Just got a Yggdrasil!

[Speed Racer]

8 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 I've heard some speculate that Moffat used a design that he was pretty sure no one else would try to replicate and undercut sales.

 

I understand he chose the AD5791BRUZ because of the resolution and the INL and DNL specs. I seriously doubt he would pick a DAC chip just because no one else would choose to use it. That might be a serendipitous side effect, but hardly a driver for the decision.

[earnmyturns]

18 hours ago, semente said:

So, you're saying that JA (intentionally) created stress tests that he knew the Yggdrasil would fail?

Tests that most other DACs seem to pass?

 

I find this a bit bizarre, considering that Sphile and other magazines can only survive thanks to advertising (manufacturers)...

My view would be the opposite, that JA tends to gloss over equipment shortcomings.

1. Pass-fail is relative. For the purposes of adversarial testing, it's enough that your target look worse than some appropriately chosen benchmark. I'm pretty familiar with adversarial testing in other areas of technology and I can smell its signs. But I can't read anyone's mind for their intent.

2. This is also relative. Not all potential advertisers are worth the same to a publisher, and an editorial attack on competitor A might make more valuable competitors B and C more kindly inclined to the publisher. Strategic thinking breaching the old-fashioned "wall" between editorial and advertising has become pretty common, as anyone who follows the news about the downward spiral of traditional publishing will have read. In any particular instance, again who's to read minds?

[earnmyturns]

Following the exhortation to listen rather than argue endlessly about technical details, I just purchased a digital album (96/24 PCM) of lute music from 16th century Naples that to my ears is a great exerciser of my system's handling of transients, details, and soundstage, besides being delightful (yes, there's Yggy in the mix). You can hear the soloist handle the instrument, pluck the strings, and follow the decaying notes through the recording space. 

 

 

 

Soloist: Paul Kieffer

Recorded 11-13 July 2016 in the church of St. Leodegar in Grenzach-Wyhlen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Recording engineer: Oren Kirschenbaum

[Speed Racer]

56 minutes ago, earnmyturns said:

Following the exhortation to listen rather than argue endlessly about technical details, I just purchased a digital album (96/24 PCM) of lute music from 16th century Naples that to my ears is a great exerciser of my system's handling of transients, details, and soundstage, besides being delightful (yes, there's Yggy in the mix). You can hear the soloist handle the instrument, pluck the strings, and follow the decaying notes through the recording space. 

 

 

 

Soloist: Paul Kieffer

Recorded 11-13 July 2016 in the church of St. Leodegar in Grenzach-Wyhlen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Recording engineer: Oren Kirschenbaum

 

I just listened to this on Tidal at 16/44.1. It certainly was different...but not my cup of tea. Too much Lute for one sitting! It seemed to get repetitive after the first five tracks.

[semente]

4 hours ago, earnmyturns said:

1. Pass-fail is relative. For the purposes of adversarial testing, it's enough that your target look worse than some appropriately chosen benchmark. I'm pretty familiar with adversarial testing in other areas of technology and I can smell its signs. But I can't read anyone's mind for their intent.

2. This is also relative. Not all potential advertisers are worth the same to a publisher, and an editorial attack on competitor A might make more valuable competitors B and C more kindly inclined to the publisher. Strategic thinking breaching the old-fashioned "wall" between editorial and advertising has become pretty common, as anyone who follows the news about the downward spiral of traditional publishing will have read. In any particular instance, again who's to read minds?

 

Whilst not entirely impossible, I find your second assumption a bit overly far-fetched...

 

R

[semente]

4 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

 

I understand he chose the AD5791BRUZ because of the resolution and the INL and DNL specs. I seriously doubt he would pick a DAC chip just because no one else would choose to use it. That might be a serendipitous side effect, but hardly a driver for the decision.

 

Or perhaps because it was the only resistor ladder DAC available (thus, apparently, one that was not designed for audio purposes).

 

R

[Speed Racer]

7 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Or perhaps because it was the only resistor ladder DAC available (thus, apparently, one that was not designed for audio purposes).

 

R

 

Over on Head-Fi Jason says they had other options in mind because they weren't sure they could get the AD5791 to work the way they wanted. But they did and the rest is history. He did not elaborate on what those options were.

[semente]

16 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I look at those two things closely, but a little different. Is it audible? No, then it doesn't matter to me. Yes, then I need to figure out if it's audible all the time or just with certain music etc... 

 

Hi Chris,

 

I came back to this message of yours because I think that it actually raises an important issue:

 

How do we listen for artifacts or distortions using music?

