Fulla USB Dongle DAC/Amp

So despite having hung on the sidelines of the DAC debate for a long time, I finally decided to jump in. I listen to a lot of music in my open plan office, and I finally decided to go beyond the basic Apple earbuds. I'm a brandy on a beer budget kind of person, but it's craft beer not PBR that floats my boat. For reference I have a Creek 5350 SE at home, driving Monitor Silver 6's, with my primary source material FLAC from an old ReadyNAS NV in the basement over a Sonos. Not cheap, but not as through the roof as some people I know. I spent an inordinate amount of time ripping all my old CDs and several friends' collections via EAC on secure to make sure that they all were clean and bit perfect. So sort of OCD, but now I have better things to do with my life.So I bought myself a pair of  Sennheiser HD 598 Cs Closed Back Headphone , and the Fulla Schiit, set up an ancient ThinkPad laptop with xubuntu, got an external hard drive and copied 1.2GB of FLAC files, and brought the whole thing to work (I can't use my work machine because it's so locked down I can't install new drivers or an external drive). Running over gmusicbrowser. It wasn't super easy to configure given that I'm far from a linux guru or programmer, but following a bunch of articles it was pretty close to plug and play. I installed a clean version of xubuntu, then installed alac and gstreamer and configured exactly as in the post you'll find if you search for "upgrade your grey matter bit perfect audio ubuntu". Sure there were a few configuration things that were funky, but it took 5 minutes of google and determination.Am I happy? Absolutely. Are these phones perfect? Is this DAC perfect? Nope. But are they about as revealing, smooth, and detailed as I can imagine having at work, leaving on my desk, not worrying that someone is going to steal them all? Yes to all of the above. They make me happy daily, listening to bebop & hard bop jazz, folk singers, chamber music, orchestral music, and some rock. Some of my recordings that I thought were fine were not. I finally talked myself into getting better remasters of most of my Led Zepplin, which now sounds shockingly compressed - and I've heard good recordings and many of my other recordings are good, but I must have bought crappy consumer early masters many years ago, and never heard (even on my home system) how poor the masters were. I kind of think that if this set-up can let me know which are my good recordings and which are my crappy ones, it must be a good system. Noise floor seems dead silent; warmth of accoustic songs is full and gorgeous. I can't say enough. I've heard fancier set-ups, but I can't imagine having a fancier one at work. This, for a total of <$200 (headphones on black friday + Fully Schiit DAC) is pure magic.The things people say, like "the edges are sharp" or "the volume knob is flimsy" - if you're leaving it on a desk, get over it - it's not a big deal. Doesn't need to be sturdy. And if you're letting this rattle around in your backpack, I can't quite imagine it. But they include a nifty cloth bag. And if you care, save the money vs. a Dragonfly, buy yourself a file, and file 'em down. Simple enough. Don't confuse enthusiast pro-sumer stuff for the overpackaged Sony crap. Buy audio quality, and deal with the rest. The USB noise thread? Well, I don't have the problem - but I am using about the most ancient laptop you could manage to install a graphic interface version of linux on and have it boot, so maybe the USB2.0 is better suited than the USB3.0, but I just think it sounds lovely full stop. 'nuff said.Buy.

I just received this yesterday and I want to provide some immediate feedback for those looking for the same solution as I was. I needed a solution to amplify the audio output from my Pixel XL to the AUX input of my car head unit. I had previously been using an HTC M8 rooted with a ported version of Dolby Atmos. This provided a huge improvement to anything else I'd tried on that phone. Upgrading to the Pixel XL, unfortunately, resulted in a downgrade in my car audio experience. So I hunted for a solution and eventually ended up looking at the Fulla, right here. At this price point, I figured it was worth a shot.The Pixel comes with a USB type-C OTG adaptor. Cool! Utilizing only this adaptor, I'm very happy to report that the Pixel XL is completely Plug n Play with the Fulla! The Pixel will automatically detect the connection to the Fulla and default to "provide power to the USB device" (or whatever the option says). You will hear the phone bops and bleeps immediately as you start swiping and tapping at your screen since, at this point, all the phone audio is routing through the Fulla.Now I had also purchased a powered USB hub based on some other reviews, which in this scenario, turns out to be unnecessary. I've yet to try and incorporate the USB hub into the setup in case I'd want to charge the phone while also porting audio out.I did find that unplugging the USB and immediately plugging it back in resulted in the audio not routing correctly to the Fulla. Restarting the phone solved this. Just in this happening once, I have the feeling that the audio routing may be a little finicky plugging in and out, in and out. I will need more hands-on time with the Fulla to see if any pesky issues like this could become a problem.Bottomline: If you have a Pixel, this is highly recommended!

I love Schiit. Their stuff is well built, looks good and sounds great. The sound is clean and pretty articulate especially given the price.Be careful when using these. They say you can use sensitive IEMs with them but it's a bit of a stretch. I have a pair of JH Audio 15 Pro's and I can't put the volume more than 1/4th up without risking my ears. They sound great, though! You could easily power some more demanding headphones with these, though probably not so far up as planars.Oh, fun little thing they did? In OS X at least when it presents itself to the output list it's name is "I'm Fulla Schiit". Seriously, how can you not love these guys? They make all their Schiit in the US, their product pages are full of puns and unlike a lot of audio companies they don't pedal snake oil. Go to the FAQ for the Fulla and you'll see a couple questions about whether or not to get audiophile-grade USB cables and they rightly say not to waste your money. In an amusing way, no less.

I cannot listen to music through my Shure SHR440 headphones without this. Once you get used to an external DAC, all internal laptop DACs sound terrible. My only complaints are the sharp corners and the sensitive volume knob can be easy to accidentally hit, which suddenly changes the volume. These complaints are very minor compared to getting a US made product that I use daily.

This really helps crank up the audio for headphones and is a simple all-in-one unit without extra frills. Sure, it isn't as strong or customizable, but you're getting simplicity. Just plug and play. Always on, and adjust more or less gain.That being said, there is a bit of hiss going about 70% of max, but you get much more sound than a basic headphone jack from your motherboard. around 50% gives you plenty of volume without the background hiss (and even then that's only when no noise/music is playing).The price of the unit and the hiss at less than 3/4 max gain each take half a star off, but still, it's a great unit for those that just want to plug it in and forget about it.