Jump to content
IGNORED

Article: Audio Research DAC 9 Review


Recommended Posts

I know what the Yggdrasil has done to my system.   I am not remotely interested in DSD when I can listen to 44/16 that sounds excellent and closer to live than my system has ever been!

 

And what does the pricing paradigm have to do with the whether or not I've heard it?  ARC has ALWAYS been one of the high priced component builders.  I think their stuff is fabulous but way over-priced.   I don't think they or many other high-end manufactures gives anything close to value like Schiit does.   Thats the reason for my point!

Link to comment
20 minutes ago, LarryMagoo said:

I know what the Yggdrasil has done to my system.   I am not remotely interested in DSD when I can listen to 44/16 that sounds excellent and closer to live than my system has ever been!

 

And what does the pricing paradigm have to do with the whether or not I've heard it?  ARC has ALWAYS been one of the high priced component builders.  I think their stuff is fabulous but way over-priced.   I don't think they or many other high-end manufactures gives anything close to value like Schiit does.   Thats the reason for my point!

Listening to well recorded and mastered music in DSD has brought me closer to the master tape than I've ever been - damn nice stuff.

Link to comment
38 minutes ago, LarryMagoo said:

I know what the Yggdrasil has done to my system.   I am not remotely interested in DSD when I can listen to 44/16 that sounds excellent and closer to live than my system has ever been!

 

And what does the pricing paradigm have to do with the whether or not I've heard it?  ARC has ALWAYS been one of the high priced component builders.  I think their stuff is fabulous but way over-priced.   I don't think they or many other high-end manufactures gives anything close to value like Schiit does.   Thats the reason for my point!

 

You mentioned the Yggy keeping up with it, so you should probably hear something to make such comments. 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

Link to comment
1 hour ago, LarryMagoo said:

I hope the Yggdrasil messes up the entire High End pricing paradigm....$7500 when the Yggy will at the very least, keep up with it....for less than a 1/3 of the price!O.o

Diminishing returns, and it's also important that the sound difference will be more pronounced depending on the quality of the rest of the system, the quality of the setup (room, etc), and the source files themselves. If your system is ~$10k, it would make no sense to spend $7500 on a DAC. If your system is ~$250k, then it's a different story, and you will likely hear an improvement between a $7500 and a $30k DAC.

NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock 

SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono 

Audio Note Kondo Ongaku > Avantgarde Duo Mezzo

Signal cables: Kondo Silver, Crystal Cable phono

Power cables: Kondo, Shunyata, van den Hul

system pics

Link to comment

Long time Audio reviewer Robert Harley, The Absolute Sound, just reviewed the Yggdrasil and said it ranks amoung the 3 best DACs he has every heard...PERIOD.    The other two?  A $36,000 dCS Vivaldi and a $20,000 Berkley Alpha Reference....

 

Well I have about $35K in my system and could easily hear the addition of the Yggy....easily!

Link to comment
1 hour ago, LarryMagoo said:

Long time Audio reviewer Robert Harley, The Absolute Sound, just reviewed the Yggdrasil and said it ranks amoung the 3 best DACs he has every heard...PERIOD.    The other two?  A $36,000 dCS Vivaldi and a $20,000 Berkley Alpha Reference....

 

Well I have about $35K in my system and could easily hear the addition of the Yggy....easily!

Firstly, I have no opinion on the Yggy (except that I like the funny name). When Harley says what he said, he surely means "for the price". Surely you cannot compare the Vivaldi to the Yggy, especially with the upsampling and external clocks (which brings it to about $50k give or take). Diminishing returns for sure though.

NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock 

SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono 

Audio Note Kondo Ongaku > Avantgarde Duo Mezzo

Signal cables: Kondo Silver, Crystal Cable phono

Power cables: Kondo, Shunyata, van den Hul

system pics

Link to comment
1 hour ago, miguelito said:

 If your system is ~$250k, then it's a different story, and you will likely hear an improvement between a $7500 and a $30k DAC.

 Not in my experience... I've listened to systems that cost more then my home and walked away less then impressed.

 

system set up is what is missing 90% of the time. Price is no measure of performance..remember the Lexicon/Oppo scandal?

Link to comment

You also need to take a bit more then a grain of salt towards any opinion from a reviewer. Those people have a vested interest in promoting the companies that buy advertising and give those people essentially free equipment.

 

the "a" list from stereophile ought to prove that point.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Miko said:

 Not in my experience... I've listened to systems that cost more then my home and walked away less then impressed.

 

system set up is what is missing 90% of the time. Price is no measure of performance..remember the Lexicon/Oppo scandal?

Definitely right about system set up. Plenty of systems sound terrible due to setup. But given same setup quality...

 

As for the Lexicon/Oppo bit, that was the inspiration for my joke about an ifi nano inside the DAC9.

NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock 

SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono 

Audio Note Kondo Ongaku > Avantgarde Duo Mezzo

Signal cables: Kondo Silver, Crystal Cable phono

Power cables: Kondo, Shunyata, van den Hul

system pics

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

I am curious what Schiit has done ot make the Yggy sound so good (transient harshness or no) everyone seems ot think it sounds very good, so what are the circuit improvements?

