Yggdrasil MIB was: Jason+Marv Pyrate Edition 11001B

Have you tried the MiB with speakers? My PAP Quintet 15 Horn1's sound too forward and incisive in the lower mids with the A2 (tho female vocals sound godly), the somewhat creamy/muddy and phat bass I can forgive and the zippy highs are very nice too, but due to that lower mid bump it sounds incoherent from top to bottom and lacks a bit prat and timbre compared to A1/GS and MM2.

Where would you place the MM2 in the above graph?
Imho it has great clarity/separation and blackground, which combined creates a really nice timbre.
I am secretly hoping the MiB to sound like the MM2 with a tad sweeter highs...

 

I'm thinking about picking up one of the upgrade cards for this once they become available, I'm pretty interested in hearing how it compares to my LiM. I wasn't able to find anything but has anybody done a guide/instructions for installing the yggdrasil dac cards? I found this old thread from marv on installing usb which shows the disassembly process, so I'm assuming it's more or less the same just with a different board being the one that needs to be removed at the end, not sure if there's anything else special to watch out for there https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...l-gen-5-unison-usb-upgrade-instructions.4842/

 

Disassembly is the same if you’re using the non-+ chassis, so yes, follow that Marv post.

As for the cards, the Unison USB boards have the same types of pins as the Yggdrasil DAC cards, which are a kind of long pointy series that fit into corresponding holes in sockets on the main board, there’s just a lot more of them on the DAC cards than the USB boards. I also think the USB boards are all one row of pins, whereas at least two of the DAC card rows are double sets of pins. This is the trickiest part easily, just making sure you get all the pins in the corresponding holes and not bending them accidentally by pushing in before they are aligned. It can take a bit of nudging to both get them in and out, but you shouldn’t need to apply a tremendous amount of force. Just go slowly and use a space with adequate lighting and a flashlight/headlamp if need be. Otherwise it is just a matter of screwing/unscrewing the boards into/out of the standoffs on the board. Using a non-magnetic Phillips head is best for ESD reasons, probably.

Lastly there is the 8 pin EPROM on the DSP board - this is secured in a spring loaded mechanism kind of way, so grabbing it and wiggling it out for the old one is fine, and simply pressing it into the socket for the new one should also be fine. When you turn on the Yggdrasil after completing the install, if you’ve done things correctly the Yggdrasil will go though a long-ish cycling of the front panel lights that represents its recognizing the new firmware on the DSP board and “installing” it. It will then signal lock like normal.

Take normal ESD precautions of course, as with working with all circuit boards.

If you’ve ever put together a PC or similar, it’s not much different, in my experience. Relatively straightforward-ish, but you can also see where someone who is rushing or careless could mess something up and blame Schiit, which is why they’ve always put up disclaimers for self-install.

Hope that helps.

 

I’m curious as to the Schiit team’s take on the MIB or how they decide on the flavors to serve.

 

Jason touched on that a bit in the Schiit Happened chapter for MIB:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/sch...bable-start-up.701900/page-8646#post-17800056

 

"Of course, we’re still going to try to do an ultimate Yggdrasil. But there’s nothing ready for prime time yet. And, consider that if it’s ultimate, it may cost significantly more."

Wow, a balls to the wall uber Yggdrasil is something I'd be VERY interested in.

 

Well sure, but… (from one of Jason’s profile posts):

 

I also recall Mike saying that the Yggdrasil is already a balls-to-the-wall DAC, and that it would take a whole lot more cash for minuscule gains.

Tho, a $7000 Yggdrasil would make the current Yggdrasil look like a BF2-bargain in the lineup. Other companies would push a snake-oil DAC solely for that reason alone (known as the “decoy effect” in marketing.) Jason is great at marketing, but doesn’t give in to the dark side. I love that about Schiit.

As a result, Jason & Mike would ensure an Uber Yggdrasil could justify its existence. I just wish I could justify it for my budget…
Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to practice much restraint — the Yggdrasil+ is not the bottleneck in my system.

