Hello. Recently new member to Changstar here, posting as the (very) pleased owner of a shiny new Yggy .

I find the "it might reveal flaws in my recordings" argument difficult to stomach. At issue is the fundamental role of a source component in the audio chain.

The end goal of all transports should be simple: perfect reproduction of the analog signal as it came off the mixing/mastering board, no? If accepted, that leaves little room for debate over 'whether' or 'how much' transparency a transport/DAC should provide. The only remaining discussion becomes how perfectly does said transport reproduce that original signal?

IMO if one doesn't like the sound of a recording coming off an ideal, "perfectly transparent" DAC, that's fine. But the role of shaping that sound must come further down the chain – via tubes, EQ, choice of cans/speakers, hell, even cables if you wish. This leaves the source/DAC pure in its aspiration to a Platonic Form of transparent reproduction.

Apologies if that borders on philosophical. In reading the comparisons of various DACs I think we sometimes lose sight of this ultimate (perhaps impossible?) goal.

dGlow, what took you so long!

Anyways, like you, I also find the "it might reveals flaws in my recordings" argument difficult to stomach, especially for a high-end expensive DAC. But I also understand where people are coming from, especially if they have not been exposed to good DACs and came from craptastic implementations of S-D DACs. The fundamental misunderstanding is that what many people think is "detailed" or "resolving".

High resolution is high resolution. It is always better. To illustrate this point, see pictures below.

Typical decent D-S DAC


Typical Sabre DAC


Yggdrasil

Interesting that the Sabre one has the largest file size. Dunno why that amuses me...

I mean, uh, results are inconclusive. Further samples are required.

ygg is also jpeg quality?