Schiit Audio: Audio Products Made in USA

An affordable balanced DAC with our own Mesh™ digital conversion, that’s also a full preamp and EQ via Forkbeard™? And it’s made in the USA? Yes. Welcome to Mimir, maybe the first truly new thing in DACs in, like, ever.

Mesh: Our Unique Digital Filter, Made Uniquely Affordable

All of our True Multibit or Multiform DACs have used our own proprietary digital filter, developed through decades of R&D. Now, Mesh brings this unique digital filter to a much more affordable price point, by meshing (ahem) a 32-bit Microchip processor with a standard delta-sigma modulator. The result? Something that sounds a lot more like our more expensive DACs.

Add Forkbeard: Remote, Preamp, EQ, and More

Want even more than the best inexpensive DAC on the planet? Make it a full digital preamp with parametric EQ! Plug in a Forkbeard module, and you’ll instantly have remote volume, balance, a 3-band parametric EQ, Loudness, digital filter switching (Mesh and NOS), absolute phase invert, and input select.

Unison 384 USB and Linear Override Power Supply

Mimir also includes our own Unison 384™ USB input and unique Linear Override power supply, so you can run off the USB input for convenience—or plug in our external AC wall-wart to convert to a linear power supply with much higher voltage rails (and higher output).

Create Your Own Mini Gigastack

Add Mimir to Gjallarhorn F, Vidar 2F, or any other Forkbeard-enabled amp, and you have everything you need for an all-digital system, no preamp or EQ needed. Or, add a Saga 2 for ultimate relay-ladder volume control. Or, pair with Jotunheim, Lyr, or Midgard for an exceptional headphone system.

Designed and Built in the USA

By “designed and built in the USA," this is what we mean: the vast majority of the total production cost of Mimir—chassis, boards, assembly, etc—goes to US companies manufacturing in the US. Our chassis are made in California. Our PCBs are made in California or Utah, and it all comes together in our Corpus Christi facility.

3-Year Warranty, 15-Day Easy Returns

Mimir is covered by a 3-year limited warranty that covers parts and labor. And if you don’t like your Mimir, you can send it back for a refund, minus 15% restocking fee, within 15 days of receiving it.

SE or Balanced Outputs:

Frequency Response: 20Hz-20KHz, +/-0.04dB

THD+N: 0.0003%

IMD: 0.0004%, CCIR

S/N: 118dB, referenced to full output, with or without external power

Crosstalk: -125dB, 20-20kHz

USB input: Unison 384™, up to 32 bits/384kHz supported, full UAC2 compliance

Other inputs: Optical SPDIF, Coaxial SPDIF, AES, all up to 24/192

D/A Conversion: Schiit Mesh™, a unique combination of our time- and frequency-domain optimized digital filter and a standard delta-sigma modulator, in this case an ES9028

Analog Stage: Based on LME49724 for balanced output, OPA1656 for SE output, both independent, with precision thin-film resistors and film capacitors, DC coupled

Output: XLR balanced and RCA single-ended

Maximum Output:

3.0V RMS balanced, 1.5V RMS single-ended when powered via USB cable

4.0V RMS balanced, 2.0V RMS single-ended with Linear Override AC wall-wart

Output Impedance: 75 ohms

Power Supply: USB powered with charge pump rail generator for +/-5V rails, reports as 500mA USB device

Linear override via 14-16VAC, 0.5A+ wall-wart, provides +/-12V rails and reports as 0mA USB device

Forkbeard requirements: schiit.com/forkbeard

Forkbeard Capabilities:

Input select
Sample rate reporting
Volume control
Balance control
3-band parametric EQ
Mesh or NOS filter mode switching
Loudness
Phase inversion

Size: 9 x 6 x 1.5”

Weight: 2 lb

APx Report for Mimir

You made this a preamp!
Yes.

And an EQ!

Yes.

And I get the supercomboburrito filter!

Yeah. Or at least a comboburrito filter, because this one is smaller than the big one we can run in the big boy DACs, but hey, something’s gotta give somewhere, right?

Okay. Let me catch my breath. You’re saying that this is a full digital preamp, right?

Right. But with catches. First being that you’ll need to add the Forkbeard module in order to use this as a digital preamp, or use the EQ, or have any kind of remote control stuff at all. A Forkbeard module adds $50.

Holy heck that's still a $349 remote-control DAC, digital preamp, and EQ, right?

Yes, your math is very good.

What are the other catches?

