Just got a Yggdrasil!

[manisandher]

26 minutes ago, jabbr said:

That aside are we really comparing 2 state of the art DACs using a non state of the art ADC?

 

Dennis believes the ADC is pretty good:

 

18 hours ago, esldude said:

This capture of the Yggy matches in frequency response to better than .1 db until more than 12 khz (mostly it matched closer than .01 db once volume was matched).  It then is down only .25 db at 20 khz.  It would seem to be of high fidelity to the original file in terms of response.  Doesn't sound different either.

 

But I agree, it'd be much better if I'd had to hand an ADC with substantially higher resolution than any of the DACs.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

33 minutes ago, jabbr said:

This is like trying to compare a Zeiss vs Leica lens by shooting a test pattern through an iPhone...

 

I would expect the reproductions of the Zeiss and Leica test patterns through the iPhone to be indistinguishable due to the relatively low resolution of the iPhone lens. I would be amazed if the result were anything but this.

 

The Yggy and the control DAC captures through the ADC are nowhere near indistinguishable. This implies to me that the ADC had enough resolution. It has the following specs (as used) in balanced mode:

 

THD+N: 0.003% or less (Ref:-16dB/BALANCED,JEITA)

S/N ratio: 113dB or higher (Ref:-20dB/BALANCED,JEITA)

 

Every ADC I've ever tried sounds different. Most have decent specs, and this one is no different. Of course, whether these specs are really correlated with performance is debatable. I suspect they don't tell the whole story.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

1 minute ago, jabbr said:

Well that's the other point --  the testing equipment is not adequate to reasonably compare the devices under test

 

What would constitute 'adequate' testing equipment in this case? I mean, how would I know that my replay/recording chain was adequate or not?

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

39 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Summary:

 

Mani hears:

grating opening cymbals

overall weird holographic sound

metallic bass 

hollow piano

HF junk in background

 

George hears at least some of that to a lesser extent as well.

 

All on a single test file.

 

Do I have that more or less correct?

 

Can you guys try a different test file, esp. with cymbals (and maybe snares)?  And maybe soe female vocals?

 

And does anyone else hear these differences?

 

Unfortunately, I only used one 'test' file - what I've referred to as the 'original file'. I totally agree, it would have been useful to have used a variety of different types of music. But the track I used does have a lot of cymbals all the way through. I find the quality of the piano and bass quite telling too.

 

When you summarised what I heard, I think it's important to stress that these things are not in isolation. For example, I found the opening cymbals in the Yggy file to be grating compared to the opening cymbals in the original file. I found the opening cymbals in the control DAC file to be slightly subdued (and not grating at all) compared to those in the original file. Etc, etc. In my mind, by doing this, I'm eliminating the effects of the playback/ADC chain. But there are a lot of smart people here telling me that that's not a valid approach.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

52 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

And does anyone else hear these differences?

 

Do you?

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

11 minutes ago, semente said:

I find the digitised output of the Yggy too bad. I should have listened to the Control file to see if there was a consistency in badness but to be honest I don't believe that the Yggy can be that bad.

 

Some others here are not finding large differences between the Yggy file and the original.

 

Does the original sound OK to you, at least? In any event, certainly nothing can be concluded without taking a listen to the control DAC file too. If what you're finding as "too bad" exists exactly the same in the control DAC file too, then you can call it a day. But if you can hear any obvious differences between the Yggy file and the control DAC file (e.g. in my case, grating opening cymbals in one and not the other), these can only be due to differences in the outputs of the DACs. I can't see how any other mechanism could be responsible.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

2 minutes ago, esldude said:

Now wait a minute.  Are you deciding this without hearing the original file?  That would make little sense to made any judgement about the Yggy, or the ADC without reference to the source signal.

 

I agree.

 

Dennis, any thoughts on the control DAC file? If you've done any analysis on it, it should be very similar in FR to the Yggy file. And yet it sounds very different to my ears.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

6 hours ago, esldude said:

If I am clear on which files we are talking about.  The Yggy file recorded by the ADC and the original wav file right?

