Schiit Yggdrasil Stereophile Review + Measurements

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by purr1n, Jan 20, 2017.

  1. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    Please don't, life is too short. Fell in the middle of that recent CA Yggdrasil silliness, made an attempt to be reasonable, likely failed. I just can't figure out why some people spend so much time attacking this gadget or that, rather than reporting their impressions and moving on. But that's me knowing that my impressions are very flawed, my hearing ever less sharp as I get older, my technical knowledge just enough to be dangerous (CS types can't be trusted in the analog domain ;)) and my music preferences kind of weird. The one thing I do know from decades of quantitative work is that cherry-picked measurements are the poisonous blood of truthiness.
     
  2. landroni

    landroni Friend

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  3. Larry Megugorac

    Larry Megugorac Craps on Filipino accents to ease inner poverty

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    Well as I said on CA, have you ever seen JA and Mani together? Are they the same dude?

    I think they could be recognized easily as their ears would appear to made from Sn!!:D
     
  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Measurement behaviors below a certain threshold won't tell us squat about how DACs sound. John Atkinson knows this. MadamSander should also know this. Seriously, if MadamSander can hear that zero crossing glitch, perhaps he give us an idea how this zero crossing glitch sounds like in descriptive qualitative subjective terms.

    DACs all tend to measure very well with any distortion, linear, or non-linear, very well below the threshold of hearing. However, measurement behaviors past a certain threshold, may be portents of doom. As exhibited by one DAC recently measured here.
     
  5. Larry Megugorac

    Larry Megugorac Craps on Filipino accents to ease inner poverty

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    Well it's also amusing that JA could easily pass off how bad Tubes measure up as "euphonic Colorations or Distortions". That's the attraction of tubes...don't ya know...

    Well. why can't he say truncation of the last two bits is Digital Euphonic Coloration??? In other words...Put down that damn O-Scope down John and F'n LISTEN!!!:rolleyes:
     
  6. winders

    winders boomer

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  7. Grahad2

    Grahad2 Red eyes from too much anime

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    Why would you care about what a troll thinks?
     
  8. Johan

    Johan New

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    well, it's not trolling if hes correct.
     
  9. Changeling

    Changeling Tube Slut

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  10. baldr

    baldr Schiit-sterer

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    On further reflection:
    In the higher floors of the Audio shows, occupied by the “take themselves too seriously” audio high-enders, there is a concern and fear over what is to be published in Stereophile, as if they possessed such power as to administer the coup de grace on too many of few remaining “elite-priced” companies. A careful reading of the magazine reveals exactly how it only has one function: to convince the readership of what they already believe. Often this is bullshit, but in the high end audio arena, bullshit sells. So who cares?

    Back in the 1980's, a friend of mine wrote an article on the Coriolus effect on speaker cones in playback systems – he introduced enough serious physics with the assistance of a friend in the physical sciences which nanounit errors in the reproduction chain guaranteed no sonic recovery. He managed to get it published in a magazine who shall not be named as it still exists today.

    The readership of Stereophile expects consistent high end messages; those which advocate spending stupid amounts of money on gear which will supposedly be free from microscopic amounts of sonic pox which plague reasonably priced gear. After reading such material, the reader then thinks that Stereophile has good equipment taste, unlike those mid-fi louts trying to contaminate our hobby with mediocrity.

    Sadly, the editor prides himself on being an opinion leader – unfortunately, the opinion leader is nothing but a pimp of the highest priced call girls of audio. An opinion leader who seldom changes anyone's mind.

    None of this is meant personally; as I have said before, it is sad to see Stereophile, of all high end magazines circling the drain by ignoring many who manufacture gear which is affordable to many; many, who indeed could not only significantly augment their subscription base, but their relevance as well.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2017
  11. jowls

    jowls Never shitposts (please) - Friend

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    @Psalmanazar be like...

