Schiit Yggdrasil - Best DAC available!?

[manisandher]

2. The alleged Yggy AD5791 glitch problem. The shill Mani has pointed out this “massive” glitch with the approval of his tech guru Peter. A number of posters have become fully erect and piled on to the incorrect notion that the AD5791 has a glitching problem. This incorrect magnitude characterization (massive) is so widespread, it has even been used by the forum moderator. It is unfortunate that those accusations are not only based in bullschiit, but the accusers are so lame they are not even aware they are wrong.

 

Well, let's see...

 

To be honest, I'm genuinely surprised this makes a good audio DAC... I always assumed the code-change-dependent glitch energy would make THD unacceptable to audio buffs.

 

Now, who could be so "lame" as to say such a thing? Me? Peter? Nah, it's the designer of the bloody AD5791 himself! And you know what? It seems he was right!

 

Mani.

[hornytoad]

I thought your entire endeavor of trying to convince others failed miserably If T003 and T004 (which is from your reference DAC) has differences, I failed to understand how can one even conclude anything from T001 and T002....See ur own post below....

 

+1

[DrN]

+1

 

 

I'll say..........

+2

[master]

I'll say..........

+2

 

+100... but the guy still does not want to give it a rest... not even for his own good :).

 

Yet another yawn for folks who have nothing better to do than to dig into :)Schiit:).

[JoeWhip]

Mike, I am glad you are doing well. I will continue to use and enjoy my Gumby which is a remarkable DAC as well. Hope to grab a Yggy in a couple of years once we finish our travels!

[schiit]

Well, let's see...

 

To be honest, I'm genuinely surprised this makes a good audio DAC... I always assumed the code-change-dependent glitch energy would make THD unacceptable to audio buffs.

 

 

 

Now, who could be so "lame" as to say such a thing? Me? Peter? Nah, it's the designer of the bloody AD5791 himself!

 

Mani.

 

Maybe we should try this with the ENTIRE quote by the designer of the 5781/91, without editing to quell his enthusiasm and to remove context:

 

"This is exciting! I work for ADI and designed the AD5791 & AD5781 DAC IC's in the Yggdrasil and Ragnarok. But that was about 2009. I'm delighted a new market has been found for these products. As the Yggy blurb explains, I never considered audio when I designed these DACs. In fact the main motivation at the time was medical imaging - the nice folks who make MRI scanners are awfully fussy about performance, and for good reasons!

To be honest, I'm genuinely surprised this makes a good audio DAC. It's terribly expensive and I always assumed the code-change-dependent glitch energy would make THD unacceptable to audio buffs. (There are some ingenious board-level tricks around this but they are difficult and expensive to achieve - I'd love to know if the Yggy designer is using them ... feel free to get in touch!) On the other hand, the AD5791 architecture is unbeatable for noise. I really don't know what you audio perfectionists are hearing when you listen - is it THD ... or noise? Some combination of both, I imagine ...

Anyway, after years of designing products for specialist scientific, medical and industrial equipment I really like the idea of seeing my design in something I could use myself ... must get one of these!"

[manisandher]

Maybe we should try this with the ENTIRE quote by the designer of the 5781/91, without editing to quell his enthusiasm and to remove context...

 

Fair enough.

 

There are some ingenious board-level tricks around this but they are difficult and expensive to achieve - I'd love to know if the Yggy designer is using them ...

 

Edit: If you are indeed doing this, can you explain why Atomicbob's measurements still show a glitching voltage of 43µV?

 

 

 

Mani.

[YashN]

At the time they initially went off, I was in a pre hospitalization mode where I could barely walk. I then went in for some fairly major neck rebuild surgery and just now can function well – much better! I am still wearing a medieval torture device neck collar which prevents me from looking down, and for that reason may leave some typos in this missive.

 

Not relevant.

 

This is why cheaply designed audio DACs are totally unsuited for weapons (missile can hit the orphanage instead of the real target) or medical imaging

 

Not the subject at hand.

 

Again, I am savaged by trogs and Luddies on using industrial DACs for all of the wrong reasons – see immediately below.

 

If you haven't understood that no matter what type of component or equipment (audo or industrial or anything else) you use, people can and will still hear different things...

 

The shill Mani has pointed out this “massive” glitch with the approval of his tech guru Peter.

 

This fabrication doesn't help your cause nor your explanation whatsoever.

 

The glitch referred to on the AD5791 data sheet occurs once per conversion – that's once every 2.5 to 2.8 microseconds or so.

