Just got a Yggdrasil!

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7 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

 

No, I don't. They use two per channel. I just don't understand the tech behind how they do it. Which is why I am asking for an explanation.

The balanced setup contributes 6 db == 1 bit of dynamic range. 

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1 minute ago, Speed Racer said:

 

Look at 7 posts up......

Yech, saw it too late, still not used to the new site layout.

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Delta-sigma DACs are DSD natives, they have to do mess with PCM before they can convert it.

R2R DACs are PCM natives, they need to go through hoops to handle DSD.

Most DACs people use to are delta-sigma, so no surprise that other things being equal they do better with DSD. It does not follow that DSD is also better for R2R DACs, in fact I'd be kind of surprised it were given the (lossy) contortions needed. I own a Yggy (R2R) and I have a Holo Spring level 3 on order (also R2R, but very different design from the Yggy). The Holo Spring process DSD, but reviewers have uniformly preferred its NOS PCM mode.

 

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52 minutes ago, crenca said:

 

Anyone else compare these two side by side?

A couple of detailed comparos in other forums, search is your friend

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Measurement truthers out in force again... Very curious...

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6 hours ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

Now here's where I might lose some people: I think all the Schiit multibit DACs perform best with Redbook (as opposed to 24 bit at higher sample rates).  If someone had a lot of high sample rate files, I might steer them away from a Yggy.

<snip>

I have mixed feelings about how much I spent on the Yggy.  While I sincerely feel I got more than my money's worth (it sounds really, really good with Redbook), it also raised the bar of what a "reasonable" price for HiFi gear is, to the detriment of my wallet.  I've since bought other non-DAC gear that I wouldn't have considered (too expensive) since I bought the Yggy.

I was talking today with a colleague who is a real expert in signal processing (famous applied mathematician, worked for some well-known academic, government, and industrial outfits on cutting-edge signal analysis) and music recording (for a while he ran a recording studio on the side), who first told me about Schiit. He feels that Redbook is where good DACs really differ, because of how they handle mismatches between mastering and DAC anti-aliasing filters become audible so close to the top of the audible range. At 96/24 PCM, every decent DAC is competent. So, it's quite plausible that some listeners hear the benefits of the Schiit digital filter on Redbook, but those disappear at higher sampling rates, and then other characteristics might shift judgments. I own a lot of Redbook, and I still get a lot from smaller labels (such as via Bandcamp), but my higher res library is growing, so there's a Holo Spring level 3 on the way to hedge my bets. And to your second point, after buying the Yggy, going for the Spring as well became much easier

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29 minutes ago, One and a half said:

 

Given the Yggdrasil works best on the AES3 input, the changing of the inputs by remote is not that a big deal, is it?

It depends on how you intend to use those inputs. Even if you have AES for your top-quality music source, you might also have other sources, such as an AV system or a (I know, I know) Chromecast Audio to listen to podcasts. In my living-room system, I have an IR control system to manage the different sources and their associated equipment (Oppo AV source, Sony video projector, projection screen, Chromecast Audio, input switching), but to make that work I needed an integrated amp with its own DAC for the lesser quality sources, while the Yggy does only music. It wasn't enough to keep me away from the Yggy, but it's unnecessarily redundant. Oh well...

 

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6 minutes ago, One and a half said:

I see, was really only referring to the single source. OT, have been looking for DAC with at least four coax inputs plus AES3 and hot shot DSD256 to cater for TV, radios but nothing is out there just yet. There's a pro audio device, name escapes me for the moment ,which can accept four coax inputs, tos and convert to AES3 output. The switching is performed by remote electrical inputs, maybe this will work for you.

 

found it. 

http://www.rdlnet.com/product.php?page=449

Thanks, I should have asked 6 months ago  In the meanwhile, I'm all set with my Hegel H360 integrated amp that takes a variety of digital (into its own DAC) and analog inputs. I like the Yggy's sound quite a bit more than the integrated DAC, but that's OK for movies and podcasts.

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5 hours ago, semente said:

I don't think it would make sense to perform measurements unless they mattered.

It makes a lot a sense to people with an axe to grind to make measurements that purport to help their cause. Any sufficiently complex nonlinear system is vulnerable to crafted adversarial inputs that cause it to output something that does not conform to expected input-output characteristics. Whether that matters depend on whether adversarial inputs occur in the wild. Axe-grinders put a lot of effort seeking the adversarial inputs that help their point. Those with better things to do will roll their eyes and move on.

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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?

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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

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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.

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Time to roll out that hardy perennial:

 

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12 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

all he is doing now is trolling...and you just let it continue. It diminishes the value of this place.

Site owners have to walk a fine line between keeping trolls out and letting robust discussion proceed, which keeps a site lively. Some people are very good at walking right up to the site owner's red line but not cross, and they like to spend their time and effort doing that. Some people feel offended by seeing that kind of game played.  I've stopped reading this thread quite a while ago because S/N ratio became way too low, for whatever reasons, just stopped by because it showed up again on my "unread" list and it seemed weird that people were still going at it.There's a lot of other good content on this site and in other forums. One of the great things about the Internet is that it has practically unlimited capacity to carry content, so why obsess about a teeny sliver of content that you don't care for?

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22 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

What bothers me is the clear malice he has for the product.

Why does it bother you? I love my Yggy, listening through mine very loud to Vijay Iyer's superb "Historicity" album, and my ears surely are not bleeding. I also know quite a bit about (mis)measurement professionally, so I can see through cherry picking. I've witnessed many barely contained net flame wars since before there was a proper internet. The long-understood conclusion is that some people have to "win" an argument no matter what, keeping at it until others leave the field exhausted. It's a lose-lose situation for forum admins ("censorship" vs "troll tolerance") and really worthless for anybody other than the obsessive "must win a zero stakes argument" participants. Why be one of them?

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5 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

Posts intended to irritate others others "disguised" as valid "opinion" posts are a problem that CAN be controlled by moderators that choose to open their eyes and see the post and posters for what they are.

The karma of "make your point once and well then move on" is hard to accept but a great liberation for those who achieve it.

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41 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

I can now understand the lyrics they are singing.

Hey, you are actually listening to the music now, no fair!

 

Actually, speaking seriously for just a minute, accuracy in reproduction and understandability are not perfectly correlated. Auditory perception is weird that way (and many other ways, as constantly attested by the "subjective" arguments here and elsewhere).