Whats the upgrade path from a Yggdrasil (Yiggy)

[jcn3]

21 hours ago, krelldog said:

My Yiggy already has the analog 2 board. I wasn't aware of the USB Gen 5 upgrade.

 

Its encouraging to know that the consensus  upgrade is the Chord Dave. At a price point of over 10k....thats never going to happen...for me at least.

 

Its nice to know that my 2300.00 Dac is even in the conversation with a Chord Dave. 

 

Good  stuff, thanks for the replies. I will consider the JS2 power supply for the Mac Mini.

 

I'm also waiting on delivery for a new Iso Regen.  I had great success with the USB Regen.

 

when did you buy your yggy?  did you send in your yggy for the analog 2 upgrade or did it come that way?  if you have a serial number that starts with "b" then you have the analog 2 board and the gen 5 usb.

[Dr Tone]

Maybe consider replacing your mac mini with a specialized streamer with an AES output.  That way you use Mike’s preferred Yggdrasil input and avoid all the decrapifiers and stuff.

 

Auralic will be announcing their Aries G1 at Axpona.  It will be more affordable than the G2.

[Ralf11]

I would not replace your mac mini right away.  I WOULD make sure that any noise from it is isolated so it does not get to the DAC.

 

But, let's back up... have you gone thru your music collection to make sure you have the very best mastering/recording of each album? (or each important album?)  That can produce much larger dividends than anything you do replace your Yggy with.  Same for speakers and acoustic tmts. ...

 

 

[krelldog]

I'm pretty solid there. Most of my stuff is 24/96 or better. Don't get me wrong...system sounds amazing.

 

Its just insane all the tweaks and gadgets you can add to a digital signal. My biggest hurdle is trying to understand all the technical terminology. I'm still willing to explore new ways to enhance my digital playback, although I'm not willing to spend thousands chasing it.

 

Currently- Mac Mini---Audience AU24SE----Iso Regen with UltraCap LPS-1.2-----Yiggy

 

I actually don't have the Iso Regen yet ,but should have it soon.

 

Thanks again for all the suggestions and ideas.

[leftside]

On 4/9/2018 at 1:12 PM, krelldog said:

Its just insane all the tweaks and gadgets you can add to a digital signal.

Makes vinyl look simple. Less is better for me. If people are willing to spend the money, then the products will be made.

 

If you want a R2R DSD DAC perhaps consider one of the Lampizator DACs.

[George Hincapie]

On 4/9/2018 at 4:34 PM, Dr Tone said:

Maybe consider replacing your mac mini with a specialized streamer with an AES output.  That way you use Mike’s preferred Yggdrasil input and avoid all the decrapifiers and stuff.

 

Auralic will be announcing their Aries G1 at Axpona.  It will be more affordable than the G2.

 

There are other options as well. Metrum Acoustics are just about to start fulfilling pre-orders for their new Ambre streamer which outputs to AES, Coax, USB and I2S.

[krelldog]

I ordered the Iso Regen...with the Ultra Cap LPS 1.2 power supply.

 

I'll probably add the Mac mini DC-Conversion / Linear Fan Controller Kit with the

Home > Products > JS-2 Linear Power Supply....and thats as far as I'll go for the time being.

JS-2 Linear Power Supply

[Nordkapp]

1 hour ago, George Hincapie said:

 

There are other options as well. Metrum Acoustics are just about to start fulfilling pre-orders for their new Ambre streamer which outputs to AES, Coax, USB and I2S.

Are you the real George Hincapie?

[Blake]

56 minutes ago, Nordkapp said:

Are you the real George Hincapie?

 

Whoa!  A big plus one!  If you are, well, damn, it is an honor to have you on this forum!  I am a cycling fanatic and you have always been one of my favorite riders.  If you are not that George Hincapie, hey, you have a cool name.

[jay]

59 minutes ago, krelldog said:

I ordered the Iso Regen...with the Ultra Cap LPS 1.2 power supply.

 

I'll probably add the Mac mini DC-Conversion / Linear Fan Controller Kit with the

Home > Products > JS-2 Linear Power Supply....and thats as far as I'll go for the time being.

 

 

I think that's a wise path.  Please let us know how each of those steps improves things for you.  FWIW, if you order the JS-2 and a second power cable for it, you could power both your Mac Mini and Iso Regen with it and not need the 1.2, or recognize that if you added a SOTM or UltraRendu later, you'd already have a power supply.