 

That's an awful lot of times per second to me, and already 4 times in a window of 10 microseconds which can be critical for location, soundstage and timbre recognition. Not that I have heard an Yggy, and not that I would care to listen to one either.

 

That is why the zero crossing is so obvious. If this changes, it is a trivial software upgrade.

 

If so, and if some people are telling you that it sounds better, then why not do it or at least offer the option? If it's so trivial to integrate or update it, offer it as a switchable option: some people will leave it off, others will find their equipment better when turned on, consumers will have helped the designer improve, and everybody's happy, then you don't need to turn on the consumers who are probably actually helping you by hurling fabrications on a public forum.

 

Perhaps my accusers may study 2s compliment math, dither, and R2R zero crossing glitches, and sophisticated DACs in particular before they jump on me again.

 

They might not find anything about '2s compliment' but perhaps two's complement, which I know of, and dither which I know for a fact is used in the Professional sector especially for down-mixing and mastering (and for good reason).

[YashN]

Edit: If you are indeed doing this, can you explain why Atomicbob's measurements still show a glitching voltage of 43µV?

 

I think the first question that needs to be answered first and foremost is whether he or his team did contact Roddy to implement Roddy's fixes/workarounds/circuitry.

[schiit]

Fair enough.

 

 

 

Edit: If you are indeed doing this, can you explain why Atomicbob's measurements still show a glitching voltage of 43µV?

 

Mani.

 

Again, why don't we use ALL of AtomicBob's findings and commentary, NOT a single data point.

 

From the thread:yggdrasil technical measurements

"I will never know how the first three hours of the yggdrasil sounded as I let the DAC warm up for an hour and proceeded to make technical measurements. If the measurements presented are familiar territory, then you should be as impressed as I am. If such graphs are not familiar, then please note that these graphs are extended, some down to -160 dB for example. Extreme. Much farther than most other graphs you will see elsewhere on other DACs on the internet or in brochures. So be careful when making comparisons. Watch the X and Y axes in other data. The graphs presented here are not marketing graphs. They have not been prettied up as is often the case in mainstream consumer goods.

Schiit claims THD <0.006% THD+N (more stringent) measured Left 0.00233% Right 0.00239%

Schiit claims IMD <0.007% IMD measured Left 0.00067% Right 0.00162%

Schiit claims SNR >117dB Dynamic Range measured Left 121.7 dB Right 122.0 dB

Schiit has specifications for these measurements published on their website and in their operating instructions. In my measurements, my yggdrasil performed better than Schiit's conservative specifications in every single measurement. Every single one. Well done Schiit!

Commentary added to the end of this post.

The data presented were collected as follows:

1. PrismSound dScope III, picoscope 2205, FLIR E63900

2. DAC balanced output used for measurements except oscilloscope square wave response which used unbalanced output

3. 100 Kohm load used for measurements

4. 44 KHz sample rate, 24 bit depth

5. USB input - cables to go USB cable

6. Balanced cables Tecnec Canare starquad Neutrik XLR cables

7. Unbalance cable BlueJeans Belden RCA

8. Vaunix Lab Brick USB hub

Frequency Response

Expanded Y-axis Frequency Response, 0.1 dB / major division

Dynamic Range

THD and THD+N - unweighted - updated 20151212 - measurement corrected

Intermodulation Distortion

Left - Right channel crosstalk

Jitter - what jitter - yggdrasil laughs at your USB cables

For comparison this is the jitter measured for an ODAC

20 Hz square wave response

expanded time base for 20 Hz square wave response - minimal pre and post ringing

exceptional performance for a digital recovery filter

For those of you worried about the Yggdrasil's slightly warm feeling to the touch, don't worry, be happy. Here is a comparison to an Asus Ultrabook

Yggdrasil

Asus Ultrabook

Commentary:

The previous THD+N graph measurements were artificially high due to a driver / OS interaction on my computer. The corrected measurement now appears above. Update made 2015.12.12.

Designers are often faced with trade-offs for various reasons. I believe the Schiit design team has made trade-offs that result in best auditory experience over best measurements possible on all fronts. I have a colleague who gives a "13 dB miracle" demonstration showing that SNR isn't the best predictor of auditory experience. So THD+N may not be that influential on the final sound while jitter may have a bigger effect. Those of you who will reference the 1992 and 1998 AES papers on the topic of jitter may note that no trained subjects were used to determine the masking thresholds. With many more listeners now well experienced in digital audio listening we might see much lower thresholds if the experiments were repeated today and trained listeners employed."

