Schiit Yggdrasil - Best DAC available!?

[johndean]

I have seen this statement a couple of times now. Is the inference the Yggy does not do amplified music well or as well?

 

It does amplified music very very well but acoustic music is rendered so spooky real that a lot of people comment on it .

[earflappin]

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.

It does amplified music very very well but acoustic music is rendered so spooky real that a lot of people comment on it .

[wanta911]

So if you have a 50R connector don't worry, no one will notice, even under simulation the difference is minute.

 

You do realise that this is an audiophile forum and that minute differences are argued endlessly regardless of whether they actually make a difference or not? ?

 

Anyway, I am no expert on the subject so I bow to your knowledge on the subject. When and if I buy a Schiit DAC, I will still make sure it has the 75 Ohm connector as I am uncomfortable with the deviation from the original specification. There are enough "what ifs" in this hobby without creating more!

[marce]

I do agree that a 75R interface should be used from source to destination...

[goldsdad]

No problem, I'm glad it all worked out 

 

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

 

 

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

[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:

[Sam Lord]

...So if you are, for instance, connecting a 75 Ohm video camera connection to a studio monitor, the coaxial cable must also be 75 Ohm AND the connectors on the coaxial cable (i.e. BNC connectors) must be 75 Ohm in Impedance. Every single time you have a mismatch in impedance, say between a 50 Ohm Coaxial Cable and a 75 Ohm Coaxial Connector (i.e. BNC), a standing wave develops... Every time a 50 and 75 Ohm Impedance mismatch occurs, about 5% of the signal is lost.

Just FYI, those sentences put together are correct but misleading. The out-of-spec connector at the termination does *not* create a substantial impedance mismatch: the reflection would occur but it would be insanely tiny. An incorrect terminating *resistance* would. A full length of incorrect-Z cable (like 50 Ohms vs. 75 Ohms) would be measurable, but even then, SPDIF signals are very easy to transmit, especially over the tiny distances used in home audio systems. In fact, you could even improve the connection by *lowering* the bandwidth of the transmitting device if your parts were of high quality. The Yggy has a correct 75Ohm resistor terminating the connection. The distance from the connector to the terminating resistor is one factor, the length of the mismatched section of the connector is the other: both are extremely small.

If you look at the simulation it shows a straight 75R run and a 75R run with a 20mm 50R mismatch... no problems with the signal at all...Spdif will transmit happily down RCA connectors, the distances involved are not long and the 75R resistor used on most interfaces will swamp the minute effects of some impedance mismatches... A board with SPDIF wont even be made as a controlled impedance board in most cases anyway, so approximations will suffice.

So if you have a 50R connector don't worry, no one will notice, even under simulation the difference is minute...

 

...And you explained it nicely.

[toast]

SPDIF(RCA,BNC,TOS) as well as USB have an input receiver. Does the AES/EBU input in the Yggy also have an input receiver? Just asking.

[koolblue3]

Got an opportunity to repeat the Yggy/Vega shootout at the same venue as the first audition. This time an Audio Design XLR switch box was used to allow both Yggy and Vega to use their XLR outputs and to do instant switching back & forth between the two DACs. Yggy was driven with coax and Vega with Toslink from Aries. A Jensen PC-2XR transformer did XLR-to-RCA conversion to drive the Acurus DIA100 amp for LS50 speakers. The Yggy has been on continuous break-in for over a month, and was transported to the venue powered by a UPS.

 

Overall impression was largely the same as before: Yggy shines with vocals; Vega sounds more dynamic with more detail retrieval and a better defined sound stage. Yggy is the smoother of the two; the term "rounded" was used many times. Vega had crisper attacks and longer reverb tails. We listened mostly with Vega's Mode 1 (linear phase) filter but switched to Mode 4 (minimum phase) to compare. With Mode 4 the Vega and Yggy sound got closer. Tonal characters of voices and instruments are quite different between the two DACs, and it was hard to decide which DAC is preferred. As before, the preferences can become genre specific. I can picture tube amp enthusiasts loving the Yggy sound. One listener commented that the Yggy sound reminds him of a Sony ES CD player of late 80's vintage. We threw a bunch of "problematic" CDs at the Yggy and it did not disappoint with a single track. Yggy makes a lot of Redbook content listenable no matter how poorly recorded or mastered. Schiit's mega burrito filter in Yggy has a high degree of universal compatibility.