 

We actually have 3 files:

 

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

 

 

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

 

3. Control DAC capture: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0PU5LO5jVjfaVFmTG13bEhMU2s

 

And it's the 3rd 'Control DAC' file that I was referring to. To my ears, the Yggy file and the Control DAC file sound substantially different to each other, suggesting to me that what I'm hearing in the Yggy file is not down to the replay/recording chain (or else it would be in the Control DAC file too). I just wondered whether the Contol DAC file looks as close to the original file as the Yggy file does in your analysis.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

 

6 hours ago, esldude said:

So I had one final idea.  I was impressed that the drift between ADC and DAC were just about 1 ppm.  You were very lucky to get that close a match unless you had locked clocks. So I upsampled both files to 96/24.  This is after matching volume.  I took the left channel from each and made a stereo track.  There is close to a perfect match at one point.  So you can listen to several seconds in synch.  Over speakers everything images dead center except some cymbal splash was one sided.  I reversed channels and it stays to that side so a reflection issue in my setup. I then listened over headphones and everything images dead center and you hear no oddities from quality differences in the files.  So I don't know what you folks are hearing.

 

It seems I won't need to bin the Tascam after all .

 

6 hours ago, esldude said:

Here is a 5 second snippet of the Yggy in one channel and the original file in the other.

 

Yggy composite snippet.wav.zip

 

It will unzip into a 96/24 wav.  Should be just the ticket for Jud to listen to.  No echoic memory involved. Put it on loop play and listen over and over.

 

Thanks for this. I'll definitely take a listen in a short while. I'll take another close listen to the Yggy capture, the control DAC capture and the original file.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

3 minutes ago, esldude said:

I will look it over when I get a chance.  So somehow I missed the specifics.

 

How as the control DAC file obtained.  Is this your other DAC with a filter that gives flat response that you mentioned? The NOS1 with flat oversampling filtering?

 

No, not NOS1 at all. Just another DAC I had lying around (that I don't really like the sound of). I really don't want to get into a Yggy vs. another DAC discussion, so let's just stick to 'control DAC'. What's important is that it is perfectly level-matched to the Yggy's output, and has a flat FR too. We just need this file to truly understand how the replay/recording chain might be affecting the sound of all the captured files.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

8 hours ago, jabbr said:

But in general the measurement equipment needs to me more "accurate" than the device under test. Not saying this is easy ...

 

Thanks jabbr. Yes, I think everyone would agree with this. But Dennis's analysis is showing that in at least a few measures, the replay/recording chain was actually quite good. I'm encouraged by this because it means that perhaps something useful might come out of this all. And it could be that the Yggy isn't as bad as I was making out, and that I was just hearing things... Let's see...

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

 

7 hours ago, SuperRu said:

We all hear you. Is there a better DAC in that price range we should consider instead?

 

5 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

Mani,  Could you list DACs that like better for redbook than the Schiit?

 

I haven't owned or heard any other DACs in the Yggy's price range, so couldn't really comment. I had a Chord 2Qute here for a while, and with a Paul Hynes PSU, and thought it sounded pretty good. It didn't seem to have any annoying characteristics, at least.

 

But for a long time, I've been a proponent of doing as much of the necessary DSP in the audio PC and then feeding to the DAC at the highest possible rates, and having the DAC do absolutely nothing, other than the D to A conversion. For example, I can use the poly-sinc-xtr-mp filter and noise-shaping in HQPlayer and then feed the 705.6k768k signal to the NOS1. No in-DAC FGPA [edit: meant FPGA] is going to be able to compete with this. And it's probably a good thing to keep a noisy CPU as far away from the DAC chips and output stage as possible. So I'd personally go for a DAC that allows me to do these sorts of things over something like the Yggy. Just my preference though.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

4 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

Thx - are FPGAs used because of small production runs?

 

I think it's because they're small, don't get too hot, and can fit inside a DAC chassis. I've read that they're not that easy to program, and hence why only a few manufacturers use them. Chord being one. I guess Schiit must be another.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, crenca said:

Well just now gave a serious listen to both files (-6db on original) focusing on the first 20 seconds of each file.

 

That's great. Thanks.

