Schiit Yggdrasil Less is More (and MIL and OG) Impressions + Measurements

@oceanrace you crack me up, man. Just buy something and try it out already!

 

If you used SBAF as a sample size (not necessarily representative of anything, though), more people stayed with A2 than switched to LIM. Still yeah, A2 cards alone aren’t easy to come by, but you can pretty commonly still find a whole A2 Yggdrasil floating around for under 1800 or so. Haven’t checked HifiShark much since A2 went kaput with Schiit themselves, though, could be harder now. I also think, given that LIM is now a few years old now, you would have seen more A2 cards on the used market around the time of its introduction than right now.

 

Point taken. sorry to bother yall with this.

 

So, I'm also just realizing that literally nobody has dropped MiB impressions.
That said I'm pretty sure with my listening habits and amp that a2 OG is the one i'll keep craving.

But by all accounts the 11001B is better than the 11001A. Aka MiB > MiL

 

Exactly correct- i can only find used full units and they do indeed run about $1700+.

 

Yes

 

FWIW I don’t see many cards at all - LIM, A2, or otherwise - on the market all that often. Full Yggdrasil units are much more common. It’s true A2 is the rarest, but these A1 cards I have also were hard to come by.

For MIB impressions, there’s another thread on here that is finally getting more impressions now that you can buy cards for self-install.

 

Thanks

 

What he means @oceanrace , is we don't usually spoon feed here. All your questions are essentially already answered in these Yggdrasil threads, though you will have to triangulate to your own experience & knowns

 

Yeah I get it. I used to frequent a site called Competiton Diesel when I was deep into building my cummins and re-doing the whole truck; if someone came on there asking stupid questions or that which had already been covered in depth, they were absolutely brutalized. So I get it. Bottom line is I need to take the great information here and just buy the products and hear with my own ears. I remember agonizing over sizing the turbos in my compound setup and finally I settled on what worked absolutely awesome for my intended use of the truck. Same with this deal.

 

I'll put it like this- Yggdrasil is God-tier, just find your flavor.

 

We try to keep the signal to noise ratio high here. Just a friendly FYI

 

You can try a little google-fu for the right thread

You might want to start here https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...b-was-jason-marv-pyrate-edition-11001b.13730/

a quick comparo is in the middle with a graph https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...ason-marv-pyrate-edition-11001b.13730/page-10

This kinda explains how the MIB is “Better” than Less. Not that the LIM is bad, but that it’s not really More. Sorta.

 

And THAT explains why this thread died.
These are super interesting posts. I consider this thread dead now, too.

 

Continuing the journey from my BF 2/64, last Thursday I got an eBay alert for the Yggdrasil search that I had set: a black Yggdrasil+ LIM, basically in mint condition, plus spare A2 and Gen 5 USB boards (having been upgraded by Schiit USA) for € 2200 plus some for shipping. (A new Yggdrasil+ LIM from Schiit Europe is € 2790 - not that they stock it.)



I flickered my eyes, checked the seller rating, and hit "Buy Now" as fast as I could. With mad props to the seller for super-fast international shipping, I already got it in today.

Holy shit, this does NOT disappoint.

I must have spent dozens of hours searching the 'net for justification of this purchase. BF2 vs. BF2/64 vs. A2 vs. LIM vs. foo and bar, you know the deal. You know what? All of the cliches are true. You gotta hear it to believe it.

• The blackground is just wow. First note. Immediate. This coming from a BF2/64.
• Expansive, engaging, smooth, rounded. I know, you read it before. That's the point.
• Skeptical when I read it, but indeed: despite the BF2/64 also having DAC8812 chips, this does not sound like a BF2/64. It's much more mature. The BF2/64 being more than a great DAC in its own right, this is something like finding the finest bottles of an already fine wine.
• As a headphone listener, I do not agree that you're leaving money on the table with an Yggdrasil without a speaker system. With headphones that scale, like my Beyers, the step up in staging is there.

The thing sounds so good, I wonder when I will find enough interest to audition the A2 boards... I will. First listening session, mixing up my playlist, I find myself being significantly more enthralled by everything than the metal songs on the list. A2 boards could be bringing more excitement there.

Is it 2.87x as good as a BF2/64? Not sure if that's a valid question, because how do you put a number on improved fidelity not to mention preference? If you're in the hobby and can afford it - afford, not pay for it - then go right ahead accepting laws of diminishing returns without disappointment. The enjoyment might last longer than a single summer's holiday.

Right now I'm flipping between my custom Eufonika H5 (6SN7) and H7mk2 (E88CC) amps. I intend to keep one of them, and replace the other with the dual-mono AMB ß22 that I'm boxing up. Way too early to call, but so far I'm slightly tilting towards the H7mk2, which is the more transparent / less syrupy of the two - depending on tubes, of course.

To be continued.

 

More is Better DAC rocks too. Best DAC I have heard, kind of limited experience though. I am very happy with it. Combined with Mjolnir 3 amp, such a good stack to listen to.

 

Continuing from just above, I swapped the LIM with the A2 boards.

Well, like a LIM should not be held for a "senior" BF2/64 despite both of them being powered by DAC8812 chips, an A2 should not be held for a "senior" BF2 OG despite both of them being powered by AD57xx chips.