 

On the other hand, while the Vega didn't sound as good as Yggy for some of the worst content (some harshness came through), for the best sounding recordings it was able to outshine the Yggy. With these recordings the Yggy sounded more polite whereas Vega sounded more lively and engaging. With Vega playing the comment "I heard more" was made several times. At least the comments were very consistent with those made from previous auditions.

 

So, both Yggy and Vega have their strengths and weaknesses (different ones). Either one is more than adequate for my use. Such an A/B comparison tends to be "brutal" but it was fun to do.

 

 

this is a very good comparison for me. it tells me a lot about the yggy...having listened to a Vega at length. It makes me think the Yggy must sound a lot like my old Audiomeca Ambrosia Dac with PCM63 chips

[mourip]

this is a very good comparison for me. it tells me a lot about the yggy...having listened to a Vega at length.

 

Got an opportunity to repeat the Yggy/Vega shootout at the same venue as the first audition. This time an Audio Design XLR switch box was used to allow both Yggy and Vega to use their XLR outputs and to do instant switching back & forth between the two DACs. Yggy was driven with coax and Vega with Toslink from Aries. A Jensen PC-2XR transformer did XLR-to-RCA conversion to drive the Acurus DIA100 amp for LS50 speakers. The Yggy has been on continuous break-in for over a month, and was transported to the venue powered by a UPS.

 

Overall impression was largely the same as before: Yggy shines with vocals; Vega sounds more dynamic with more detail retrieval and a better defined sound stage. Yggy is the smoother of the two; the term "rounded" was used many times. Vega had crisper attacks and longer reverb tails. We listened mostly with Vega's Mode 1 (linear phase) filter but switched to Mode 4 (minimum phase) to compare. With Mode 4 the Vega and Yggy sound got closer. Tonal characters of voices and instruments are quite different between the two DACs, and it was hard to decide which DAC is preferred. As before, the preferences can become genre specific. I can picture tube amp enthusiasts loving the Yggy sound. One listener commented that the Yggy sound reminds him of a Sony ES CD player of late 80's vintage. We threw a bunch of "problematic" CDs at the Yggy and it did not disappoint with a single track. Yggy makes a lot of Redbook content listenable no matter how poorly recorded or mastered. Schiit's mega burrito filter in Yggy has a high degree of universal compatibility.

 

On the other hand, while the Vega didn't sound as good as Yggy for some of the worst content (some harshness came through), for the best sounding recordings it was able to outshine the Yggy. With these recordings the Yggy sounded more polite whereas Vega sounded more lively and engaging. With Vega playing the comment "I heard more" was made several times. At least the comments were very consistent with those made from previous auditions.

 

So, both Yggy and Vega have their strengths and weaknesses (different ones). Either one is more than adequate for my use. Such an A/B comparison tends to be "brutal" but it was fun to do.

 

I liked the Yggy in my headphone system so much that I bought a second one to replace the Vega in my main system. I would say that both are excellent but have different strengths. The Yggy has very natural tone making it a tad euphonic. The sound has beauty. The Vega has a bit more sparkle and apparent detail but can make some recordings seem a bit harsh at least in my system.

 

Also although the Yggy is less expensive the lack of volume control means that you still need to pay for some sort of preamp and probably one that has a remote. I am using a Tortuga LDR type that uses an Apple Remote. Seems to pretty much be transparent.

 

These sonic differences are subtle however. Both DACs are excellent. I wonder if there is a DAC that has it all or do they just sound different, but in a good way, after a certain price point :-)

[HuuThang]

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

[tboooe]

Chào mừng bạn đến từ một người yêu âm nhạc Việt .

 

For the DAC, its impossible to say which one is better for you. Any chance you an audition them first?

 

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

[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!

[Carbo]

I've been using this for 45 days now and am still impressed with every new listen. I've been going through all my old cd's ripped to FLAC and it's like listening for the first time on albums I've been listening to for over 30 years.

[earflappin]

I've been using this for 45 days now and am still impressed with every new listen. I've been going through all my old cd's ripped to FLAC and it's like listening for the first time on albums I've been listening to for over 30 years.

 

What do you mean by 'this'? Yggdrasil or HQPlayer which is mentioned in the post just above yours?

[Carbo]

What do you mean by 'this'? Yggdrasil or HQPlayer which is mentioned in the post just above yours?

 

 

Yggdrasil & BiFrost Multibit

 

Never used HQPlayer, I've been using ROON

[beerandmusic]

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!

 

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

[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.

[HuuThang]

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

That is one of my concern. However DSD is very big file and costly.

 

Sent from my Lenovo P70-A using Tapatalk

[ted_b]

However DSD is very big file and costly.