 

Are we able, for example, to accurately (pun intended) identify problems (in fidelity) if they "enhance" the listening experience?

 

The reason I am bringing this up is because sound assessment through listening is seldom performed in an observational manner, taste generally takes over from unbiased evaluation.

Examples of this could be people confusing cone resonances with good "detail" retrieval ability, exaggerated top with "airiness" or an excessive relation in the upper-bass/lower-mids with "speed"...

 

 

R

[crenca]

11 hours ago, earnmyturns said:

1. Pass-fail is relative. For the purposes of adversarial testing, it's enough that your target look worse than some appropriately chosen benchmark. I'm pretty familiar with adversarial testing in other areas of technology and I can smell its signs. But I can't read anyone's mind for their intent.

2. This is also relative. Not all potential advertisers are worth the same to a publisher, and an editorial attack on competitor A might make more valuable competitors B and C more kindly inclined to the publisher. Strategic thinking breaching the old-fashioned "wall" between editorial and advertising has become pretty common, as anyone who follows the news about the downward spiral of traditional publishing will have read. In any particular instance, again who's to read minds?

 

Concerning #1, are not the published measurements of DAC's, amps, etc. By Stereophile and others widely regarded as "non-controversial"?  In other words for #1 to be true then would we have read the arguments from an EE perspective (perhaps there out there and someone can point me to them)?

 

I do understand that JA's measurements of speakers are controversial.  For example I have read Andrew Jones (of Elac and TAD fame) criticize them a bit (can't locate that right now) as have others...

[Samuel T Cogley]

7 hours ago, semente said:

Are we able, for example, to accurately (pun intended) identify problems (in fidelity) if they "enhance" the listening experience?

 

In other audio forums, I've seen passionate advocacy for "euphonic is better than accurate".  It's loosely the mastering philosophy of some revered mastering engineers.

 

Not saying I agree with this, but it undoubtedly exists in audiophilia.

[manisandher]

On 4/3/2017 at 6:30 PM, gmgraves said:

Since all that spuriae shown in your #2 and #3 is more than 120 dB down, you're damn right, it's inaudible!

 

The spuriae in #3 are 120dB down. But in #2, they sit at around -95dB within the audible band, and around -85dB just outside it - and not 120dB as you claim. And this is for a benign 100k load - they'd be a lot worse for more difficult loads. I mean, just look at the Yggy's output of a 50Hz tone into a difficult load:

 

 

Note here that the Yggy's output had to be reduced by 10dB due to clipping, whereas the Altair breezes through this test.

 

On 4/3/2017 at 6:30 PM, gmgraves said:

You should really listen to gear before condemning it based on measurements that you don't seem to understand.

 

I understand the measurements perfectly well thanks. And as has been pointed out to you already, I've listened extensively to the Yggy.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

On 4/3/2017 at 11:50 PM, 4est said:

 

And it was his issues with sonics that lead him to finding those measurements and his subsequent forum thread- not the other way around.

 

It seems that some people have an issue with relating the measured performance of the Yggy to how it might sound. In another post a while back, I linked a capture of the Yggy's output and that of my regular DAC. These are the (blind) comments other people made:

 

Yggy:

- 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

 

My regular DAC:

- More realistic

- a little clearer

- you can hear the pluck then resonances [on bass strings] very nicely

- sharper piano

- most realistic sound

- good all rounder

- smidgen too detailed

- somewhat metallic edge on piano

- more detail on drums

- more sharply etched

- more detailed

- more dynamic

 

[Happy to put the files back up for anyone who's interested.] Take a look at the Yggy comments. Take a look at the Stereophile measurements. Yeah, I think there's a correlation.

 

Mani.

 

[Samuel T Cogley]

6 minutes ago, manisandher said:

 

just look at the Yggy's output of a 50Hz tone into a difficult load:

 

Since the Yggy is only designed to output a line level signal, what is the point in testing it under a "difficult" load?

[manisandher]

3 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Since the Yggy is only designed to output a line level signal, what is the point in testing it under a "difficult" load?

 

It was a 600 ohm line level load. No DAC worth its salt should have a problem with this.

 

Mani.

[Samuel T Cogley]

Just now, manisandher said:

 

It was a 600 ohm line level load. No DAC worth its salt should have a problem with this.

 

Mani.

 

Line level input impedance is typically 10,000 ohms.  Again, what is the point in testing for something that is outside all possible use cases?  Could the tester have just been trying to find ways to slag the Yggy?

