Schiit Yggdrasil - Best DAC available!?

[Jud]

Answered your question in the other thread. (Cross posting is usually considered not polite, BTW, so ordinarily you'll want to choose one thread.)

[Jud]

I have also ordered regan. What do you mean by "MILLENIAL MODE THERMAL OPTIMIZATION"? Thanks.

 

I have two guesses:

 

- He is going to hit the beach and catch some rays.

 

- When the Yggy comes he is going to plug it in and let it "break in" for a long time.

[Jud]

 

I note that in Innerfidelity's "Big Sound 2015" multi-part article, some of the testers performed blind testing to see if any of the testers could distinguish the Yggy from the Antelope Audio Zodiac Platinum DAC (which costs $5,500). Tyll himself and famed audio mastering engineer Bob Katz both failed the test. Another tester eventually passed the test by a small margin after a repeated blind tests.

 

I think this can be viewed as a nice win for the Yggy (given the Zodiac costs over twice as much as the Yggy), as well as perhaps commentary on the issues with conducting a blind test. One would think that these very experienced testers under controlled circumstances would be able to notice different sonic signatures between the Yggy and the Zodiac under blind testing, but apparently that was not the case (at least for Bob Katz and Tyll).

 

Big Sound 2015 Pyrates Aboard! | InnerFidelity

 

Big Sound 2015: Biting the Bullet with Bob Katz | InnerFidelity

 

I would be very careful about coming to any conclusions on the basis of such tests.

[Jud]

There's a lot of BS when it comes to comparing equipment. Some do have genuine golden ears. Many though just experience expectation bias or unconsciously follow a technological narrative. The only test worth doing is a blind test. If you see it being plugged in or chosen, comparisons are automatically voided.

 

Your brain is quite literally that powerful.

 

In fact you can think of your brain like a DAC. Input - processing - output (experience/perception). The processing is subjective and influenced by expectation, biases, emotion, diet and a multitude of other psychological factors.

 

If I may ask (and it is a friendly question, because I am curious about the answer), where did you develop the opinions you express above? Reading (where?), conducting your own comparisons....?

 

Edit: My internal editor just spoke and said "You know, this is really off topic." True. So don't answer my question (unless you already have while I write this). I'll consider whether to open another thread on this.

[Jud]

How can a DAC create a longer decay than what is on the recording?

 

Extremely easy. Any filter must have some amount of aliasing and ringing. Longer decay simply equals post-ringing. You can also increase the amount of post-ringing with a minimum phase filter.

[Jud]

Interesting, thanks for the info Jud.

 

So, let's say a harp is plucked and in the actual recording the decay takes 5 seconds. By increasing post-ringing, a DAC can extend that decay for longer period, let's say 6 or 7 seconds?

 

In other words the DAC in question with the increased post ringing can create a sound that doesn't actually exist on the recording (the sound should have stopped at 5 seconds, but continues on for 6 or 7 seconds)?

 

Out to seconds would be really pushing it and quite obvious to the point it was irritating, like hearing the music played in an indoor pool.

[Jud]

Huh ? This went over my head but I believe you as you must be a recording engineer .

 

Just paid attention when the guys who know about filters wrote something here or elsewhere.

[Jud]

No.

 

Considering the OP has now had the Yggy for over a week, I would guess he knows the answer one way or the other for himself by now.

[Jud]

Measurement is easy, just monitor the output of the electronics... Simple.

I would be interested in what people believe improves with stuff being left on all the time?

You have to remember we can measure far more than we can hear, perception is in our heads, thats what is easily fooled...

 

Working backward through your reply - I agree we're easily fooled. Sometimes we can measure more than we can hear, but sometimes we can hear more than we can measure. And last, I have no idea what improves, but the Yggy's designer does say he has never listened to a DAC whose sound does not change over time, and he who recommended the extended break-in period for Yggy. This may of course be bull-puckey, and you may know more than he does about how DACs and his particular design behave.

[Jud]

A bit cutting, your last comment... just because someone sprouts audiophile mantras regarding a product does not mean they are true, just verbal mana to feed the believers...

No I don't but I do work and have worked on high reliability electronics for many years so DO know how electronics work and understand thermal issues etc. OK most of this stuff is not Audio (though I did several years as part of the teams doing the next generation vehicle communications and hearing protection for the US army) just boring high reliability stuff. Audio electronics are no different from other electronics, they all follow the same physics.

We cannot hear more than we can measure, sorry, if you have any proof that we can please present it as it would be world shattering, unless you are mixing up perception with what we physically hear.