 

Sent from my Lenovo P70-A using Tapatalk

 

I'm sorry I can't let more DSD misinformation float around. Bigger and more costly? Huh? Our site (NativeDSD.com, considered a premium site) charges around $18-21 for DSD64 albums (many much less when on sale, which is weekly), and they are slightly smaller files than 24/192k PCM. On the pop side, the individual Norah Jones boxset albums (done in both PCM and DSD, although different masters), like Feels Like Home is 3Gb in PCM and about 2GB in DSD64. HDtracks sells the Temptations 24/192 albums for $28! 2L sells DXD for $30, while we sell most DSD128 and even DSD256 for under $27 (as does 2L, for DSD128 at least). Your preconceived notions, likely not your own, are just wrong.

 

Sorry, back to the Yiggy, a wonderful wonderful PCM dac.

[HuuThang]

I'm sorry I can't let more DSD misinformation float around. Bigger and more costly? Huh? Our site (NativeDSD.com, considered a premium site) charges around $18-21 for DSD64 albums (many much less when on sale, which is weekly), and they are slightly smaller files than 24/192k PCM. On the pop side, the individual Norah Jones boxset albums (done in both PCM and DSD, although different masters), like Feels Like Home is 3Gb in PCM and about 2GB in DSD64. HDtracks sells the Temptations 24/192 albums for $28! 2L sells DXD for $30, while we sell most DSD128 and even DSD256 for under $27 (as does 2L, for DSD128 at least). Your preconceived notions, likely not your own, are just wrong.

 

Sorry, back to the Yiggy, a wonderful wonderful PCM dac.

 

Hihi it is just my concern, yes please back to Yiggy

 

Sent from my Lenovo P70-A using Tapatalk

[beerandmusic]

I'm sorry I can't let more DSD misinformation float around. Bigger and more costly? Huh? Our site (NativeDSD.com, considered a premium site) charges around $18-21 for DSD64 albums (many much less when on sale, which is weekly), and they are slightly smaller files than 24/192k PCM. On the pop side, the individual Norah Jones boxset albums (done in both PCM and DSD, although different masters), like Feels Like Home is 3Gb in PCM and about 2GB in DSD64. HDtracks sells the Temptations 24/192 albums for $28! 2L sells DXD for $30, while we sell most DSD128 and even DSD256 for under $27 (as does 2L, for DSD128 at least). Your preconceived notions, likely not your own, are just wrong.

 

Sorry, back to the Yiggy, a wonderful wonderful PCM dac.

 

are you speaking from experience when you say yiggy is wonderful? It seems if you are connected with a site that sells DSD, that would be your preference? Just curious, what your preference is? Do you prefer listening to DSD or PCM?

[gldgate]

I love my Yggy. That said, there are wonderful DSD recordings out there and I really like fooling around with software like HQ Player. Simple solution. Get a good multibit DAC for PCM and another one for DSD. With companies like Schiit and iFi (and many others) people can get both at an affordable price.

 

This is a hobby and should be fun. I used to live in the Chicago area and had a subscription to the Chicago Symphony which was/is a world class orchestra. None the less, I really enjoyed listening to visiting orchestras (London, Vienna, Berlin, NY, Cleveland etc..) because they each had a different sound and it added tremendous variety. I don't think audio is much different. Having multiple pieces of equipment can help to shake things up. My $.02.

[junker]

Lately I've been having great results converting SACD ISOs to 24/88.2 using 1) ISO2DSD v6 and 2) XLD. The results are fantastic. So if you aren't against converting then there is certainly a very easy and high-quality workaround for having access to your entire library for playback on a Yggy. No problem...

[ted_b]

are you speaking from experience when you say yiggy is wonderful? It seems if you are connected with a site that sells DSD, that would be your preference? Just curious, what your preference is? Do you prefer listening to DSD or PCM?

 

I volunteer both here (as a reviewer) and on NativeDSD.com (doing their tagging/meatdata/file prep). In the former I have reviewed many DACs that shine in PCM (the Chord series, for example) and have gone on record ad nauseum that I prefer the format that is closest to the specific recordings master; if that is PCM let me listen in PCM. If that is DSD, let me listen in DSD. It's an embarrassment of riches to have both, not a war. If you can't have both, or if your DAC clearly prefers one over the other, then find that DACs sweetspot and resample to it (using good filters/modulators/etc like those found in HQPlayer).

 

BTW, on your first question, when I can't listen (or have yet to, as is the case for the Yiggy) I go out to my personal network of like-eared folks. They all highly regard the Yiggy!