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Author Topic: Schiit Yggdrasil Review and Impressions yggygiggity thread (production units)  (Read 42980 times)

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amalgamist

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Looking to feed another balanced amp from the Yggy, would a XLR Y cable be ok to use ? Or would that perhaps degrade the sound quality at all ?

If so, what would be the best method besides having to swap the cables over each time ?
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Maxx134

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I dont believe there would be any degraded signal.

The output seems strong enough.

Also I believe that the yggy may have even me more awsome if they implemented a tube output stage instead of a solid state one

The only issue I see is that although we can achieve ideally a bit more imaging,
tubes have a habit of adding a euphoric attribute to the music..

It is this atrribute, or quality, that I believe the sole reason why one may be attracted away from a yggy, which I see as the most accurate dac .

I found such perspectives from hearing the yggy against the Lapizator4 .
The yggy produce accurate source bottom hiss from a recording,
where the Lampy did not,
The Lampy had a larger dynamic range, and mids "poped" out from space, which I attribute to the usage of tubes.
The yggy had a more accurate rendition of audiance clapping,
and had a wider soundstage,
but the previously stated atrributes of the Lampy(4), made it seem deeper staging in the mids, where vocals "floated" in their space...
This lead to a more musical performance on that specific track..
So I could imagine a yggy with a tube stage would be killer,
BUT again, the problem is accuracy & linear  performance of a given tube is like opening a pandora's box of issues..

Anyways,
My personal situation , is that my yggy did not achieve immortall/magic status till well into second week and that was with it being fed nonstop with music...
Then suddenly all music sounds like "being there"  and the unit seems unstoppable with whichever music player I tried
Previously, before this period of time, the yggy gave me random clicks when changing music,
which I attributed to my mini laptop lack of memory,
so when I finnally decide to change the laptop OS to linux,
suddenly the system as a whole performs flawless.

Do to how my yggy sounds now,
I believe the yggy/Lampy comparison was a bit flawed,
as I believe my yggy is performing at a higher level than that other yggy.

So I am of the camp that believe you need just over two weeks for  maximum yggy majic..
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The human ear is capable of detecting ONE hydrogen atom,
yet the brain's processing of sound,
 filters these constant occurrences out (!)
So when they say, "I can't hear a difference", you can say,
"It's all in your mind"! :p

Anaxilus

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The Lampy had a larger dynamic range, and mids "poped" out from space, which I attribute to the usage of tubes.

This ^! This is the only flaw I've found with the Yggy thus far. A sense of greyness to the back ground that hampers just as you say. Proper tubes offer unprecedented clarity, blackness of background, and depth all which contribute to increased perceptions of resolution and dynamics.

I noticed this comparing the Yggy to my PWD mk1>2 which already was an average to just above average performer with blackness compared to the best DACs out there. The PWD mk1>2 was a little blacker.

That's not to say the Yggy isn't clear, it's astonishingly clear and accurate. It's really two different phenomena. The first is the digital section where anything that isn't part of the recording just melts away and disappears. You have to hear it to believe it. In that sense, every DAC up to this point has clearly been coloring music and people are just used to it. There's simply no way to get around this fact. Anyone that has had a proper superior vinyl experience will understand this. Plus the way images are just locked in and super sharp yet perfectly organic speaks volumes about this DAC. The second phenomenon I believe to be part of the analog output stage. MArv and I have noticed and commented on this sort of greyness before as a Mosfet mist. In this case, Jfets. BJTs have often sounded clearer and blacker IME, but it seems they would be much more difficult to work with in this application and at this price point.

Believe me, you aren't the first to talk about developing a tube output stage for the Yggy.
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Anaxilus

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Updated my OP (post 2) with a few criticisms. All I can find atm.
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"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." - Lao Tzu

"The Claw is our master. The Claw chooses who will go or who will stay." - The LGM Community

"You're like a dull knife, just ain't cuttin'. Talking loud, saying nothing." - James Brown

bixby

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euphoric

  Do you mean euphonic?  While occasionally listening to music I can be intensely happy, I find it is not usually related to tubes.

I got another chance to listen to the Schiit, Rowland, Hydra Z bridge and my lowly Matrix again in my friends system.  This time the Schiit had a few more weeks burn in.  What a difference.  I really liked it and again without the Hydra Z and beefy matched power supply.  The Hydra Z is not a good match for the Yggy.

The pricey Rowland to me was different from the Schiit but not better, IMHO.  Kinda like going to a gourmet ice cream shop and having to say which is best:  the Mocha flavor or the Cappuccino?

My Matrix showed its shortcomings quite easily, soft less extended bass, less attack on the upper notes, a bit of softness in presentation of dynamics, and a bit of less extended and slightly crispy upper highs.  What it did do very well is the spatial presentation. 

Does anyone think Schtiit might add the Yggys usb section to the Gungnir anytime soon, and would it get the Gungnir a lot closer to the Yggy in sound or is there still a bit of a gulf?
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Pat

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I may be running a different setup than some, my Yggdrasil is fronted by a CEC transport and followed by a TRL 6SN7 preamp.

Having some tubes in the chain (I prefer the preamp) gives me the desired big-tone with clarity, my images in the midrange do have jump factor and size, very close, if not equal to vinyl.

A friend of mine with a Walker T.T./Manley Steelhead/Soundsmith Hyperion Cart stopped by for a listen and commented on this very subject, we compare each others sound before listening session engages.

Now, that being said, there IS some circumstances where my friend plays a VERY well recorded album  and it does kick real ass dynamics, but on 95% of his LPs there is no audible superiority, it just sounds neutral and real, like the Yggy Dac does.
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Anaxilus

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Uh...a tube in the chain doesn't add the kind of clarity I'm talking about. They are supposed to get out of the way like on my parallel 2A3 amp with space tube drivers. All tube clarity does is let you hear a component upstream of it that isn't as clear. You can not 'add' clarity to system if it doesn't already have it. Maybe your tube preamp is just more clear than the SS preamp you used to use? Personally I find adding stuff to a chain mucks up the sound about 98% of the time so I avoid things like pre-amps if I can manage it.

Your example of a well recorded LP is what people should be talking about for reference. Not poorly built or set up rigs with LPs that sound like they were cut from the same digital master you'd find on the CD or just a bad old master from 60 years ago. So my goal is to try to get digital as close to that as possible.
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"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." - Lao Tzu

"The Claw is our master. The Claw chooses who will go or who will stay." - The LGM Community

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cizx

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Come on. Next thing, Anax, you're going to say that converting mp3s to flac doesn't increase their sound quality when everyone KNOWS flac (stored on SSDs) sounds best...

Back on topic, should I be running pink noise through my Yggdrasil when I'm not listening to music to keep it going, or is just having it plugged into my USB port enough?
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Pat

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"Personally I find adding stuff to a chain mucks up the sound about 98% of the time so I avoid things like pre-amps if I can manage it."

In some systems no preamp may be a good fit, but in mine I'll never dispense of a good active tube line-stage for the reason of sheer gestalt and authority of the presentation, if there's a little noise or coloration I could care less.

As usual, everyone's mileage may vary.
« Last Edit: June 09, 2015, 02:14:00 PM by Pat »
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bixby

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"Personally I find adding stuff to a chain mucks up the sound about 98% of the time so I avoid things like pre-amps if I can manage it."

In some systems no preamp may be a good fit, but in mine I'll never dispense of a good active tube line-stage for the reason of sheer gestalt and authority of the presentation, if there's a little noise or coloration I could not care less.

As usual, everyone's mileage may vary.

edit from zerodeefex: s/could care less/could not care less

My system with preamp on the left and without it on the right:

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