Schiit Yggdrasil Stereophile Review + Measurements

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

  1. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    @baldr seems to have decided on a non-response:
     
  2. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    Having heard the Yggdrasil several times I found it strange that JA didn't say something about how it sounds versus how it measures. He has done this so frequently for other products that it really stood out.
     
  3. Dino

    Dino Friend

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    I had not seen that, thanks.
     
  4. baldr

    baldr Schiit-sterer

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    I just said no to a manufacturer's comment - it is too much effort for a rigid publication which caters to a market in which our sole interest is for them to know that we exist. We can have no expectation that they will offend 95% of their ad revenue sources for us. The old J. Gordon Holt days of suicidal honesty are gone.

    Those folks are interesting to hang with. They pride themselves in being progressive, but bring to mind the aged members of the upper classes in Franco's Spain. They chatter endlessly about the agony of low class audio and how the masses are being duped because they deserve it. They brag about their brand of Scotch, not realizing that there are fewer of them every year's class reunion (especially CES, RMAF). They toast their dwindling number every year, just knowing that audio 1978 is just around the corner and all will be well again.
     
  5. atomicbob

    atomicbob dScope Yoda

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  6. dmckean44

    dmckean44 In a Sherwood S6040CP relationship

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    Reichert's print review was flattering anyway and you're already sold out of Yggdrasil's because of it. I would imagine right around half of the Stereophile readers don't really pay too much attention to measurements unless there's something obviously wrong, like the unit failing during measurements. It was only their facebook comments yesterday that were out of line.
     
  7. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    JA's obsolete and truncation comments might be the handy reasons they leave it out of the Class A recommended list. I've heard ten of the DACs on the Class A recommended list. The Yggdrasil deserves to be there.
     
  8. iDesign

    iDesign Almost "Made"

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    Ironic that so many of the products on Stereophile's own list of Recommend Components are "obsolete."
     
  9. DigMe

    DigMe Friend

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    I noticed that he responded to some more comments on FB today but he did NOT respond to Jason's comments. :rolleyes:
     
  10. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    Man Stereophile FB went down in flames with comments.

    I have a lot of respect for JA. I think I understand some of the non-idealities in the Yggdrasil design which are apparent in some of his measurements (and @atomicbob and @Marvey). There is no perfect product.

    All that said, and based on JA measurements, I don't share JA opinion that Yggdrasil is an obsolete design (just as I don't agree with Mike's anti-DeltaSigma crusade). It's just, well, different. And it gets the job done. I feel Yggdrasil is a better product than some other more expensive ones JA has endorsed in the past. All I can say is that reviewers are human, and have their own preferences and opinions. Clearly Yggdrasil is not JA's favorite product. His is just an opinion.
     
  11. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The 4 LSBs in 24-bit mastered recordings is noise. The analog chain, from the microphone to the console to whatever is after it to the final product will not have a signal to noise ratio more than 120db which is 20 bits. Maybe 80 to 90db for good recordings.
     
  12. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    The noise is still part of the information, or else how could we hear a difference between 16 and 20 bits with a recording that has a noise floor higher than 16 bits? Still, being able to reproduce the stuff below 21 bits is probably much less important than being able to reproduce the 20 MSBs accurately all the time.
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I can hear the difference between a 24 bit recording and the same recording decimated to 16 bits.

    I cannot hear the difference between a 24 bit recording and the same recording decimated to 18 bits. 20 bits didn't do better than 18 bits either.

    The difference between 16 bit and 18 bit recordings is quantization error, error in the Y-axis or amplitude, from lack of granularity. The side effect of this is quantization noise, which limits the dynamic range. But quantization error still relates to inaccuracy. After some point, quantization error / won't matter as it's overtaken over by noise inherent in the system.

    Note that I don't hear a difference in resolution between the 18-bit Gungnir MB and 20-bit Yggdrasil. In fact, the tube output stage I jiggered on to Gungnir out-resolves Yggdrasil.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2017
  14. baldr

    baldr Schiit-sterer

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    I have no crusade against deltra sigma dacs. I have designed several, including some currently in production at Schiit. They do have advantages:
    1. They are cheap.
    2. They generally come with designer's recipes so that any primate has the ability to design one. This results in a market with an over-supply of such DACs
    3. They are cheap.
    4. They are cheap.

    In fact, Schiit's cheapest DAC offerings are all Delta Sig.

    They do have one disadvantage:
    1. In the context of good multibit designs they sound uninvolving to harsh, and all and all just like ass by comparison.
    At the low end of the spectrum, I suppose they belong in the same league as Taco Bell. DS DACs make music just as Taco Bell forms a stool.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2017
  15. Smitty

    Smitty Too good for bad vodka - Friend

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    Reminds me of the now deleted THD plot from MSB, where they took a 110 db SNR plot, and shifted it to make it look like the top tier DAC had 190 dB snr.
     
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    The problem isn't too different from the photography world. Too much emphasis on the wrong things like megapixels - people not realizing the megapixels stuff has always been bullshit because they don't understand the Bayer RGBG arrangement of the photosensors or the downsides of small photosensors.

    We get bullshit from Neal Young on hires audio, British wankers on MQA, etc. I remember the technical discussions on SACD / DSD many years back and laugh at how stupid it all was. Did you guys know that SACD / DSD has an effective bitdepth of 4 bits around 40-50kHz? And that the SACD spec requires a filter to roll off high frequencies after 24-30kHz? So much for "hires".

    Sorry, I'll take the "obsolete" 16.2 megapixels from my Nikon Df instead of 24 megapixels from the D5200.
     
  17. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    I agree about the price and convenience. The price is likely due to volume. The design convenience difference is likely due to the poor audio interface and feature support from the multi-bit DACs used in some of Schiits products. This is likely because such DACs were originally not intended for audio applications.

    It does not necessarily mean Delta Sigma DACs perform poorly relative to the DAC selected in the Yggdrasil.

    I feel price and design inconvenience does not imply performance.

    That is a colorful opinion I respectfully do not share.
     
    Last edited: Jan 21, 2017
  18. Ash1412

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    Is this like ISO noise vs film noise? I know for a fact that ISO noise looks like absolute crap regardless of how much there is while film noise can be aesthetically pleasing when subtle. About the higher megapixels thing, I think that increasing the number of pixels in the image would reduce errors when downscaling to fit computer screens by giving the scaler more pixels to work with, but making higher resolution screens to the point where we can view 16mp 1:1 also reduces error by downscaling less . Unless you crop the **** out of every photo, which basically takes the fun out of composing shots altogether, 16mp is probably good enough.
     
  19. Rotijon

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    The Yggdrasil should be in the A+ category i reckon, most of the dacs there are not exactly as good or better than the Yggdrasil.
     
  20. Grahad

    Grahad Friend

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    You could say DS DACs are like Bayer filters, whereas R2R is like a Foveon/film. Very hard to get it to work, demanding of environments (needs to be warmed up/low ISO only etc) but delivers a result like no other. But DS has a ease of use and the top end has enough compensation applied that they're the dominant choice.

    It was an attempt to make it easier to follow, as if you sample from a distribution you get (sample+deviation), so you sample enough such that the +ve and -ve deviation cancel out and you approach Gaussian, much like the noise in the DAC.
     

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