This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit Modi+ stereo USB DAC. It was sent to me by the company .

There are three inputs and are nicely stepped through using the momentary switch. The white LED that indicates the selected input is nice but alas, there is some bleed into the other indicators.

Back panel is simple enough:

A USB adapter is included to power the unit although you could accomplish the same by using a USB port on your computer which is what I did for my testing.

Schiit Modi+ Measurements
Schiit implementation of USB defaults to 16 bit which causes trouble for my ASIO4ALL wrapper so for some of the tests, I had to use my Roon player to get full 24 bit performance such as the dashboard:

This is a competent performance which faces stiff competition from many other budget DACs:

Zooming in:

As noted, my measurements match company spec. On noise performance though, we are 3 dB short:

That could be due to slight difference in test parameters. Performance as noted is excellent though.

There is no volume control in this DAC but should you use one upstream in software, this is the performance relative to input digital level:

IMD distortion shows slight hint of class ESS DAC IMD Hump but otherwise the results are very nice:

Jitter performance oddly is best on Coax with USB being in the middle and Toslink bringing in the rear:
Edit: first graph should say Coax, not Toslink. The second one is Toslink.

 

Linearity is good as it should be:

Multitone performance is excellent:

Frequency response is flat and nice in audible band:

Alas, out of band attenuation is not very good:

This naturally hurts our distortion+noise wideband test which includes the unfiltered ultrasonic components:

Conclusions
No doubt you have noticed my frequent use of terms “nice” and “excellent” and that sums up the performance of Modi+. At this price point, we don’t expect objective perfection but competent engineering and that is what we have. Physically, the unit is solidly built and of course supported by an English speaking company. For people with such preference, the Modi+ provides an excellent option. That they can stay competitive with far east audio companies is definitely a feather in their cap.

I am going to recommend the Schiit Modi+ DAC. Great to see Schiit continue the (new) tradition of optimizing objective performance as they cater to their traditional audience.

 

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/schiit-modi-dac-review.39435/