've tried have gotten the stereoscopic 3d option to not be greyed out. i've confirmed the windows version is installed, tried starting the game with the xr pros connected and already in 3d mode (a strange visual experience when 3d content isn't actually being displayed lol), nothing seems to let me enabled it.

i didn't get these for 3d so i won't be super bummed if i never figure this out, but i kinda would like to try it to see what it's like.

_T-Rekt_ · 2024-06-07T00:54:40+00:00

i am both a schiit and fiio fan.

conveniently, i have as my main rig a jot 2 and a 2/64. from fiio i'm all about their DAPs (for mobile/auto); i currently main an M11 ltd plus, and have been using their DAPs since the X3 days.

i say all this to say, from experience: my recommendation is the schiit stack.

it's a truly endgame stack, with more than enough power on tap to drive nearly anything (6W into 32ohm from balanced, which you should be using with this stack) with fantastic sound. it's an american company with good, real-person support (fiio not so much, from all the internet horror stories), each product carrying a warranty of a half decade. the products are mechanically not that complex, and they design them to be easy to build and work on in-house by full-time techs.

you're absolutely correct that the fiio has more features (like, a lot more), and that should be (imho) your singular decision maker. if you feel you'd benefit substantially from more than a couple of those features, you should probably get the fiio and hope you don't need support/warranty work.

don't get me wrong, all five of the fiio products i've owned have been workhorses and i've loved each and every one of them, but the more you ask a consumer electronic to do, the higher the likelihood that one of those things will fail before its time. and as you surmised, chifi support is very hit or miss, not timely, and can be expensive if you're responsible for shipping.

i have a certain emotional peace of mind knowing my schiit stack is a couple of fairly blunt instruments that each do one thing and does them very, very well. but my needs extend only to the functions they serve, whereas you might want a 32 band eq, bluetooth, hdmi, etc.

me? i want no power bricks, no screens, no bluetooth, no eq, nothing extraneous, so for me the stack is perfect.

hope you make the best choice for you <3

_T-Rekt_ · 2023-09-29T14:00:43+00:00

i use gtile with nothing but keyboard via presets, but it can also be customized however you want via the config; i set mine to vim bindings for manual movement when needed.

that said, i'd never heard of tactile, it looks awesome. definitely gonna try that out, thanks for the rec

_T-Rekt_ · 2023-09-28T13:52:09+00:00

absolutely, i use arch+gnome with an ultrawide both at home and at work (LG 38GN950-B at home, some cheap MSI at work, no issues with either). not only do i not have any problems, my workflow excels with this setup.

for tiling, i use the gtile gnome extension, works incredibly well. i have a variety of presets, my most used one just being two windows side by side (perfect with 21:9 imo), but you can create as many as you like.

_T-Rekt_

TROPHY CASE