The Computer Audiophile Posted April 20, 2017 Author Share Posted April 20, 2017 14 minutes 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! Have you heard both DACs? Or, are you going by anonymous internet opinions. Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
LarryMagoo Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
Doak Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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. Doak's Audio System Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted April 20, 2017 Author Share Posted April 20, 2017 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 Link to comment
miguelito Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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! 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
LarryMagoo Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
miguelito Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
Miko Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
Miko Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
Ralf11 Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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? Link to comment
miguelito Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
miguelito Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
LarryMagoo Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
LarryMagoo Posted April 20, 2017 Share Posted April 20, 2017 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
Ralf11 Posted April 21, 2017 Share Posted April 21, 2017 Thx Larry - that makes one suspect that the interpolation on other DACs is not sufficiently accurate. But that seems odd to me. LarryMagoo 1 Link to comment
Miko Posted April 21, 2017 Share Posted April 21, 2017 I thought the guy from playback design was the grand wizard of DAC's... certainly Ed Meitner is up there in that list too no? Link to comment
ChrisG Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 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
The Computer Audiophile Posted May 2, 2017 Author Share Posted May 2, 2017 19 minutes ago, ChrisG said: If you're referring to my comments, having owned both, I'm happy to stand by them. Chris (no longer anonymous) Gossard Seattle, WA Nope, not referring to your comments :~) Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
realsoftmonkey Posted June 4, 2017 Share Posted June 4, 2017 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
jay Posted August 1, 2017 Share Posted August 1, 2017 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 mikicasellas 1 Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted August 2, 2017 Author Share Posted August 2, 2017 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. mikicasellas 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
jay Posted August 3, 2017 Share Posted August 3, 2017 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. The Computer Audiophile 1 Link to comment
gadawg58 Posted April 2, 2018 Share Posted April 2, 2018 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
Doak Posted April 2, 2018 Share Posted April 2, 2018 11 hours ago, gadawg58 said: Well its April 1st 2018 and they still don't have a fix ... got tired of waiting and sold mine. So long ARC!!! George Bad news for sure, and really bad news for ARC. Doak's Audio System Link to comment
ShawnC Posted April 2, 2018 Share Posted April 2, 2018 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
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