Just got a Yggdrasil!

[manisandher]

34 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

And I'd still like to see someone else's test results.....

 

The middle plot is someone else's test result!

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

Aren't you aware of what you just said? 45 microvolts p-p?, <-120 dB rounding peaks?

 

Yep, very aware of what I wrote thanks. (Many years ago, did research on the electron-phonon interaction, going down quite a few orders of magnitude below a microvolt... and well below 1 Kelvin in temp, in superfluidity country).

 

My first thoughts on the sound of the Yggy were these:

 

On 4/5/2016 at 11:07 AM, manisandher said:

On first listening, there’s a freshness, a liveness, a vibrancy to the sound that really draws you in. But after extended listening I started finding it fatiguing - too sibilant and too lean and not enough body and weight to instruments for my liking.

 

I took a few captures of the Yggy's analogue output and got others to share their thoughts blind. This is how they described the Yggy:

 

On 4/5/2017 at 9:04 PM, manisandher said:

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

 

Harley talks about a "bold incisiveness" to the Yggy's sound. Hell, even Jason Stoddard hears something going on with the Yggy:

 

On 4/5/2016 at 2:09 PM, manisandher said:

"My “main stack” is Mjolnir 2/Gungnir Multibit, not Ragnarok/Yggdrasil. Mjolnir 2 is a warmer, wetter, “happier” amp than Ragnarok, and Gungnir Multibit is also a bit more euphonic than Yggy. The combo may not be the absolute ultimate word in resolution and transparency, but I like the way it sounds better than our top stack."

- Jason Stoddard

 

So yeah, perhaps the poor measured performance of the Yggy in certain areas is indeed audible in some way, shape or form. Now the fact that you don't hear anything untoward doesn't mean others can't and don't.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

5 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

I have a system very similar to Jud. No sizzle or sibilants at all with the Yggy.

 

You may not hear anything untoward either, but other people certainly do:

 

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

 

And I think this is the real issue: Harley, Stoddard and others on this thread are mistaking the Yggy's distortion for "bold incisiveness" and "better clarity & focus".

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, audiventory said:

I still can't imagine exactly, how the switch may work way like picture in the thread.

 

Yuri, the Yggy uses a pair of AD5791 chips per channel. Here is their 'raw' glitch energy:

 

 

Schiit have obviously done some work to reduce these glitch errors down to around 45µV in the Yggy, but they're still obviously there. JA referred to these as "significant errors at the signal's zero-crossing points".

 

And this is what the designer of the AD5791 thought about his chip being used for audio purposes:

 

"... 

I always assumed the code-change-dependent glitch energy would make THD unacceptable to audio buffs."

 

[Though in fairness, he does go on to say that he's glad that someone is at least trying his chip for audio purposes.]

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

3 hours ago, clipper said:

It sounds to me like these others are describing your recording of the Yggy rather than the Yggy itself.

 

The recording of the Yggy was taken at 24/48 with a Tascam DA-3000, straight into its XLR input. To my ears, the Tascam isn't totally transparent, so you're right to raise this as a potential issue. And the playback chain was far from perfectly optimized too.

 

But it was the same playback and recording chain that I used for capturing my regular DAC, and people heard the difference between the two DACs quite easily.

 

Hell, here are the files again. One is the Yggy, the other my regular DAC (not necessarily in that order below):

 

DAC A: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfeGhoa3RCUTk4djQ

DAC B: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfQVpQaUxLNGZRUDA

 

[There is a 1dB difference in level between these two that really needs to be accounted for to make a fair comparison.]

 

The Yggy's sonic signature ("bold incisiveness" and "artificial detail") should be audible immediately - it is on my Ponoplayer using cheap Sony headphones. Some people may actually prefer it, but I'll just say that my regular DAC sounds much closer to the original file than does the Yggy.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

11 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Can't you hear this or do you perceive this as "better" as such, well, ... I have my ideas about that. ;-)

 

Well, this is what I'm genuinely interested in - can we correlated measured performance with sound?

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

9 minutes ago, clipper said:

So what was the playback chain?

 

What software?  

 

XXHighEnd?  

 

Any upsampling?

