This is a review and detailed measurements of the Schiit BiFrost audio DAC. The unit is on kind loan from a member. The one I have doesn't have USB input so not sure if that is an older version or current??? Schiit website shows USB input as standard but then again there is some wording regarding optional USB module. Regardless, as best as I can figure out, the cost for BiFrost is USD $399 plus shipping.Note that I had previously measured the Schiit BiFrost Multibit . This is the non-multibit version which is based on AKM DAC chip.Not sure what is to say about the look of Schiit other than if you have seen one, you have seen them all:Since there is no USB input, the momentary switch toggles between Toslink and S/PDIF. I used the latter for all of my testing.The back panel has nothing exciting other than showing that this is a mains operated unit without an external supply:I see a random "CE" mark where the serial number sticker is on the left. Please excuse me if I don't put much weight behind this unit having been through safety and emissions regulatory testing. I checked the case grounding and it is NOT grounded. Same problems as I found with other mains operated Schiit audio products. See: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...otunheim-headphone-amplifier.3733/#post-89406 It is always a confident builder when you unpack an audio product and it rattles like it has half a dozen marbles in it. Such was the case with this Schiit BiFrost. Needless to say, before I could test it, I had to open and investigate. As soon as I took the screws off and tried to open the unit, heatsinks fell out of it one by one. Here are three of them:There was a forth one that fell out a bit later. Looking inside, it was clear that they were supposed to be mounted on the four power supply regulators. I inserted them as such:But they were completely loose and hence the reason they fell out. They have made out of some of the thinnest gauge you can imagine so the spring tension is not remotely enough to keep them put. Fortunately they have screw holes and I put four in there to keep them there for good:The two on the left took all the dexterity I could muster as the capacitors were in the way. Now I know why they choose to not screw them down. Tiny bit of planning in having the two caps a few millimeters to the left would have made the job easy.It seems it is not a Schiit product without such issues.With no output options or dials, we are left with our single dashboard view of the BiFrost DAC:Output is nicely above 2 volts nominal we like to see. Likewise, one channel meets spec at 0.003% THD+N. Unusually so, the other channel is far better to the tune of an extra 10 dB in SINAD! A few dB difference is common but 10 dB? Why couldn't we have both channels this good? Averaging the two channels this is where the Schiit BiFrost lands:Squarely lin tier 3. Not good. But not a disaster either like its multibit sister.Dynamic Range is decent and spec compliant:Jitter and noise test shows lack of attention to cross contamination of clock or reference voltage:In addition to those series of jitter spikes, the noise level is quite high too. State-of-the-art DACs have noise floors that fall below the "audiosciencereview.com" label.Linearity is a huge step up above Schiit BiFrost multibit which could not do much better than 10 or so bits:Mind you, at $400, I expect to see perfection here, not just beating the poor/broken performance of the multibit version.Our 32-tone test at 192 kHz sampling clearly visualizes the distortion and noise products:There is nothing musical about a ton of junk created between our signal tones. This is some of the highest amount of distortion I have seen in DACs tested.Distortion and noise versus frequency with wide bandwidth of 90 khz shows elevated floor and severely rising level in one channel:Dissecting the spectrum of a 1 kHz tone, we see part of that problem is ultrasonic noise between 45 and 50 kHz:The "good news" is that by using an off-the-shelf delta-sigma chip, Schiit escapes the horrors of the multibit version of their DACs. The bad news is that this design is simply not performant, or competitive. There are DACs such as the SMSL SU-8 which run circles around it for half the price. That's both on performance and features such as volume control, balanced output, USB input, etc.In the era of no measurements or "friendly measurements" that showed problems but said otherwise, I could see people buying DACs like this. But I hope informed customers stay away and send a message to Schiit that they need to up their game. Obscurity of data is no longer an option.And oh, please Schiit, take care of your customers with better manufacturing and safety standards. What is "Made in USA" supposed to mean if it is neither one of these? I am having to keep fixing these units before sending them back to their customers. Don't pay lip service. Reach out to customers, pay for shipping, and fix things like grounding, especially when you have metal heatsinks that come loose and can easily create an electrical short!------------As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.They say thatI think if you fertilize said tree enough, it might. I need some money to buy fertilizer then: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview ), or https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054 ).