Schiit Yggdrasil

[Laowei]

20 bit minimum on the spec sheet. Probably a guaranteed performance spec. Actual performance in an optimized circuit may be better?

<damn autocorrect>

Edited May 6, 2015 by Laowei

[Voltron]

if you read the specs of the DAC

http://www.analog.com/library/analogDialogue/archives/44-04/ad5791.html

it shows the temperature drift of the DAC is 0.11ppm/C. From cold to warm circuit I'd say you have at least a 20C temperature change, corresponding to 2ppm drift, and that is just for the DAC. For comparison Schiit claims the Yggy has 21 bits precision which translates to 0.5ppm. BTW the 21 bit claim is an interesting one, since AD says their DAC has 20 bit precision.

 

Hey Paolo!  You found us finally.     Hope you and your lovely family are doing well.

[calaf]

Hey Paolo!  You found us finally.     Hope you and your lovely family are doing well.

Hey Al, nice to find you here! We are all doing great, thanks. How about you?

 

I have been lurking here more and more as I have less time to filter out shills and trolls elsewhere   

[Voltron]

All is well, thanks.  You're welcome to dive in here and call out trolls and shills with abandon.  

[K3cT]

I haven't browsed HF in a while but apparently R-2R DAC is in vogue now? I still use a Parasound 1100HD that has been upgraded with cetoole's secret sauce, I'd wonder how it compares with a modern implementation like the Yggdrasil. 

[blubliss]

This DAC has interested me enough to demo it, so I placed an order.  I haven't had too many DACs in house, mostly show listening, but I have never heard anything that is better than the APL NWO-M I have.  And the Sonic Studio LIO-8 is not far behind the APL.

 

It seems most of the people at HF ogling over this DAC have very minimal experience with high-end stuff, so sure it sounds great.  But, it is being compared favorably to MSB at this point, and their stuff is quite nice.

 

While the juvenile name stuff is off-putting for me (i totally understand the marketing genius), the attitude and science of the developers is quite refreshing.

[nopants]

Maybe in a few months I'll have saved enough to repair my Spectral to compare

 

One minor advantage of the Yggdrasil over the Spectral is that it doesn't run hot enough to melt its own feet

[Dusty Chalk]

That's hardly minor.

[nopants]

Yeah that's part of why I said don't bother trying to look for a Spectral, it sounds great but ti's kind of a high-maintenance affair at the end of the day. 

 

The power brick gets uncomfortably hot, I ended up taking the PSU out of its case and laying a heatsink on top with some random interface material.

 

There's a fan inside the DAC that maintains uniform temperature between the digital input and the DAC + analog output, but the entire thing still gets too hot. I think they were trying to keep the entire unit hermetically sealed, to maintain control over the internal air currents. After a few weeks I noticed that the faceplate was sitting slightly crooked. At that point it was already too late and now I have 4 hardened puddles of silicone on my glass rack. Anyone know how to clean that kind of stuff? I haven't figured out a chemical solution yet and my last resort is to put the BHSE underneath and scrape off the resultant mess of goo.

 

--------------

 

In other news, the Yggdrasil continues to be an enjoyable listen. The way it depicts the soundstage is really interesting and addictive. Because of the architectural similarity to the SDR I'm personally attributing most of its character to the filter, but who knows. Looking forward to actively comparing it to the Segue, hopefully tonight.

 

At the risk of sounding shilly, it's worth taking advantage of their 15 day trial once they get production under control. The effects will be noticeable even if you don't subject it to 700 years of burn-in/uptime. Supposedly they also run them for 72 hours before shipping out

[dsavitsk]

At that point it was already too late and now I have 4 hardened puddles of silicone on my glass rack. Anyone know how to clean that kind of stuff? I haven't figured out a chemical solution yet and my last resort is to put the BHSE underneath and scrape off the resultant mess of goo.

 

If heat caused it, how about a heat gun to remove it?

[nopants]

That was the role the BHSE was going to fulfill, I just assumed there might have been compounds with which you guys would be familiar. I don't own a heat gun at the moment.

 

This only came to mind as I wrote about it, I've really been avoiding the cleanup out of laziness.

[chiguy]

I bet you acetone can probably do something but it's pretty noxious and not something you want to be smelling. 

[Mario_Fpolis]

Vinegar, cleaning vinegar may do the trick.

[Tachikoma]

Pure acetone should not leave a residue. I found someone saying WD40 softens the stuff from a quick google.

 

Don't you have a hairdryer? It may not get as hot as a real heat gun but that still gets pretty hot.

[dreamwhisper]

In my opinion my DAC sounds better when it's left on for around 36-48 hours. 

It's almost a big enough difference that I'd think they were 2 different DAC's.
So I can understand why a first impression of the Yggy would be better done if I left it on for a while first. (especially if I was running a comparison)

If the unit is more ventilated than usual, or the circuitry is more sophisticated than my reference, I would adjust the warm-up time accordingly.

 

Not to say a DAC doesn't sound fine cold but if I were to make a serious impression of one I would leave it on for a bit.
This has just become noticeable for me recently in the last few months.

Edited May 8, 2015 by dreamwhisper

[dsavitsk]

Do you have two of them so you can compare a cold and a hot one?

[K3cT]

Yeah that's part of why I said don't bother trying to look for a Spectral, it sounds great but ti's kind of a high-maintenance affair at the end of the day. 

 

The power brick gets uncomfortably hot, I ended up taking the PSU out of its case and laying a heatsink on top with some random interface material.

