Schiit Urd Impressions

Sorry for the late reply. Have been busy after the "first impression" post last week. I compared the AES and coax (an old Straight Wire digital cable for video). The differences are in line with the commonly-accepted general differences between AES and coax. The AES connectors/cable provides a little better resolution, a little better microdynamic, etc. Thus, I would say that there might be a bit differences in technicality ( 0.3 out of 10) but no differences in musicality.

BTW, although I don't have any other modern CD transport to compare with to see whether Urd is better in the value/price aspect, the Urd + Yggdrasil combo changed my expectation of CD playback. The differences between CD and vinyl playback are narrower. All songs played sound realistic, relaxing, and emotionally engaging. I also felt that the Yggdrasil OG/A2 has blacker blackground with the Urd, compared with streaming.

 

OY that’s my baby you’re calling lowly!

 

those are others im quoting, who think little of your amazing device. man, i rep that thing any chance i get, u don’t gotta worry ab me

most stable piece in my system for over a year (since i came back into the game) lol.

 

I hate that I am getting into the audiophilia nervosa domain, but wanted to share that the usb cable between the Urd and the Yggdrasil (maybe also other Unison DACs) can affect sound noticeably. I was using an old Belkin USB-A to USB-B gold cable (mentioned by several SBAF senior members) with an Amazon brand "Uni" pigtail usb-C male to usb-A female adapter for my previous post. Today I tried with a new Amazon USB-C to USB-B cable, a gold plated 6ft cable from Amazon's "Cable Creation". The cable is thinner than most, the sound was quite inferior to the Belkin cable.

 

Don't feel crazy. I had the same thing happen. Ordered a similar cheap Amazon B to C cable (looks the same as the Cable Creation one). I heard irritating etchy treble.

I switched to a monolith usb A to B cable with a decent quality A to C adapter like you (had these both laying around for years). Sounded much better (smoother). Very strange. I thought a USB cable with no adapters would sound better. Even if "cheap".

 

Maybe others just don't have the use-case, but one neat aspect of what I do with sticking ifi idefender+'s and good psu's on powered USB extension cables that have repeaters in their female ends, is that whatever short hifi USB cable you attach after the idefender+ becomes the entire sonic character of the cable. I swear the signal just doesn't care about what it went through before hitting the repeater. I've used a $300 Paul pang USB cable I have both from the back of my PC to ddc's, and also between the "ifi extender" setup and the ddc, and there's no difference at all.

I used to do more extreme distancing with an adnaco optical to USB card, with a 30-foot network optical cable and an ifi ipowerUSB powering the shielded USB hub at the end, which then had the Paul pang plugged in for 33ft total (lol). I don't do that now because it refuses to work with win10, but I also think it had more jitter than what I do now, which has extremely little by the time my DAC sees it.

 

I don't think isochronous mode is used in modern implementations, most are asynchronous. At least this is my impressions from top of the head.

 

Isochronous is not the same as “synchronous”.
Modern USB DACs are isochronous/asynchronous.

 

does anyone know if Urd detects CD pre-emphasis and therefor applies CD de-emphasis ?

(a) in CD table of contents (ToC) only
(b) in CD subcode (SubQ) only
(c) in both CD ToC and SubQ
(d) Urd does not detect pre-emphasis at all

 

Hi @JayNYC
Jason discusses this on the most recent Darko Audio podcast here (answer, no):
https://darko.audio/2023/07/podcast-schiit-urd-syn-w-jason-stoddard/
Cheers
Ant in Brisbane

 

Just wondering, how is the Urd as a plain old DDC (USB in -> AES out)?

 

Just ordered an URD, will compare it to a PSaudio Memory transport.

 

Which USB-C to USB-B cable did you use?

 

Do you prefer the AES connection over Unison?

 

here is a quote from another thread:

 

Also, I found that the USB cable is critical to the final sound. Most USB-C to USB-B cables from Amazon sound terrible. I used a short USB-C to USB-A pigtail adapter connected to an oldy-and-trusty Belkin F3U133-GLD USB-A to USB-B gold plated cable. With this cable and adapter and based on my meaty-and-warmy taste, I am using the Unison for the Urd and Yggdrasil OG/A2.

My AES cable is a decent one as well - Neutrik XLR gold connectors and Mogami 110Ω AES/EBU digital audio cables (W3171). The differences between Unison and AES are very subtle. I would say that they are slightly different flavors. YMMV

 

Not to wander too far off topic, but I was doing the same USB-A to -B plus adapter dance until I found this:

Amazon.com: NEO Oyaide d+ USB Type-C Class B Cable - 0.7 Meter (2.2 ft) : Electronics

It's indistinguishable from a $120-ish Wireworld USB-A to -B, soundwise, IME.

 

Thanks for the tip!

 

I used that cable USB A to B and it's decent. However into Yggdrasil I found I preferred the one from Ghent Audio. He will do USB B to C now as well:

https://ghentaudio.com/products/u360?VariantsId=12966,12972,15138

Price is similar but you might have to wait a bit longer for him to make and ship it.

 

After much reading I cancelled my order for the URD. I'm surprised Mike let some of these peculiar design operations go.
Start by the WAY too small and really not descriptive indicator screen. There are others using the track control forward and back. I hate using USB for anything after all the "decrapifiers" BS even if it does not apply here. Also I don't like the form factor, It looks cheap which it is not. This, and I have not heard it. Hate waiting on anything.
I have read about changes to the second run of these. But no real specifics. Come on Schiit this is been development for 2 years +. My observations.