 

And why should anyone care that the Yggy didn't drive a 600 ohm load well?  It's about audio, not salt.

[JoeWhip]

I am sitting here listening to the Mozart by Candlelight recording now available at chasing the Dragon.co.uk through my Yggy. I was at the performance in the front pew last week at St. Martin in the Field in London. We were almost right under the binaural head. This recording captures all of the magic we experienced that night. Incredible spaciousness, timbre and detail. Mani can post all he wants but this is a stellar DAC. 

[earnmyturns]

4 hours ago, JoeWhip said:

I am sitting here listening to the Mozart by Candlelight recording now available at chasing the Dragon.co.uk through my Yggy. I was at the performance in the front pew last week at St. Martin in the Field in London. We were almost right under the binaural head. This recording captures all of the magic we experienced that night. I

I have frequent front-row seats for performances at SFJAZZ, and I also listen to albums by the same musicians often through my 2-channel system, in which the Yggy was the last component to be added. It was only after that that I lost any desire to upgrade the system to get closer to my frequent live music experiences. I have a Holo Spring 3 on order for my office system (Why the Spring instead of another Yggy? Because variety is the spice of life, that's why. ) so I might have to eat my words after I have heard it thoroughly, but in the meanwhile my living room is finally a capable proxy for those days live music is not available.

[manisandher]

On 4/4/2017 at 0:57 AM, Speed Racer said:

First of all, he is the only one hearing this "problem".

 

Uh... no. Many others heard exactly what I did (in the Yggy file I posted) - see comments in earlier post.

 

On 4/4/2017 at 0:57 AM, Speed Racer said:

Second, he has never been able to prove that what he hears and dislikes is the glitch.

 

Something we actually agree on.

 

On 4/4/2017 at 0:57 AM, Speed Racer said:

Finally, the designer of the DAC says you can't hear the glitch.

 

Just because he can't hear it doesn't mean it's inaudible to others. He also claims that it's only 4µV RMS, when it's clearly more like 30µV on all the measurements I've ever seen, including Stereophile's:

 

 

Mani.

[Speed Racer]

I blocked manisandher because his posts are useless to me and I am tired of reading his drivel.

[manisandher]

 

On 4/1/2017 at 7:44 PM, manisandher said:

Way too many overly-sensitive people here. You put facts and evidence forward for your point of view on something and instead of counter-argument, they come back with name-calling and ad hominem attacks.

 

11 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

I blocked manisandher because his posts are useless to me and I am tired of reading his drivel.

 

I rest my case.

 

Mani.

[Samuel T Cogley]

2 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

I blocked manisandher because his posts are useless to me and I am tired of reading his drivel.

 

I joined you, but I doubt it will stop his anti-Yggy crusade.  Haters gonna hate.

[Jud]

Just now, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

I joined you, but I doubt it will stop his anti-Yggy crusade.  Haters gonna hate.

 

I continue to be surprised at the degree of personal offense many people take to others not sharing their preferences.

 

Do you all not understand that if you had simply said "Oh, sorry you didn't like it.  We continue to," and "Yes, we see the measurements.  But they don't result in anything bad that's audible to us," this all would have been over and done a couple hundred posts ago?

[manisandher]

Quote

On 4/1/2017 at 7:44 PM, manisandher said:

You put facts and evidence forward for your point of view on something and instead of counter-argument, they come back with name-calling and ad hominem attacks.

 

 

Quote

2 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

I blocked manisandher because his posts are useless to me and I am tired of reading his drivel.

 

 

Quote

10 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

Haters gonna hate.

 

Ah, now we're separating the wheat from the chaff.

 

Mani.

[Madra]

6 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

I continue to be surprised at the degree of personal offense many people take to others not sharing their preferences.

 

Do you all not understand that if you had simply said "Oh, sorry you didn't like it.  We continue to," and "Yes, we see the measurements.  But they don't result in anything bad that's audible to us," this all would have been over and done a couple hundred posts ago?

Can I triple Like that?

[Samuel T Cogley]

45 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

I continue to be surprised at the degree of personal offense many people take to others not sharing their preferences.

 

Do you all not understand that if you had simply said "Oh, sorry you didn't like it.  We continue to," and "Yes, we see the measurements.  But they don't result in anything bad that's audible to us," this all would have been over and done a couple hundred posts ago?

 

Many months ago, another Yggy thread here got "Mola Mola"-ed.  This isn't an issue of "preference", it's a concerted effort to create a significant volume of negative Yggy posts on social media.