    [​IMG]
     
  12. Smitty

    Smitty Too good for bad vodka - Friend

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  13. iDesign

    iDesign Almost "Made"

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    Earlier in the thread Mike Moffat mentioned The Absolute Sound review of the Yggdrasil. The May/June 2017 issue is available online and its worth pointing out the Yggdrasil received a very positive and unbiased review. Send in your $4.99 to The Absolute Sound and support an honest publication:
    http://www.nextnewsstand.com/products/the-absolute-sound/tas-273/
     
  14. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    Something JA obviously failed to mention...

    Thanks @sfoclt for the excerpt!
     
  15. Darren G

    Darren G Friend

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    My Yggdrasil is on the way. I was aware before ordering of the glitch discussions. There is a good pictoral layman's article here that explains why the R2R DACs glitch - https://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/analogwire/archive/2013/06/14/what-s-with-all-this-glitch-ing

    Whether or not a glitch can be heard is a valid question, but for me personally, that it sounds pleasant or unpleasant is what matters to me. After all, if I look at what's coming out of our speakers or headphones, how perfect is that?

    I do question though if the glitch can be heard. The key reason being that our ear drums have mass (as do speakers, headphones, etc.), and there are limits to how quickly that mass can be accelerated (or decelerated) vs the energy required to accelerate/decelerate that mass. So when I look at a graph of a wave, if I see spikes that are at a frequency above what I can hear, I accept that my ears will filter that, possibly even my headphones or speakers will too. Of course these glitches may be within frequencies we can hear to a degree, but then I question will the glitches be masked by the predominate waveform? Anyway while a part of me enjoys pondering these things, I listen to music to relax and tune out, so...

    All reasons aside, I'm looking forward to hearing Yggdrasil for myself, and hopefully will enjoy it. If I enjoy it, I'm not going to lose sleep over the quest for technically perfect.
     
  16. landroni

    landroni Friend

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  17. Darren G

    Darren G Friend

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    What I heard after upgrading the BIfrost Uber to Multi-bit really kicked in a few days later. It's the forgetting I was listening to 'hi-fi' gear, and increasingly long periods of time just lost in the music. It's a subtle difference, but even a minor difference that removes that digital sheen/glare has a long term dramatic benefit for me. I'm not expecting a dramatic difference between the Bifrost Multibit and Yggdrasil, but I am hoping that it removes just one more layer of that digital noise/repetition that I can't help but hear.
     
  18. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    You will notice a difference that for sure. Going from Gungnir Multibit to Bifrost Multibit I notice that complexities and layering of music is better on Gungnir Multibit as well as bass. Soundstage I haven't tried on my 2.0 setup yet and can't comment.

    Post your impressions! Hopefully you'll still have Bifrost Multibit when Yggdrasil arrives to A/B
     
  19. Darren G

    Darren G Friend

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    /nod, the Mjolnir 2 has that switch for SE and balanced in, so I'll be trying both at some point, eventually sending the Bifrost Multibit to Dad if the Yggdrasil sounds more pleasant.

    That written, for me at least, I think that digital glare, repetition, and aliasing patterns that grate on my nerves is hard to hear in a simple A/B test, but I am guessing my brain registers it, filters it, but still leaves me feeling fatigued. I don't get that sense of fatigue at live events, and tubes have helped, as well as headphone choices, to alleviate that feeling of something is wearing me down, often quickly.

    For whatever it worth, there is a really good website that hosts 3 files to demonstrate MP3. There is the original Tom's Diner, no compression. There is the compressed version, and there is the diff version. If you listen to the diff version it's clear what has been removed. Problem is if I compare the uncompressed version with compressed version, I admit, I really cannot hear the differences consciously (maybe to a minor degree, but not reliably). Our human psycho-acoustics hearing really just is for most of us. Problem is if I listen to the full song, compressed vs not-compressed, many times over, one leaves me fatigued, the other does not. I have a very 'prove it to me' kind of mind, and well aware of the placebo effect, but I'm also open to the possibility that while we cannot consciously hear something, our brains have to work harder to sort through the noise, artifacts, etc, which leads to fatigue vs 'that just sounds amazing!'
     
  20. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Wow. My respect for RH has increased as much as my respect for JA had decreased.
     

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