A bunch of reviews as well as the Schitt website go into details of the design. It's definitely not a run of the mill DAC.

NUC10i7 + Roon ROCK > dCS Rossini APEX DAC + dCS Rossini Master Clock 

SME 20/3 + SME V + Dynavector XV-1s or ANUK IO Gold > vdH The Grail or Kondo KSL-SFz + ANK L3 Phono 

Audio Note Kondo Ongaku > Avantgarde Duo Mezzo

Signal cables: Kondo Silver, Crystal Cable phono

Power cables: Kondo, Shunyata, van den Hul

system pics

Link to comment
2 hours ago, miguelito said:

Firstly, I have no opinion on the Yggy (except that I like the funny name). When Harley says what he said, he surely means "for the price". Surely you cannot compare the Vivaldi to the Yggy, especially with the upsampling and external clocks (which brings it to about $50k give or take). Diminishing returns for sure though.

 When I returned to the

Yggy I discovered a DAC

that wasn’t superb. It wasn’t

even good. And it certainly

wasn’t “good for the money.”

What I discovered, to my

amazement, was a DAC that

was stunningly great, period.

Price aside, the Yggy turned

out to be a world-class contender

in the same league as

cost-no-object digital-to-analog

converters—and I’ve

heard some good ones. How

could this be?

I can’t tell you how Moffatt

did it, but I can  describe

how the Yggy sounds, and

why its one of the three best

DACs I’ve heard regardless

of price. (The other two are

the $19,500 Berkeley Alpha

Reference and the $35,000

dCS Vivaldi.

Link to comment
2 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

I am curious what Schiit has done ot make the Yggy sound so good (transient harshness or no) everyone seems ot think it sounds very good, so what are the circuit improvements?

Mike Moffat, Schiit's partner with Jason Stoddard, is THE father of the DAC.  He produced the first one for audio use 30 years ago for Theta Digital.

 

Besides using a converter made for Medical and Military accuracy , not audio, they also build their own custom filter.

 

But even the most sophisticated ones, using their own digital filter algorithms, don’t have what Yggdrasil has—a time- and frequency-domain optimized digital filter with a true closed-form solution. This means it retains all the original samples, performing a true interpolation. This digital filter gives you the best of both NOS (all original samples retained) and upsampling (easier filtering of out-of-band noise) designs.

 

I don't question how or why it works....it's brought my system so close to live, it's simply startling!    All while pissing the big boys off with their incredible price!!

 

Conclusion . (reprinted from The Absolute Sound's Robert Harley)

I don’t know how Schiit Audio has done it, but the $2300 Yggy

is in many ways competitive with any DAC I’ve heard regardless

of price. In some criteria—transient speed without etch, clarity

of musical line, whole-body involvement—the Yggy is as good

as digital gets. Yet the Yggy’s bold incisiveness may not resonate

with listeners who prefer a more relaxed and easygoing sound.

I, however, have no such reservation; this is a DAC I could

listen to and enjoy for a long time. In fact, there was something

different about the Yggy that pushed my buttons—I felt a musical

exhilaration that was experienced not as some intellectual

abstraction, but at a more fundamentally visceral level.

If you’re looking for a DAC that does quad-rate DSD, decodes

MQA, offers a volume control, and includes a headphone

amp, look elsewhere. But if the very best reproduction of PCM

sources is your goal, the Yggdrasil is the ticket. It’s a spectacular

performer on an absolute level, and an out-of-this world bargain.

The Yggy is not just a tremendous value in today’s DACs,

it’s one of the greatest bargains in the history of high-end audio

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/20/2017 at 8:44 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Have you heard both DACs? Or, are you going by anonymous internet opinions. 

If you're referring to my comments, having owned both, I'm happy to stand by them.

 

Chris (no longer anonymous) Gossard

Seattle, WA

ChrisG

Bend, OR

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...
On 20/04/2017 at 10:49 PM, LarryMagoo said:

 When I returned to the

Yggy I discovered a DAC

that wasn’t superb. It wasn’t

even good. And it certainly

wasn’t “good for the money.”

What I discovered, to my

amazement, was a DAC that

was stunningly great, period.

Price aside, the Yggy turned

out to be a world-class contender

in the same league as

cost-no-object digital-to-analog

converters—and I’ve

heard some good ones. How

could this be?

I can’t tell you how Moffatt

did it, but I can  describe

how the Yggy sounds, and

why its one of the three best

DACs I’ve heard regardless

of price. (The other two are

the $19,500 Berkeley Alpha

Reference and the $35,000

dCS Vivaldi.

I agree with you but I would add the TAD D1000 mk 2 DAC to that list. Expensive but up there with the best. I'm afraid ARC products (especially their dacs) just don't deliver for me personally.

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

Chris...

 

I know this is a slightly older thread, and I very, very rarely weigh-in with opinions that contradict your thoughts (I tend to agree with the large majority of your opinions and approaches, and I read and value a lot of them).  However, to your comments on what a DAC review should or shouldn't try to accomplish (or any review, for that matter)...