 

2 hours ago, crenca said:

I am only willing to say that I hear a very very slight "distance" in the Yggy file - like the DAC is just a bit (tiny bit) flatter giving me a bit less warmth, fullness-of-tonality (tiny bit) and naturalness.  My first guess would be that it is not anything beyond the extra conversion through the ADC that the original file has not suffered.

 

[Highlight mine.] And it's because of this that I've included the control DAC file. If there's "a bit less warmth, bit less fullness-of-tone, and a bit less naturalness" in that file too, then we can definitely attribute these things to the replay/recording chain. I know it isn't always fun to do, but if you could get a chance to listen to the control file at some point, that would be great.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, esldude said:

Okay this time I did the analysis [on Control DAC file] first and haven't listened.  Vs the original yes the same basic response.

 

Thanks Dennis, that's great. Yeah, we use 50Hz mains here, so well spotted. Other than the -97 dB hum, it seems the control file should be good to figure out what the replay/recording chain is adding/subtracting.

 

What I hear as common to both captured files (the Yggy file and the control DAC file) is a general flattening of dynamics, leading to less 3D instruments. And that's about it, but I'll go away and do some more listening.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

31 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Guys, help me with some analysis please. What can this mean :

 

Thanks Peter, that's phenomenal. I feel really dumb not being to help you out in any way. Sorry.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

6 minutes ago, semente said:

I'll try to compare Control DAC and Yggdrasil captures today but I find the digitised version quite bad when compared to the Original.

 

Thanks R.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

4 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Yesterday I started out with the NOS1a file, and immediately thought it sounded as poor as the Ygg file I listened to the day before. After that came the Ygg file and I heard no difference. I then played the Control file and again heard no difference.

 

Hey Peter, are you saying all three 24/48 captures sound equally bad to you, and in exactly the same way? If this is the case, and the original file still sounds OK to you, this surely points at the replay/recording chain messing things up. But others aren't hearing this (to the extent you seem to be).

 

I'm going to do some more listening myself in a short while...

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

4 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Haha, I organized an audio show here for upcoming Saturday (tomorrow).

 

My invitation must have got stuck in the post. This seems to happen to so often for me...

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

I've just taken a good long listen to the four files multiple times on my main system. And I'm pretty much sticking with the way I've described the differences all along. Namely:

 

1. Original 16/44.1 file:

- nice full-bodied instruments

- rounded instruments, with sort of 'wooden' tone

- leading attacks of instruments (hits, plucks, strikes, etc) do not dominate

- nice depth of field

- really nothing annoying at all

 

2. Yggy capture vs. original file:

- slightly flattened and less dynamic

- sharper opening cymbals (especially final strike - still gets my ears)

- instruments have nowhere near the same body

- general 'sheen' to the sound

- more 'metallic' tone to instruments

 

3. Control DAC capture vs. original file:

- slightly flattened and less dynamic

- pretty close in tonality, though more 'washed out'

- nothing annoying, but nothing to write home about either

 

4. NOS1 capture vs. original file:

- depth of field closer than other captures, but still not there

- pretty close in tonality

 

That's how I'm hearing things here. I would happily bet my house that I could distinguish between any of the 3 captures and the original file. But that might be down to something as simple as my playback DAC handling 44.1k and 48k rates slightly differently. Would I be confident in distinguishing between the 3 captures? In the way I've just listened to them (i.e. sighted), the differences really do seem real and consistent. But in a blind test, I'm just not sure.

 

Mani.

 

 

[manisandher]

So in summary:

 

1. some people hear no difference between the original file and the Yggy capture (implying that the Yggy, and my replay/recording chain are essentially 'perfect')

 

2. some people hear a difference between the original file and the Yggy capture, but not between the different captures (implying that the replay/recording chain is not of high enough resolution)

 

3. some people hear a difference between the original file and the Yggy capture, and also between the different captures (implying that the replay/recording chain is of high enough resolution)

 

4. no one (as far as I'm away) hears no difference between the original file and any one of the captures (not necessarily the Yggy file), but does hear a difference between the captures

 

For me, we need scenario 3 or 4 to be the case to conclude anything useful about the Yggy.

 

Thanks to everyone for giving the files a go. And for Dennis & Peter for their respective analyses on the files. The last angel on that pin from me.

 

Mani.