[Nordkapp]

30 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

Whoa!  A big plus one!  If you are, well, damn, it is an honor to have you on this forum!  I am a cycling fanatic and you have always been one of my favorite riders.  If you are not that George Hincapie, hey, you have a cool name.

Yeah, but the avatar is Cav from HTC/Highroad days. Imposter!

[Blake]

28 minutes ago, Nordkapp said:

Yeah, but the avatar is Cav from HTC/Highroad days. 

 Good catch, that avatar is tiny.  The Manx Missle!

[jay]

BTW, I bought the full version of HQPlayer a few nights ago.  I've messed with the settings some, and I have it upsampling to 192kHz to feed the Yggy...following the seemingly prescribed "upsample to the max of your DAC" advice.

 

Not over the moon about it yet, to be honest.

 

If any Yggy/HQPlayer users out there have recommended settings, I'm love to know what you like.  I'm finding the upsampling to feel a little etchy and bright.

[krelldog]

Jay...post a link of what you bought. I keep hearing about the HQ Player....but I have no idea what this is.

 

Thanks

[Blake]

42 minutes ago, jay said:

BTW, I bought the full version of HQPlayer a few nights ago.  I've messed with the settings some, and I have it upsampling to 192kHz to feed the Yggy...following the seemingly prescribed "upsample to the max of your DAC" advice.

 

Not over the moon about it yet, to be honest.

 

 

FWIW, member Torq, the DAC review guru on SBAF, tries software upsampling on all of the DAC's he buys and compares and reviews, then checks the results against no software upsampling (both sighted and blind testing).

 

For the Yggy, Torq's finding is that the Yggy does a better job when you just let the Yggy do the upsampling, as opposed to upsampling in software, ahead of the Yggy. So, you are not alone in your evaluation.  

[jay]

9 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

FWIW, member Torq, the DAC review guru on SBAF, tries software upsampling on all of the DAC's he buys and compares and reviews, then checks the results against no software upsampling (both sighted and blind testing).

 

For the Yggy, Torq's finding is that the Yggy does a better job when you just let the Yggy do the upsampling, as opposed to upsampling in software, ahead of the Yggy. So, you are not alone in your evaluation.  

Thanks, that's great info.

[Dr Tone]

1 hour ago, jay said:

If any Yggy/HQPlayer users out there have recommended settings, I'm love to know what you like.  I'm finding the upsampling to feel a little etchy and bright.

 

If a Yggdrasil Analog 2, feed it unmolested PCM.

 

If an original Yggdrasil you could try setting HQPlayer to 20bit and let HQPlayer dither that might help.

[jay]

1 hour ago, krelldog said:

Jay...post a link of what you bought. I keep hearing about the HQ Player....but I have no idea what this is.

 

Thanks

 

https://www.signalyst.com/consumer.html

 

Software you can run on your Mac (or Windows/Linux)...standalone player/controller, or you can run it behind Roon (which is what I'm doing).

[oneway23]

On 4/12/2018 at 10:54 PM, jay said:

 

https://www.signalyst.com/consumer.html

 

Software you can run on your Mac (or Windows/Linux)...standalone player/controller, or you can run it behind Roon (which is what I'm doing).

Off-topic, and, I'll be happy to take this elsewhere, but, I'm very confused by this software.  What happened to good, old-fashioned, bit-perfect playback? 

 

I readily admit that I'm open to being educated, but, I thought folks were chasing purity of signal?  Does it have something to do with upsampling to avoid harsh sloping of digital filters?  I guess I'm confused as to why people seem to have gotten really into manipulating the digital bits these days, especially after years of forum debates where folks couldn't decide if .FLAC and .WAV sounded the same.

[Dr Tone]

2 hours ago, oneway23 said:

Off-topic, and, I'll be happy to take this elsewhere, but, I'm very confused by this software.  What happened to good, old-fashioned, bit-perfect playback? 

 

I readily admit that I'm open to being educated, but, I thought folks were chasing purity of signal?  Does it have something to do with upsampling to avoid harsh sloping of digital filters?  I guess I'm confused as to why people seem to have gotten really into manipulating the digital bits these days, especially after years of forum debates where folks couldn't decide if .FLAC and .WAV sounded the same.

 

The DAC is manipulating the digital bits.  Many feel HQPlayer doing the equivalent with it's specialized filters and DSD modulators sounds better.