 

There's a fan inside the DAC that maintains uniform temperature between the digital input and the DAC + analog output, but the entire thing still gets too hot. I think they were trying to keep the entire unit hermetically sealed, to maintain control over the internal air currents. After a few weeks I noticed that the faceplate was sitting slightly crooked. At that point it was already too late and now I have 4 hardened puddles of silicone on my glass rack. Anyone know how to clean that kind of stuff? I haven't figured out a chemical solution yet and my last resort is to put the BHSE underneath and scrape off the resultant mess of goo.

 

--------------

 

In other news, the Yggdrasil continues to be an enjoyable listen. The way it depicts the soundstage is really interesting and addictive. Because of the architectural similarity to the SDR I'm personally attributing most of its character to the filter, but who knows. Looking forward to actively comparing it to the Segue, hopefully tonight.

 

At the risk of sounding shilly, it's worth taking advantage of their 15 day trial once they get production under control. The effects will be noticeable even if you don't subject it to 700 years of burn-in/uptime. Supposedly they also run them for 72 hours before shipping out

 

Use kerosene, it's effective for cleaning plastic polymers.

[nopants]

Thanks for the tips, acetone seems pretty manageable. 

 

If there's one negative I'd have to call out, when I'm comparing the AR-T segue vs the Yggdrasil side by side I get the impression that the Yggdrasil is less dynamic. Will investigate a bit further, I need to set up something to switch DACs on the fly into the BH

[n3rdling]

Andy I remember you disliking the Yggy at CJ.  Did you hear it again since?  Interested in your impressions since, as you said, most of the people ordering it don't seem to have much experience with high end DACs.

[blubliss]

It's not that I disliked it, just was underwhelmed, but meet impressions mean little.

[nopants]

I would kill to test out the Yggdrasil on a T2

[dreamwhisper]

Do you have two of them so you can compare a cold and a hot one?

 

Good question.

My theory started with blocking the bottom vents on my DAC, and noticing how the tone got warmer and denser. (after it heated up for 30 minutes to an hour)

I periodically tested the heat of the unit through listening sessions by touching the top with my hand.

 

I noticed there were more microdynamics (or plankton or w/e) but what was more interesting to me was the detail within the tonality itself.

The contour became richer as it was warmer. It even would become 'thicker' after a few hours.

 

I decided to let the vents function normally and still tested the heat on the top of the unit, and kept noticed improvements as well.

You're right, it could be perceptual bias because I missed the thicker warmth of the DAC when the vents were blocked.

 

But either way, I performed enough tests for myself to decide that heat indeed played a role in the presentation.

Whether it was heat causing second order distortion so the distortion sounded more organic, or simply the components 'warming' up, I can't say.

 

Now that I have a tube amp I listen at much higher volumes, so I'm more interested in the microdynamics than the tonality, go figure. 

So tonality isn't as much of a consideration to me, and microdynamics are boring and neurotic to listen for during a listening test.

...Unless I've got BBQ and beer in front of me, but how often does that happen.

Edited May 26, 2015 by dreamwhisper

[dsavitsk]

My theory started with blocking the bottom vents on my DAC, and noticing how the tone got warmer and denser. (after it heated up for 30 minutes to an hour)

I periodically tested the heat of the unit through listening sessions by touching the top with my hand.

 

That sounds like pretty classic priming, which is why you need 2 and a blind test.

[TMoney]

We've got a Bay Area Head-Fi meet this weekend and Yggy is the piece of gear I'm most looking forward to listening to as it sounds like it might be a sonic upgrade from the Oppo BDP-105 I've been using.

 

This is a problem though:

 

 

What about DSD?

Yggdrasil won’t do DSD, no way, no how.

 

But what if I want DSD?

If DSD becomes a significant part of the market, where “significant” is defined as “more than 1% of total sales,” then we will support it via a separate dedicated DSD decoding box. Today, when it is less than 0.01% of recorded music, well, hey, we're not so interested.

 

What? But I hear DSD is the future!

Yeah, and reel-to-reel was the future in the 1970s, and it’s dead now, and DAT was the future in the 1980s, and it’s dead now, and HDCD was the future in the 1990s, and it’s dead now, and SACD was the future in the 2000s, and it’s dead now. But, let's say Sony suddenly opens their vaults and offers 30,000 DSD albums with guaranteed direct-from-DSD provenance at $5.99 each, and Apple starts streaming DSD as its de facto format for iTunes, (yes, we know, stop laughing) then hey, Yggy is fully upgradable...and then we just change it up to be the best DSD DAC out there.  

 

I basically only listen to SACDs and DSD files. I'm not in love with either format, but I've found SACD/DSD files to more often than not have dramatically better mastering jobs than Redbook or Hi-Rez.

 

Is there any elegant way to feed Yggy DSD files from a NAS? Raspberry Pi running Volumio or a NUC playing into the Loki DSD DAC they make?

 

--

 

Maybe it is more of a head-ache than its worth. The friggin Oppo plays everything you can throw at it with little to no fuss.

Edited July 13, 2015 by TMoney

[Grahame]

Convert the DSD files to PCM / FLAC /  ALAC  (lossless container of your choice with tagging support) and preserve the "dramatically better" mastering in a more convenient format?

 

Or is that heresy?

 

Observations on same.

 

http://archimago.blogspot.ca/2015/04/analysis-dsd-decoders-2015-windows-mac.html

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2015/04/analysis-dsd-to-pcm-2015-foobar-sacd.html