 

Wasn't meant to be cutting - you may be correct, the designer may be wrong. By the way, this designer is not prone to spouting audiophile mantras; he's got a deserved reputation for speaking his mind. But it doesn't mean he can't be wrong - no one's immune to that. And as you say, we are (all of us) easily fooled.

 

Regarding hearing more than we can measure, yes, perception is involved. We are, with all of our senses, and hearing most of all, tremendous detectors and matchers of patterns, far beyond the abilities of any electronic or mechanical sensing or measuring device and/or computer. Scientists encode data as sound and have humans listen in order to detect patterns in the data that computers miss. This has worked to detect patterns in electrical activity surrounding the planet Jupiter, for example, and even to detect patterns associated with cancers. And of course the vast majority of us do this pattern matching every time we listen to our audio systems: there is no speaker where we "hear" a centered stereo image, and no measurement device would indicate sound emanating from that location. What comes to our ears from our two (or more) speakers matches the pattern of singers and instrumentalists at locations between the speakers - and with phase effects, above or outside them.

 

But, associated with the principle that we are easily fooled, we are so prone to detecting patterns that we perceive them even where they don't exist, creating optical and audible illusions. In fact the pattern matching in many of these illusions is so powerful we continue to see or hear them even after it's been demonstrated to us that the reality is different. (Edit: Including the stereo "image" illusion.)

 

Back to burn-in: I have perceived burn-in in the electronics of a DAC where no memory or acclimatization was involved, see Semi-Customized DAC, Part V: Rollin', rollin', rollin'... - Blogs - Computer Audiophile. Background: I had compared two different brands (though identical specs) of capacitors on the two channels of my DAC, using one brand on the left channel, one on the right, with well recorded mono music. After making the choice of the capacitors that sounded better, I had a new set of the "winning" capacitors installed on one channel and retained the slightly used set on the other channel. Here's a quote regarding what I heard then:

 

A couple of interesting things regarding break-in, at least for capacitors: Yes, I did feel the sound of both sets of capacitors changed during my testing. And when I did have the remaining two MusiCaps installed, the new pair did sound different the first 24 hours or so from the old ones - slightly different, not nearly to the extent the MusiCaps differed from the Thetas. (I have my music collection playing on "shuffle" through the DAC 24/7 for break-in purposes.) But the most interesting aspect of all to me was that while over the first several days of listening to the MusiCaps, I thought there was a slight thinness to the sound in the bass and low midrange, last night when I sat down to listen, wham - a whole different system. All the bass you could want.

 

Now even though I included it in the quote, let's ignore that last part about what I heard after days of listening, because that relies on memory. Just concentrate on what I heard during the first couple of days, because that didn't rely on memory but was a report of what I heard comparing right and left channels with mono music. There was an audible difference between the new set and the slightly used set until about 24 hours of steady playing time had elapsed. So some characteristic of the new capacitors changed over the course of that 24 hours until they no longer sounded different than the slightly used set.

[Jud]

Yggy with me today, just 24 hours after placing order. Extensive break-in required, apparently, so reserving judgement at the moment, but quite impressed already.

 

Will be curious to hear whether you think break-in indeed took place, if you can keep yourself from listening too much in the interim.

 

(If this is impossible - to keep from listening "too much" - then certainly never mind.)

[Jud]

50 ohm style on my Yggy. F**k!

 

Just think how good it'll sound when it's got the proper connectors installed.

[Jud]

I think you've misunderstood my question. I'm aware of the different geometries of the connectors, but I would like to know if a female BNC with the visible attributes of a 50 Ohm connector can ever actually be a 75 Ohm connector.

 

If I may answer a question with three questions:

 

- Is it solely the connector that determines the resistance, or can the associated circuitry have something to do with it as well?

 

- Have you tried actually measuring the resistance?

 

- Are you set on using the BNC input (does it sound best)?

[Jud]

1. I don't know.

 

2. I don't have tools to attempt to measure anything electrical.

 

3. I don't need BNC today, but I would like a 75 Ohm BNC input available for the possibility of making use of it some day.

 

I'll need to contact someone above tech support level at Schiit to find out why a 50 Ohm connector has been fitted, since all I got from tech support (Nick T) was the four words "It is 75 Ohm".

 

Perhaps add a couple of the illustrative photos you posted here, plus wanta911's response to my question 1 when you do.

[Jud]

That's great news - I've been following your progress. Now I wish they would give an explanation on how this came about - is it an isolated incident or widespread?

 

Widespread enough that the Schiit website photo is of the 50 ohm connector, if I remember that correctly?

[Jud]

Got the Yggy back today. It now has the 75 ohm BNC shown in the image below:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24172[/ATTACH]

 

First class service provided by Mark at Electromod. The DAC was out of my hands for only 72 hours.