 

Taking a guess at the Schiit pricing habits, it might be pegged at $9,999

 

Ditto with Marv! A tiny little bit of microdynamics for that grit on top of the MIB would be a Super Yggdrasil contender. I'm not bothered with the macrodynamic performance of the MIB which to me is more compatible with more amps and speaker/headphone combinations available on the market

 

I'm not really interested in buying a DAC that requires HQPlayer to sound great / possibly better and not too interested in finding a dealer for an 8K Wavedream and so will content myself with A2 (though will perhaps read up on self-installation of MIB) but definitely hoping for Super Yggdrasil.

 

After a little more than a week of "baking in", finally tried NOS mode. Holy hell, NOS seriously does not suck with the MIB. Instead of a collapsed imaging to a center pancake, making instruments mushy sounding and a modest treble roll-off like on the BF2 OG, I'm somehow getting all the benefits of the NOS without its glaring weaknesses. Vocals are more emotive and a hint more up-front, instruments still sharp and defined, no loss of microdetails, imaging somehow more defined in the slightly smaller space rather than floating around the space like on OS mode, guitars still have that wall-o-sweetness sound. This is the Schiit.

Now I'm so curious how MIB NOS mode compares to the likes of Metrum and Sonnet Pasithea

 

I've got my new MIBestest on top of my A2/og on my bed shelf with my cover guards that I'm very proud of made from photography clamps and poles.



I've got a bad flu/cold and can't hear anything and am not looking forward to comparing DAC's honestly, that's really not any fun. I just had to try a new version of the Yggdrasil in case it was a short lived production. I honestly do not hear fat/bloated bass in my A2/of or incisive treble I don't know where this is coming from, but maybe my. headphones are so neutral that it's not really an issue because it doesn't take them very far from neutral. Most problems with gear happen when problems with headphones combine with problems with amps or DACs and it's like waves colliding or combining in the ocean.

Right now I've got it burning in with my iPod with every genre of music via the USB port. I assume I don't need to burn it in using the port I will use (AES)? and that. DACs don't need a load to burn in like amps?

What I really want changed from the A2/og is a blacker background, and more realism and more grit/detail. Which it doesn't seem like this deviation does, but I'm still curious. Having a neutral DAC is good for making headphones.

 

This is exactly the post I was hoping to see… and now I’ll have to spring for the MIB boards and chassis simultaneously! Overall reception to NOS mode on the Yggdrasil had been mostly lukewarm until now. Excited to try it.

 

Thank you for this, this was helpful - I ended up getting OG boards after thinking about it some more, I took a pic and highlighted the relevant bits while I had it open if there was anyone who was interested in this and wants a visual. The only "gotcha" I would mention that this post didn't mention is that (in the case of the LIM) the boards are channel specific with a dipswitch on the board denoting which channel is left/right. I'm not sure if the MIB is like this or not (the OG boards aren't), it's pretty obvious after you get it open but figured it is worth mentioning.

dac boards are held in place with the screws highlighted in blue, and the rom chip to swap is highlighted in green on the DSP board, can also see the channel switches for the LIM boards on the lower portion.

 

Ah! I always puzzled over those dipswitches were on LIM - never really occurred to me to actual read what it says on the board right next to them, lol.

Anyway, I’m not so sure they dictate what the board outputs, though. I just played around with mine (my chassis is naked right now in anticipation of MIB/nervosa). Both of mine were set to “Left” but channels were appropriate if I did a test track. I noticed when the right board is set to “Right,” though, an LED on the board lights up. My guess is that this is an internal Schiit thing meant to visually test that the boards’ channels are correct via an LED. So, if you switch the right board’s switch to “Right” and the LED doesn’t light up, there’s something wrong, and Schiit would test before shipping. Unsure, though. I kept the right one at “Right” just in case.