 

 

 

 

Home-built audio PC (can't remember specs because its changed since). XXHighEnd software player. Respective USB inputs. No attenuation in either case. No upsampling or any other DSP for Yggy - so using Yggy's internal filter. 16x upsampling for regular DAC (NOS1a is a non-oversampling and filterless design, requiring upsampling in playback software).

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

21 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

The picture is not the one I intended because the one Mani showed is showing an idle signal.

 

Here you go:

 

 

Mani.

 

 

[manisandher]

20 minutes ago, esldude said:

But the frequency response difference is what you are hearing.  Nothing more exotic than that.  What is the old cliche'.............. frequency response is 85% of hifi.

 

One sounds like the original file, the other doesn't. I'll put the original file up at some later point - you may be surprised Dennis!

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

28 minutes ago, esldude said:

Okay, they sound different yes. The incisiveness is audible.

 

And yet, this "bold incisiveness" is not in the original file!

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

Just now, firedog said:

Yggy likers who hear it as accurate and clean, and Yggy detractors who hear it as you do, as "tizzy". etc.

 

Hold on there... Many of the comments about sounding "tizzy" etc. were made by Yggy owners themselves - they were listening blind.

 

I've posted two files (blind) again. Whether you're an 'Yggy liker' or 'Yggy detractor', I suspect you're going to hear exactly the same difference between these. Give them a go, and let me know what you think as someone totally impartial.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

43 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Mani, on behalf of your own, I too think that you can be more neutral in this ...

 

OK, I must be missing something. Two people I respect are telling me I'm behaving in a biased way here. Hmm...

 

Ideally, I'd like to post the just the Yggy recording and the original file. People could then make their own minds up as to whether they can hear the Yggy's "bold incisiveness" being added to the original file.

 

But as has been pointed out, the playback/recording chain was not perfect. So how do I show that the added "bold incisiveness" is not down to other elements in the playback/recording chain, e.g the ADC? I need a control. And all I have is the output of my regular DAC going through the exact same playback/recording chain.

 

Tell me what I could change about this to be more objective and un-biased, and I'll do it.

 

Edit: file downloads disabled until I'm happy that I'm not being biased.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

24 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Mani, I think what people don't understand is the why of it all.

 

Chris articulated it best:

 

On 4/3/2017 at 4:34 PM, The Computer Audiophile said:

Not everything that matters can be measured and not everything that can be measured matters.

 

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated with the correlation between subjective listening impressions and objective measurements. And the mechanisms responsible for these correlations. And this hobby is full of weird and wonderful things going on.

 

I listened to the Yggy and heard something that grated on me over time. More recently, I hooked my new SET amps into my high-efficiency horns and was simply blown away by the sheer clarity of the sound (and more specifically, the forward/backward depth of the stage). In both cases, I'd love to know what is responsible for what I'm hearing - perhaps measurements can give us a clue, perhaps they can't.

 

But it's not like me to just accept Chris's statement without exploring a few things first.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

6 minutes ago, JoeWhip said:

We are back to this nonsense again. I am done with CA. Mani should have his own thread. 

 

What specifically are you upset about? Is it my posting in this thread? Or is it that I've uploaded files that others can listen to?

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

57 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

 

Let's look at this another way. Take two 100 Watt amplifiers. Amp A has 0.0001%  THD. Amp B has 0.00011%THD both at 100 Watts. That means that amp B has .00001% more distortion than does amp A.

 

 

Haha... It also means that both amp A and amp B have an order of magnitude lower THD than the Yggy, due to the Yggy's glitching . It wasn't for nothing that the designer of the AD5791 chip said:

 

"... 

I always assumed the code-change-dependent glitch energy would make THD unacceptable to audio buffs."

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

14 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

An order of magnitude higher would be 0.001%, right?

 

Yep. Actually around 0.0025%.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

11 minutes ago, Jud said:

I'd like to be fair here and quote the entire Head-Fi post from the chip designer:

 

When I first quoted him in this thread, I did say:

 

On 4/18/2017 at 7:14 AM, manisandher said:

[Though in fairness, he does go on to say that he's glad that someone is at least trying his chip for audio purposes.]