 

:thumbs up:

[Jud]

Hi all,

I am quite newbie in computeraudio, at moment I still use soundcard for computeraudio and I want to upgrade to DAC. So I am looking for a DAC which under 600$ and I found Schiit Bifrost Multibit and ifi micro idsd are in my research. So, if anyone could help me to decide which one is best choice? My Pc is i5-6600; win7: 16G ram and I will use hqplayer. Sorry my english, I am from Vietnam.

Many thanks

 

Sent from my Lenovo P70-A using Tapatalk

 

If you think you might like to tweak things by using a software player such as HQPlayer for playback (Signalyst), then iFi might be preferable. If you would prefer not to tweak and just to send your music straight to the DAC with a player like iTunes, foobar, etc., then the Bifrost is probably what you want.

 

tboooe: Nice!

[Jud]

Why do you say this? I am contemplating these two also.

I don't want to mess with settings past just using audiogate and playing everything at dsd

 

Then you do not want any of the Schiit DACs because they don't accept DSD input.

[Jud]

Hi mani, where did the pic come from? I see other measurements here: yggdrasil technical measurements

[Jud]

I doubt listing my components of either system would help - they're not mainstream.

Mani.

 

Maybe you could just post a photo of your speakers.

[Jud]

Oh OK, if you insist:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25163[/ATTACH]

 

Guitar just for perspective ;-)

 

BD-Design Orelo MkII fully active horn speakers:

- 118dB/W @1m

- coaxial horn

- 3x 15" bass drivers

- THD <3.8% below 100Hz at 88dBSPL

- +/- 0.5dB from 19Hz upwards

 

... I think they're good enough to evaluate the true capabilities of the Yggy ;-)

 

Mani.

 

Beautiful stuff, Mani.

 

This reminds me that I was over visiting a designer friend a few months ago (David D'Imperio) and saw some cool-looking speakers - I learned he listened pretty much exclusively as background music for work in his home studio, but had done the industrial design work for Oswalds Mill Audio - Showroom | OMA and had received a pair of speakers from the company principal. Here's one of their pieces:

 

 

[Jud]

Well, seems no-one wants to take on explaining why the Yggy shows bad glitching in its measurements :-(

 

I came across this article which helps explain what glitching is all about: DAC Essentials: What.

 

I also passed my thoughts by PeterSt. He tested an AD5791 chip a while ago with the following results:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25170[/ATTACH]

 

Is this really the correct chip to be using for audio purposes? Perhaps, but the glitching would need to be properly addressed and it doesn't seem to be in the Yggy.

 

Still totally open to others' technical opinions...

 

Mani.

 

From Schitt's flagship DAC uses a not-for-audio DAC chip. - diyAudio:

 

the DAC chips come from ADI and are $64 a piece on the manu's website. He's [Mike Moffat]using 4 of them but says he had to address the glitching of the DAC without using a sample-hold which sounds like ***.

[Jud]

I sensed something that didn't sit well me about the sound, looked into it, and found the probable culprit. Thought people here might be interested.

 

I think it's OK to question anyone about anything... if it's done in the right spirit. Personally, I don't put anyone on a pedestal - we're all just a half-chromosome away from a chimp after all.

 

Mani.

 

Knowing the type of system you have and what a careful listener you are, and accepting there is something that doesn't sound right about the Yggy in your system, I'm hesitant myself to draw a conclusion as to a "probable" culprit at this point, mostly because that measurement looks so, well, *blatant*. I just wonder whether it is reproducible in most other models out there, including the one you had, or if this is some sort of quirk of a particular Yggy or measurement apparatus.

[Jud]

How convenient. The guy eager to pick a fight with Moffat over this glitch and engineering choices just happened to hear this problem first. Right.

 

I don't know whether what Mani heard from the Yggy is a result of glitching. What I do know is that he has a terrific system (I was lucky enough through the generosity of another CA member to hear his reference DAC in my home) and precisely no agenda.

 

I have also heard an Yggy and liked it, and have owned and enjoyed a couple of Mike Moffat-designed DACs for a total period measured not in years but decades.

 

Knowing both parties to the discussion are sincere, I think we can have it on an informative technical level rather than resorting to any type of innuendo.

[Jud]

Yeah I met Mike but that was in his old Theta days at the Theta dealer in Philly (Chestnut Hill Audio If Mike is still reading this thread) A long time ago. If Mike would do everything I want, he will make the USB card for the Yggy available for us Gumby owners! I will say that I still have a DS Pro Basic III that works. My old Data Basic transport died years ago though.

 

I think we've talked before in other threads about Chestnut Hill Audio. Jack is a terrific person with great ears who had a lot of wonderful sounding equipment in that store.