The BF2 OG did not do it for me but boy the A2 goes into different territory. Where I found the BF2 OG to be overtly warm and lacking layering and separation, the A2 has an amazing soundstage I've not heard before. Somewhat paradoxically, it puts you up really close - like front row - but then has unparalleled width. It's like being in the front of the concert, without the hyper-focus on whichever musician's monitor you're closest to, but retaining the full picture.

Comparatively, the LIM puts you back somewhere in the 2nd half of the concert hall for easier listening. It's not as dynamic and depending on genre and preferences, that can also be a good thing. For my progressive rock/metal tastes, I prefer the dynamics of the A2.

So first impressions were like "wow, this is A2 it!"

Then listening some more, I ended up switching back to the LIM. Reasons being blackground and synergy with my single-ended amps.

It's not that the A2's background is grey, but it's just that the LIM's is black. Switching from LIM to A2 you can make it out, but it didn't bother me so much as I was taken away by the soundstage. But when that newness wore off, I found myself missing the blackness.

As I was starting to notice that, I also began questioning the single-ended output stage. Gimped or not? In any case, complex passages of music do become more convoluted. The way I can hear instruments and layers in such passages is the primary gauge of DAC technicalities to my ears, and what I'm looking for. The A2 is great but the LIM is better in that regard, and I have no plans to move to balanced gear.

So yeah, pluses and minuses for sure - starting to realise what "flavour" really means.

Looking at purr1n's chart comparing all the flavours, aligning it with my listening preferences, it does seem like the MIB may be my sweet-spot: a tad less liquid than the LIM, a tad more black, and a notch better separation. Only one way to find out I guess...

 

From the sales of my BF2/64 + OG card I funded a major part of the Yggdrasil MIB cards that I ordered yesterday from Schiit USA.

International shipping plus customs should take somewhere over a week. Then I’ll be in the luxurious position where I’ve got all three A2, LIM and MIB cards to audition!

I don’t plan on being in that situation for long, because I intend to keep only one set of cards and sell the other two. But before I do, I thought to maybe take some of your questions, things you’d like me to try out and listen to.

I don't promise I can or will answer everything but let’s see! These waiting days are a nice period to collect and group your questions.

Here’s the stuff I can play around with, besides the three different sets of analog cards of course:

Amps, all single-ended:

• AMB ß22 (solid state; should be able to finish it soon)
• Eufonika H5 (OTL 6SN7)
• Eufonika H7mk2 (OTL 6N1P/E88CC)
  
• MCTH (hybrid E88CC; boxed up looking for an owner)

Cans, all Beyerdynamic:

• Amiron Home
• T1.2
• T5.2 - 32Ω so doesn’t gel with the OTLs

Sources:

• Deezer 16/44 FLAC over USB
• PlayStation 4 over optical SPDIF

Like I said, not gonna A/B 3 x 4 x 3 x 2 combinations, but if you’ve got some good ones to ask then let’s hear it!

 

Spent the first evening listening to my freshly installed MIB boards. Needs a few days of warm-up and brain burn-in, but first impression compared to my LIM is this:

MIB is in a league of its own in terms of clarity and separation. This is not the first time I'm critically listening to a new DAC, and I'm not oblivious of confirmation bias, but I swear I have again heard details never heard before. Best I've heard so far, no doubt about it. In "Freedom Calling" by the Neal Morse Band, a very complex piece of progressive rock music, I can now make out sprinkling of keys from 05:20 onwards where before I never have. Meanwhile, instruments are clearly and consistently positioned - no walls of sound here like I found (relatively) on the A2 SE out.

I will even venture to say that the MIB scores high on micro-detail, higher than the charts in the other thread might give off. At least, that's what I'm thinking when I clearly make out synth keys being pressed/depressed, string players getting in/out of contact with their instruments. The usual caveat of listening to music and not gear applies, but at least it gives the nod to a TOTL DAC.

Soundstage is more enveloping than the LIM in the sense that it's more like you're in the middle of the music, where the LIM pushes you a few rows out into the concert hall. Neither is better but clearly a matter of preference and genre matching.

The LIM wins on timbre, but again, genre is key. The sax intro to "Stopover - Life" by Moonrise is just eerily good: captivating and reaching straight out into your heart. Honestly the biggest "wow" I had when listening to the LIM. The MIB doesn't do that for me on that particular song. I might describe the sax on the MIB as accurate, neutral, balanced into the mix. It doesn't stand out.

For rock, metal, punk, the heavier kinds, timbre doesn't have a place to shine anyway so that particular quality of the LIM its lost. There, it's the clarity of the MIB that suits. On other genres, it's not that the MIB is bad - like Jason said, it may be the best all-rounder - it may just be that you'd like the LIM better.

All this was paired with my Eufonika H7mk2 and T1.2.

To be continued.

P.S. Couldn't find many pictures of the MIB boards, so here's one:

 

@roderickvd, thanks for sharing! When convenient, could you share more about your thoughts listening to punk, rock, prog, etc. on the two DACs? That's especially important to me as much of what I listen to is pop punk from smaller labels and some of the more mainstream stuff like blink-182, Weezer, etc.

On one hand, the LIM being more subdued in the treble according to user impressions could be a detriment and make them sound too muted. On the other hand, some of these recordings don't have the best cymbal quality to begin with and/or are compressed to hell (like blink's new album, One More Time). So perhaps the LIM makes those more tolerable, especially on a more revealing rig like I have with DSHA-3FN and Utopia.

I'm sure it's a pretty easy decision if you listen to jazz, classical, folks, acoustic, etc. given the LIM's superior timbre.