Not much. Other than, like everything with a digital volume control, there’s gonna be some trade-off in resolution as you go really low in volume. This is true of every digital volume control, including some with fancy names that claim fancy tech, and it’s not like we’re newbies to this, and ours is very fancy tech indeed. It’s just that we’ve been doing digital for a looooonnngg time, as in, since the 1980s, so we know a thing or two about a thing or two. And when you get right down to it, our digital volume control is pretty darn good.

What if I want a better volume control?

Add Saga 2. Relay ladder analog volume, literally the best thing on the planet. $279. Works seamlessly with Forkbeard.

What are the other catches?

Well, like all digital EQs, there’s also some decisions we made to make sure you don’t overload things, so don’t be expecting to crank all the bands up +18dB. We did give you lossless EQ, but we show you where it might clip if you turn things up too much.

Can I turn off the EQ?

Yes. And the volume. No problem using Mimir as “just a DAC.” Heck, don’t even bother with Forkbeard if you don’t want it.

Why are there only 3 bands of EQ?

A couple of reasons, mainly related to processing power. In this case, our digital filter, volume, and EQ are all being done on a 32-bit microprocessor, not on a dedicated DSP. So there are limits to what we can do. Also, having 10 bands of parametric is really overkill, and also maybe a formula for permanent nervosa. Which is why we added a Loudness preset.

Loudness. What is that?

Loudness provides a frequency response compensation that varies by how people tend to hear things. At low levels, it boosts bass and treble, to compensate for our natural perception. Of all the silly buttons and lights on 80s gear, Loudness was actually pretty good. It’s also based on real science. See the Fletcher-Munson curve.

So what’s this about Mesh?

Mesh is our way of bringing our unique, time- and frequency-domain optimized digital filter to a more affordable DAC. You see, all Schiit DACs from Bifrost on up (and Modi Multibit) have all used our own unique math, developed over decades, implemented on a costly Analog Devices DSP. That’s the filter that Mike has called “megacomboburrito” for a long time, and it’s an important part of how our DACs sound. Now, we’ve figured out a way to bring this filter to more affordable products like Mimir, by combining it with a standard delta-sigma modulator (in this case, one from ESS).

I only understood a bit of that.

That’s OK. Look at it this way: other DACs use the built-in digital filters of the D/A converters they are using. We use our own.

Why?

Because we believe our own digital filter is truly unique, and the best sounding filter on the planet.

Are you delusional? How do you verify that?

Maybe. And you can verify it for yourself, because we also included an NOS mode on this DAC, so you can run your own digital filter and send the data straight to the ESS modulator. Go ahead and try it. Make your own decisions.

So this has the new high-speed Unison 384?

Yes.

What’s so great about Unison 384?

Like a lot of what we do, it’s not off the shelf. It’s our own USB interface designed to do a single thing well: to interface seamlessly with modern UAC2-compliant devices. It’s really just for getting audio from your streamer or computer to this DAC.

So what platforms does Unison 384 support?

Actually, the question should be “What platforms support your USB input?” since our USB input is 100% UAC2 compliant (that is, USB Audio Class 2, the accepted standard for USB audio transmission.) So, here you go:

Linux. As in, most popular streamers.
Windows. From Windows 10 up, you’re set.
Mac OS. From 10.10 on up, Macs are good to go.
iOS and iPadOS. Apple devices with USB-C plug right in. If you're going retro, tou’re set with a Lightning to USB3 Camera Adapter,
Android. Android devices with USB-C plug right in. Some older stuff may require special cables or software.
Roon. Roon works great with our DACs.

And this Linear Override thing?

Linear Override allows you to run Mimir on a single USB input, for portability and convenience, or you can add an AC wall-wart to override the switching supplies and provide linear regulated, low noise, +/-12V rails. These higher rails also allow us to give you more output.

I want a combined DAC/amp! Why didn’t you put an amp in here?

We did. They’re just in different chassis and costs another $229-599. They’re called “Midgard,” “Jotunheim,” and “Lyr.” It has the same footprint as all of those amps. Now you have many options for a desktop stack, instead of a single soon-to-be- obsolete combo box.

What is “Mimir?”

Mimir is actually maybe one of the most metal things of Norse mythology, and Norse mythology is pretty, ah, over the top. Mimir was a really smart guy who Odin killed, but then kept his head around so it could speak wisdom to him. Yeah, all very magicky...but then again, so is the sound out of our Mimir!

Mimir Manual

Mimir

Balanced Mesh™ DAC, EQ, and Preamp

$299.00

Description

Specs

FAQ

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