Upgrading from my Yiggy

[matthias]

8 hours ago, krelldog said:

My only need for my DAC is for playback from FLAC files stored on an external HD.

 

I don't use DSD or any other streaming apps.

 

What DAC would be significantly better than my Schiit Yiggy ???

 

Any and all help will be appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

What is the rest of your set-up?

Maybe the replacement of a more upstream component has a much greater impact than that of the Yggy.

Does your Yggy have the latest upgrades?

 

Matt

[matthias]

The next upgrade for Yggy will certainly be the new Unison USB.

 

Matt

[matthias]

My advice:

Get the Unison upgrade available in January. It seems to be a breakthrough. Then you will stick to your Yggy and be happy.

 

Matt

[matthias]

14 hours ago, Torq said:

To be fair, I haven’t posted in that thread for over a year.  And a lot has changed in my systems in that time.

 

My primary headphone rig is now a Chord Blu-Mk2 feeding DAVE which then feeds both a Chord Étude (to drive my SR1a) and Woo WA234 MkII Mono for all other headphones (though I do use the direct headphone output on DAVE when   I want solid-state output with non-pathologically-power-hungry cans).

 

My office rig is a Chord Hugo M-Scaler feeding a Hugo TT 2.

 

Speaker system is an all Linn Exakt setup driven by the latest Klimax DSM.

 

I use an RME ADI-2 DAC fs with an SPL Phonitor X as a consistent, neutral, reference for review purposes.

 

—-

 

Of all the other stuff I’ve auditioned, DACs in particular, most I’ve not bothered to even comment on unless specifically asked.  And only the TOTL MSB and dCS systems have really performed as well for me as the Chord combo, but since they were only different, not better, there was little incentive to buy into either.

 

 

Thanks for the update .

What about Yggdrasil A2?

IIRC, you wrote on SBAF that 

A2 is at least on par or better than Dave or Klimax DSM.

Thanks

 

Matt

 

[matthias]

6 hours ago, jaynyc said:

 

you might be amazed what feeding AES to your YggyA2 does 😉

 

 

The upcoming Unison USB for Yggy is superior to AES.

 

Matt

[matthias]

5 hours ago, matthias said:

The upcoming Unison USB for Yggy is superior to AES.

 

According to feedback from other forums Yggy with Unison is a perfect combo with the Allo USBridge, now replaced by the USBridge Signature which is supposed to be even better.

 

Matt

[matthias]

I can imagine that Schiit will launch next year an Yggdrasil2 with Autonomy architecture and Unison USB.

 

Matt

[matthias]

12 hours ago, edwoodjr said:

I beta tested Unison for 6 months... no it's not.  It's good but not as good as Pi2AES via AES.  

 

What was your USB source in this case?

Thanks

 

Matt

[matthias]

On 10/2/2019 at 10:33 PM, edwoodjr said:

I beta tested Unison for 6 months... no it's not.  It's good but not as good as Pi2AES via AES.  

 

Try Unison with the new USBridge Signature:

 

https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/vendor-s-bazaar/337859-shanti-dual-lps-5v-3a-5v-1-5a-64.html#post5934007

 

Matt

[matthias]

19 hours ago, barrows said:

I am pretty sure the Bricasti uses the same 20 bit R2R chips as the Yggdrasil...

 

I have so far not seen any disclosure from Bricasti whether the R2R DAC is chip based or not.

Do you have?

Thanks

 

Matt

[matthias]

50 minutes ago, firedog said:

 And Schiit touts the Yggy as being the only DAC in the world that has that technology.

 

Schiit is not alone.

The Resolution Audio Cantata 3.0 uses the same chips as Yggdrasil.

 

Matt

[matthias]

2 hours ago, barrows said:

 

I think you should probably take a look at measurements of the MSB DACs.  There is no significant distortion to speak of.  So I do not think anyone could suggest that MSB's sound is "euphonic".  You might be right in the case of TotalDAC (I have never seen any measurements for it).

 

Most DSM DACs have artifacts, although it is true that Rob Watts has done a lot to eliminate these in his designs, and ESS, with their newer chips is very close to the same place.  We have all heard about the noise floor modulation, both ESS and Chord have been working to eliminate these artifacts from their designs.  It appears to me that the problems with DSM are quite nefarious: signal correlated noises which are sometimes difficult to measure, i know this what ESS pays attention to in their designs, and I am pretty sure Rob Watts is as well.  But these types of distortions, which are generally not harmonic in nature are considered much more of a problem psychoacoustically than just some harmonic distortion (which we get plenty of from our loudspeakers).  I have yet to see measurements for the Bricasti M21, or the newest version  of the Yggdrasil.  The chips used by the Yggdrasil are rather expensive, relatively, but it might be interesting to see what happens with say, four of them paralleled per channel, which could raise the resolution.  Suffice it to say, I do not believe most current R2R DACs suffer from non-harmonic distortions the way DSM DACs do.  DSM is a cool trick which allows for very low harmonic distortion, but at the expense of producing non-harmonic artifacts which many believe are more disturbing pschoacoustically-ther tis still work to be done here!  Check out how Jussi's new DSM modulators (EC) in the HQPlayer 4 seem to be a big improvement over anything previously used.

 

There are certainly more ways to skin a cat, but to suggest simply that discrete R2R designs are liked because they are euphonic is missing the mark, as evidenced by the lack of any of these distortions in the MSB DACs.  BTW, it does not look to me like Chord is really doing much that is unique in terms of modulator design (the long filters are rather unique, but that is another topic).  Both ESS and dCS are in a very similar place in how they do things, addressing noise floor modulation, and the typical artifacts produced by DSM modulators.  And then it appears, at least to me, that Jussi is at again another level with what the latest version of HQP is capable of (albeit with the need for a full on gaming machine to be able to run it!).

 

Barrows,

you find measurements of your mentioned DACs in the DAC section of Audio Science Review.

Best

Matt

[matthias]

@barrows

I forgot to mention the very good measurement section at SBAF:

 

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?forums/source-measurements.14/

 

Yggdrasil is there too.

 

Matt