Schiit Yggdrasil Stereophile Review + Measurements

x2. I'm one of the weirdos in the minority that slightly preferred my Gungnir DS/Wyrd over the Gungnir Multibit/Wyrd, listening side by side over a period of weeks. I'm happy to hear that Schiit will continue to push/develop DS and MB designs.

 

I have read people measuring LP playback and assigning bit and resolution rates to the results. They have always been low. That "proves" that LP playback is inferior to redbook digital according to those people. (Actual listening is not a factor.)

I don't know what brought this to mind.

 

Because at the end of the day the bits don't matter and what matters is what reaches the ear.

(The claims come from the noise floor - and how many bits you need to encode the signal so that it's above the noise floor).

 

What baffles me with LPs is the rather lacklustre channel separation (~40 dB in many cases). That may be what causes some to prefer LPs over digital sources as mixing in small proportions of the opposite channel can create the perception of space (sound stage).

I bet many prefer LPs for emotional reasons. I miss the ritual of putting on an album at times. The cleaning of the stylus, cleaning the record, carefully moving the tone arm, ... An LP was a work of art - or in many cases two works of art (an A side and a B side). Then there are the imperfections (clicks, pops, dust, etc.) Even when I hear albums on CD, I still anticipate where the clicks and pops were on my records. For many that adds a sense of nostalgia, which makes people feel warm and fuzzy inside (there's actually science to back this up!) Who cares about ENOB, SNR, channel separation, and deviations from the RIAA curve when you can get the limbic system involved and feel all warm and fuzzy?!

I'm not knocking LPs. I miss the experience sometimes. There's no shuffle mode on LPs. You get the music as a work of art, the way the artist intended. That's fairly easy to recreate in digital, though.

Tom

 

My original point was - the listening experience is more important to me than the measurements. I may not have done a very good job with that.

(I didn't intend to start an analog vs. digital discussion. )

 

Thanks for making the Yggdrasil, Gungnir Multibit, Bifrost Multibit, and Theta DACs. They are the still some of the only R2R DACs I have heard that achieve the great separation, depth, and detail without sacrificing tonality. The PCM1702, PCM1704, and discrete resistor guys kinda shit their pants with regards to definition, attack, clarity, texture, usability, and actually making stuff that works right without throwing money at the problem.

 

Thanks Mike,

I'm also a big fan of the Yggdrasil and Schiit in general. The Yggdrasil was one of my first high end DAC, before things started getting out of hand and i find myself more and more tempted by car priced ones.

One thing i'd like to ask, is that, are there currently any ongoing plans to improve the digital segment of the DAC? Will using say 4 chips (or increasing number of chips) per channel result in any improvement, or is it just a pointless exercise in futility.

 

The way this thread is going, it often feels as if each separate way at making DAC's, are like multiple religion, especially, considering the amount of "Believe" used in each sentence.

One would think that the results dictate the approach, not the other way round .

I kid, i know the schiit gang would not have gone this path if the math have not checked out.

But god, please make a better DAC or a turntable.

 

The farther you dig into science (and engineering, I gather, and statistics, etc.), the stronger you bump into "fundamental" 'beliefs', 'assumptions', 'philosophies'... Or as the old adage tells it, "the more you learn, the less you know".

At a certain level what really matters, and what distinguishes you from this school of thought or that school of thought in your domain, is deeply cherished personal beliefs about the world around you and what factors really matter or what assumptions really hold (or not). These things aren't easy, and sometimes we know (as in really KNOW, with "absolute" certainty) less than we think. How do you "universally" prove what sounds better?

 

When you think about it 35 db of channel separation is plenty. Even with open headphones in a room you won't get much better than 30db channel separation (in the upper midrange) because of the room reverb. With speakers that is often more like 5-15 db, with essentially 0 in the bass.

Sure, that's not exactly comparable to vinyl playback itself because there's a time delay added for the left channel to mix with the right one for headphones, but 35-40 db is impressive for vinyl.

 

I strongly believe that there is no music reproduction device which, despite it's informational output, could elicit an emotional response from me when I'm well... not in the mood. Information, musical or unmusical, alone will never be sufficient for an emotional response. Emotions are by and large chemistry in this case dictated by your brain which might have been impacted by the atmospheric changes in your earholes.

If your brain is busy worrying about the evils of DS conversion principle, then the magic won't happen, no matter what information is being fed. Which is why all kinds of audiophile accessories actually work. For some it's brilliant marbles, for others - ripping the case off a DAC. Whatever works, just don't get effin zapped to death!

 

Probably because your playback rig is mid-fi tbh fam

Otherwise this is a straw-meme argument