[rayl1234]

3 hours ago, oneway23 said:

Off-topic, and, I'll be happy to take this elsewhere, but, I'm very confused by this software.  What happened to good, old-fashioned, bit-perfect playback? 

 

I readily admit that I'm open to being educated, but, I thought folks were chasing purity of signal?  Does it have something to do with upsampling to avoid harsh sloping of digital filters?  I guess I'm confused as to why people seem to have gotten really into manipulating the digital bits these days, especially after years of forum debates where folks couldn't decide if .FLAC and .WAV sounded the same.

 

A somewhat lengthy response.  Let's start with a 44.1kHz signal.

 

If you would to reproduce it "exactly", you will get 44,100 rectangles per second of various heights (or depths for negative).  Let's ignore the detail that you cannot get this exactly bec sudden transitions are impossible physically.  The point being, original signal was not a collection of rectangles -- that's just digital sampling at work.

 

As a matter of fact, you can reconstruct the original signal, assuming it has no content above 22.05kHz, to whatever time resolution you desire.  The higher the time resolution, the closer the original signal. The mathematical way of doing this is, unfortunately, to convolve with the infinite sinc function.  This is Shannon-Whitaker reconstruction. As we cannot wait until infinity, we settle for some final filter approximation.

 

So this is where upsampling comes into play.  his upsampled signal is then shaped into analog sound. We usually want some time resolution higher than 44.1kHz. (Though not all DAC designers take this path -- there are NOS designs that do the filtering in the analog domain instead of via digital upsampling...)

 

Some DAC developers invest a lot in their upsampling processes (e.g. Chord M-scaler). If you paid to get that skillset in your DAC, then you will want to feed the original PCM untouched and let the DAC do the work.  But others invest elsewhere, yet may have very capable noise shapers and analog stages.  To pair with those, why not do the upsampling on your PC? In a sense, you are building your own "DAC" by selecting part of the processing from the original piece of the hardware and the rest on your PC, with settings that you pick.

 

That's the long answer.  Hope this helps.

 

 

[One and a half]

7 hours ago, oneway23 said:

Off-topic, and, I'll be happy to take this elsewhere, but, I'm very confused by this software.  What happened to good, old-fashioned, bit-perfect playback? 

 

I readily admit that I'm open to being educated, but, I thought folks were chasing purity of signal?  Does it have something to do with upsampling to avoid harsh sloping of digital filters?  I guess I'm confused as to why people seem to have gotten really into manipulating the digital bits these days, especially after years of forum debates where folks couldn't decide if .FLAC and .WAV sounded the same.

 

Excellent responses from @Dr Tone and @rayl1234, there's up-sampling and filtering in the PC which is close to infinitely adjustable depending on the DAC. This is the tricky part  The range of adjustments takes some time to learn, each filter and up-sampler reacts differently to the connected DAC. It also depends on the music content as well, acoustic jazz for example would have different filtering to a popular recording from 1986 for example. The flexibility is for HQPlayer software in that it can play 'straight' or with a number of filters. If you want to tinker, you can, or just leave it as is. HQPlayer is only good for filter processing, don't count on it too much, to manage the library; to that I will openly state it's hopeless, it's not designed that way. HQPlayer is best left as an engine, between a library manager such as Roon which integrates very well and the DAC.

 

The term 'bit perfect playback' is a bit of a myth. That's the theory in the computing world where data is data. Where this comes unstuck is how the transmission of that data enters a physical place as unwanted electrical parasites are added to this data. This is identified and can be measured, but to eliminate it, is very difficult for now, but some inroads in use such as Regen, IsoRegen, Micro USB3.0, Recovery do assist in shaping and controlling unwanted parasites. 

 

[oneway23]

To Tone (who always comes to my aid and brings the 411, no matter what forum I happen to be on!), Rayl, and One and...

 

I won't sit here and begin to claim that I have successfully ingested all you've offered, but, I can't thank you enough.  I feel as though I've at least taken a step or two further down the path, and, that's all I can ever ask.  I never profess to know, but, I'm smart enough to ask, and, I always appreciate when anyone takes time out of their busy day.  Cheers!

[limniscate]

I have an Yggy and auditioned the DAVE for over a week.  I also tried the Yggy versus the Ayre QX5-Twenty. 

 

I still have the Yggy.

[Ralf11]

Wow!

 

That is a big endorsement.