 

Oh yes, and Bob's take on the glitch, taken from this thread:

 

"I have included a 1KHz -70 dBFS time domain signal to demonstrate that the blib seen in the -90 dBFS version is pretty insignificant."

 

 

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Armchair engineers should always keep in mind:

 

[manisandher]

Again, why don't we use ALL of AtomicBob's findings and commentary, NOT a single data point.

 

From the thread:yggdrasil technical measurements

 

You left out the 1kHz @ -90dBFS measurement

 

Mani.

[schiit]

You left out the 1kHz @ -90dBFS measurement

 

Mani.

 

 

Oh yes, and Bob's take on the glitch, taken from this thread:

 

"I have included a 1KHz -70 dBFS time domain signal to demonstrate that the blib seen in the -90 dBFS version is pretty insignificant."

 

 

Tons of other measurements there too for everyone to see.

[manisandher]

Look Jason, I originally wrote:

 

[The Yggy] sounds ‘interesting’. There’s a freshness, liveness and clarity to the sound that is really impressive on first listen. But after extended listening it is a tad too sibilant and too lean – not enough body and weight to instruments for my liking.

 

I ULed a recording I had made with the Yggy. Compared to the same recording with a ‘software de-glitcher’ in place, others wrote:

 

- Too tizzy (HF noise?)

- Sharper leading transients

- More sizzle (increase around 5kHz?)

- More (artificial?) detail?

- more sharply etched

- "crisper"

- not as "full"

- "detailed, dry, analytical" [type of systems]

- better clarity & focus

 

What I was hearing was real. Now, I just tried to understand what might be causing the Yggy's signature sound. I would never have guessed that my musings would have elicited such vitriol from Mike as:

 

A number of posters have become fully erect…

 

… he is tossing himself off.

 

And forgive me, but I can’t help feeling that “he doth protest too much”.

 

Mani.

[mourip]

Not that I have heard an Yggy, and not that I would care to listen to one either.

 

Armchair engineers should always keep in mind:

 

 

Seems to make Chris's point...

 

I think that I am finally being won over to the idea of curated threads. I do not know about "glitches" but the signal to noise ratio has sure dropped here.

 

How about taking some of these mean spirited exchanges offline? Please consider PM for sharing negativity and defensiveness.

 

Let's raise the tone and keep our minds a bit open...

[manisandher]

Let's raise the tone...

 

I don't think it's YashN you should be addressing here, but rather Mike Moffat:

 

A number of posters have become fully erect…

 

… he is tossing himself off.

 

Disgusting language from one of the Schiit founders. No wonder his partner is here doing damage limitation.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

There are some ingenious board-level tricks around this but they are difficult and expensive to achieve - I'd love to know if the Yggy designer is using them...

 

If you are indeed doing this, can you explain why Atomicbob's measurements still show a glitching voltage of 43µV?

 

 

(From http://www.head-fi.org/t/764787/yggdrasil-technical-measurements/75)

 

Care to answer?

 

Mani.

[hornytoad]

Time to close this thread . When you have manishandler quoting himself about a week ago to revive Schiit threads for his own purposes , I don't think we will gain anymore insight into the Yggdrasil dac

[manisandher]

WTF are you talking about? Before my reply to baldr's post today, I hadn't posted since 04/20/16! Not me trying to revive this thread, I can assure you.

 

Mani.

[DrN]

Time to close this BS!

AGREE!

[JoeWhip]

+1

[hornytoad]

WTF are you talking about? Before my reply to baldr's post today, I hadn't posted since 04/20/16! Not me trying to revive this thread, I can assure you.

 

Mani.

 

Over on the Yggdrasil review thread you quoted yourself on 4/21 , when the last comment was 4/9 . You simply reiterated something you already said . I'd call that attempting to revive that thread for your own purposes .

[manisandher]

Oh FFS! What purposes?

 

Mani.

[kennyb123]

Armchair engineers should always keep in mind:

 

 

How true!

 

Why is it that the armchair engineers also have the greatest hubris? If they can't wrap their minds around something, to them that something just can't be true.

[manisandher]

Time to close this thread . When you have manishandler quoting himself about a week ago to revive Schiit threads for his own purposes...

 

Up until today, my last post in this thread was #1390 posted on 04/20/16. I was totally happy to leave things be. Baldr posted his vitriol in post #1495, to which I responded.

 

And I get accused of reviving this thread? It's incredible how dumb some people are.

 

Mani.