 

From someone sitting further on the consumer side of the equation, and living in a smaller market that doesn't have most brands locally represented, the opportunity to "compare" DACs in my own system is nearly impossible without a) having somewhere in the neighborhood of $20-30K of "investible" income to buy used examples of the "best" DACs;  b) finding used examples of those "best" DACs and purchasing them to have in my system at the same time;  c) holding my own extended "shoot out" in my system; and d) selling off the "losing contenders" hoping for the same used price I bought them for to recoup the remaining parts of that "investment."  While that's doable for me (fortunately), it's hardly practical, and certainly not a convenient financial way to finally decide whether an upgrade is "worth it or not."  Many fans of this site do not have the means to do that, so they look for all trustworthy, useful comparative info they can get their hands on (so do I, btw).  Surely that is understandable.  Yes, YMMV comes with the territory, but used properly, all of this information is nonetheless an extremely helpful tool in searching out what might ultimately be a "gamble" worth taking on an unheard piece of equipment that can't be easily demo'd without owning it.

 

Chris, on the other hand, you have the opportunity (well-earned, I will add) to get a lot of really, really nice contenders into your home and compare them first-hand, using a lot of other associated really, really nice equipment (all of which I understand you've paid for with your own hard-earned and well-deserved dollar, which makes me think even more why you would understand my position). 

 

What attracted to me MOST to this site from the beginning was its (and yours, really) ability to help me try to sort through the insanely long list of "noise of opportunity" that today's growing DAC and Digital market have to offer.  One of the most useful tools are head-to-head comparisons, which like it or not, is how I and others likely view the CASH list, for all intents and purposes.  I view them as comparisons based on value...an even MORE valuable set of info, as I can look "up market" at more expensive DACs and imagine to myself "I might hear some improvement from a more expensive yet also great DAC on this rather exclusive list"...otherwise why would it be a CASH list DAC at $20K if it didn't sound better than a phenomenal $3k DAC or a great $7K DAC...because it didn't suck?  Looks nicer?  I'm sure some of that plays in, but given the importance this site puts on SQ, I think you can understand how most interpret your CASH designation.  I can remember thinking that the CASH list was literally one of the greatest things to happen to me in my slightly painful journey up the stereo system growing path...it was a really nice benchmark to ground a number of additional sets of research.  (Ironically, I went to a to-remain-nameless large city high-end store to hear the original CASH list Berkeley only to have it sound mediocre in the mediocre system they had it set up in...without the CASH designation, I may have walked away and thought Berkeley was a mediocre DAC manufacturer, but I knew otherwise).

 

So with due respect, it's with regret that I read your comments here on not really wanting to compare DACs.  A feature review of new DACs is only marginally interesting to most.  If there's no way to know how it really sounds, especially compared to other top-end, really expensive stuff, then we could just read feature lists off of manufacturers' websites and build our own comparative feature spreadsheets.

 

With respect to ARC, I'm sure that it is a great sounding DAC.  Ironically, my local ARC dealer doesn't have one that I can demo, and similarly can't get me any of their higher end (or Reference equipment) of any type.  Apparently a lot of people buy their higher-end stuff that way anyway.  I also guess many never know if they're getting the value from those higher-end purchases relative to other brands because they've never heard the other brands, either.  That's unfortunate for all--except maybe for ARC.

 

Respectfully,

Jay

Link to comment

Hi Jay - Thanks for the kind words and for such a well worded and respectful post, even though you disagree with me. If your post doesn't make someone at least reconsider his approach, I'm not sure what would do the trick. 

 

I take your comments seriously and will consider making changes. 

Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems AudiophileStyleStickerWhite2.0.png AudiophileStyleStickerWhite7.1.4.png

Link to comment

Thanks for reading and considering my thoughts, Chris.  I'll respect your choices regardless of your approach going forward...you have a long and very well-represented track record of being as objective as a reviewer as you can be, and that's hugely appreciated sitting on this end of the chain.  I'm certain the manufacturers appreciate and respect that too.  Thanks for the continued service you and this site offer us.  The breadth yet simultaneous focus works very well to help advance and positively promote "the cause" of great digital SQ for everyone...I don't think I'm overstating that.

Link to comment
  • 7 months later...
On 4/14/2017 at 1:57 PM, mrvco said:

 

Well hopefully they get the USB issues addressed in a timely manner.  I do find it interesting that AR used a "not designed for audio" chip in their DAC.  Other than the Yggy, how common is this approach?

Well its April 1st 2018 and they still don't have a fix ... got tired of waiting and sold mine. So long ARC!!!

 

George

Link to comment

I don't know if this had an impact on their product designs or updates but last year they lost their senior design engineer to a sudden heart attack.  You would think they would have a few engineers on hand that could handle the this but maybe it's something they've been trying to fullfill since this happened. 

 

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/audio-research-mourns-the-loss-of-ward-fiebiger/

Computer setup - Roon/Qobuz - PS Audio P5 Regenerator - HIFI Rose 250A Streamer - Emotiva XPA-2 Harbeth P3ESR XD - Rel  R-528 Sub

Comfy Chair - Schitt Jotunheim - Meze Audio Empyrean w/Mitch Barnett's Accurate Sound FilterSet

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...