 

I didn't feel it needed to be said again.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

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

 

It seems strange to me to use an ultra-low noise DAC chip, if the chip's THD remains high due to glitching. Of course, it could be that the reason the AD5791 was chosen had nothing to do with its ultra-low noise, but for other reasons. Perhaps the (lack of) availability of audio R2R chips?

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

On 4/18/2017 at 10:41 AM, PeterSt said:

... and re-engage those files 

 

I'm going to do things slightly differently...

 

I'd really like to give anyone interested an idea of what I heard when I had the Yggy here, and why I started exploring the Yggy's measurements, to perhaps find a correlation between these and the sonic signature (or flavour) I was hearing from the Yggy.

 

If you have the inclination, download the following files and take a listen. In particular, listen out for anything resembling "bold incisiveness" or "artificial detail" in the Yggy file, that doesn't exist in the original file. (At some later point, I will link to the 24/48 capture of my regular DAC playing the same original file through the same playback/recording chain, to show that it wasn't the playback/recording chain causing the difference between the Yggy file and the original file.)

 

Original 16/44.1 file: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfZFI4ZnR1SHhiSmc

 

Yggy 24/48 capture: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfd3FfY1c4WW9FQVk

 

Note that the Yggy file is 6dB down in level to the original file. You'll have to account for this of course. (And I hope the change in format between these files doesn't prove too troubling.)

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

5 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Mike Moffat has said he prefers the PCM63 to the PCM1704.  (Actually he said the PCM1704 "sounds like ass.")

 

Yeah, he also thought the PCM1704 was only capable of accepting a 96kHz input... until I pointed out to him that it could actually accept rates up to 768kHz. His come-back was, "it said so in the datasheet". In any event, I reckon he was thinking of the PCM1702, which many people claimed was worse-sounding than the PCM63 when the former first came out.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

On 4/3/2017 at 9:20 PM, gmgraves said:

I have no relationship with the company, but I have known Mike Moffat (casually from running in to him at CES, AND HI-Fi shows) for many years, and I have met Jason Stoddard. I'm a reviewer and the Yiggy I have is a review sample and is not mine. I'm just extremely impressed with the unit's sonic performance.

 

[Highlight mine.]

 

This gives me all the licence I need to contribute to this thread (if indeed any were required).

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

12 minutes ago, clipper said:

How did you connect your PC to the Yggy?  USB?

 

Already answered:

 

On 4/18/2017 at 7:55 AM, manisandher said:

Respective USB inputs.

[manisandher]

3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

If Mani describes it as sibilant or something of that kind then I would immediately believe it is caused by the glitching because the square (remember, dirac) impulses continuously activate all frequencies in the world at any zero crossing (say 8000 times per second).

 

In my first post about the Yggy when I had it here, I described it as follows:

 

On 4/5/2016 at 11:07 AM, manisandher said:

On first listening, there’s a freshness, a liveness, a vibrancy to the sound that really draws you in. But after extended listening I started finding it fatiguing - too sibilant and too lean and not enough body and weight to instruments for my liking.

 

Mani

 

[manisandher]

10 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

... perhaps there are unit to unit variations that would account for his very negative opinion of a device that most reviewers find effectively flawlessly?

 

Stereophile rated it class B. Not sure if that was down solely to its poor measured performance, or if JA managed to take a listen and perhaps heard what I heard.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

2 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Forget the glitch, it's so far down in the mud of normal electronic noise, that it's irrelevant as far as real-world performance is concerned.

 

Bob Katz would disagree:

 

"... 

truncation of the LSBs in 24-bit data reintroduces quantization noise/distortion. Research by people like Bob Katz has shown that this will be audible even with real-world DACs." -  JA, Stereophile.

 

[Highlight mine.]

 

In any event, something certainly is audible in the Yggy file I posted vs. the original file. As I've maintained from the outset, I reckon it's the Yggy's glitching affecting the overall sound, giving it its "bold incisiveness" character, as Robert Harley referred to it. I prefer to simply call it "artificial detail". If you listen to the two files I posted, the Yggy file really does sound more 'detailed'... than the original file!

 

Mani.