Yggdrasil A2 Measurements - Deconstructing ASR / Amir's Hack Job

Discussion in 'Source Measurements' started by purr1n, Jun 7, 2018.

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  1. Merrick

    Merrick A lidless ear

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    I for one hope more people believe in Amir’s measurements. Then I can generously offer to take the tainted Yaggys off their hands for pennies on the dollar, and promise to dispose of them with extreme prejudice.

    Then, free Yaggys delivered to random members of the forum!
     
  2. Vtory

    Vtory Audiophile™

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    I do want a free Yggdrasil A2 ... but isn't it difficult to assume Yggdrasil A2 owners believe in Amir? Such owners may not seriously take dac measurements (if they do, they cannot dump $2500 on multi-bit).
     
  3. direstraitsfan98

    direstraitsfan98 D2Girls v2.0

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    If Amir has an agenda against schiit, what I'm wondering is, why? Financial gain to be had from reviewing their products badly? At attempt to make himself and his community stand out? Sheer boredom? Or maybe he enjoys the drama and negative attention. I find it hard to believe someone could be so meticulously malicious to falsify info of this scale...but who knows what goes on in the mind of Amir...
     
  4. direstraitsfan98

    direstraitsfan98 D2Girls v2.0

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    Yes please! I've always wanted a Yggdrasil A2 for my bathroom music setup :p
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Envy - arising from internal poverty.
     
  6. direstraitsfan98

    direstraitsfan98 D2Girls v2.0

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    I suppose that's the most simple and logical answer. Is there a backstory between Amir and Schiit or it's founding members we are unaware about? Hmm...
     
  7. supertransformingdhruv

    supertransformingdhruv Almost "Made"

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    Liberal use of Occam's razor; it might also be as simple as sensationalism driving pageviews. Targeting a few popular pieces of gear that a lot of folks in the hobby own/recommend helps funnel readers from high-traffic sites like reddit/head-fi to his site. Pitch a few alternatives in similar price ranges from a few different companies (topping/rme) and suddenly he might look super reasonable to the casual entrant.
     
  8. drgumbybrain

    drgumbybrain Science Nut

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  9. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    Interesting thread. I've been poking around various audio forums for quite a while now, though this is the only one I've actually joined so far. The people at ASR seem, frankly, kind of sketchy. I like scientific measurements as much as anyone, but sometimes they still come with an agenda, and that is the vibe I get there. I think I will be trusting the educated opinions of the folks here going forward.
     
  10. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Schiit sells DACs; Amir wants to sell DACs. Maybe?
     
  11. 9suns

    9suns [insert unearned title here]

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    Dude is just messed up in the head, he posted this:
    https://www.head-fi.org/threads/schiit-yggdrasil-impressions-thread.766347/page-561#post-14291750
     
  12. atomicbob

    atomicbob dScope Yoda

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    Wait, he had to travel 75 miles, one way, to access a Yggdrasil? Doesn't he reside on the eastside of Lake Washington? There are yggdrasils all over the greater Seattle - Bellevue - Redmond area. No one trusted him to borrow a yggdrasil?
     
  13. Erikdayo

    Erikdayo Friend

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    Perhaps it's because he's made a few too many enemies locally? (and probably worldwide)
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
  14. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    He only had a few hours to measure? That's pretty important info. That means he really only had time for one run and almost no time for troubleshooting.

    Does this mean his data should be dismissed? no. But what he could have said is:

    "I only had a few hours to take this data so please take my charts with a grain of salt. This should give you a preliminary view of how this behaves."

    Instead we get solid conclusions of how Schiit likes to scam their customers. He's being deliberately misleading. Marv is right, this isn't carelessness, this is hate.

    DO NOT TRUST!!
     
  15. Elnrik

    Elnrik Super Friendly

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    Would you?

    hehehe
     
  16. 9suns

    9suns [insert unearned title here]

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    My "I'm bored right now" theory:

    - According to his Head-fi account, he's a MOT ("Madrona Digital"), so he sells or will sell DACs.
    - He's also like 50-60 years old, and worked as Windows' Corporate Vicepresident (that's what Linkedin says), so very close to retirement (seems like a good retirement plan).
    - Due to his job, he probably knows quite a bit of rich people (not audiophiles, just rich people).
    - He's against Schiit because, AFAIK, Schiit is the only manufacturer that makes fun of the off the shelf, point per point equal to what the spreadsheet says Delta Sigma DACs.
    - He probably plans to sell one of those me too Delta Sigma DACs with a fancy chassis and a high pricetag.
    - He opened the forum to market his future shiny rebranded Topping Sabre/AKM/whatever DAC as "the best measuring, so it's the best one, look at this other raved POS, I've measured it and is crap".
    - His zealots will treat him as God, so this coupled with the measurements makes something like the Cheerleader Effect to people that is new to audio and "quick and easy" to explain to rich people.
    - If the company is successful, he'll want to sell it to someone like Harman or that stupid group that bought Innerfidelity.
    - Enjoy the retirement money + the money from selling the company.

    All the above, mixed with his "personality" (IMO, serious sociopathy and all kinds of mental problems) that's what I think about why he's doing this.
     
  17. Torq

    Torq MOT: Headphone.com

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    I could have given him access to both an original and Analog 2 Yggdrasil side-by-side.

    Right on his doorstep.

    The chief problem with that being that, well, I've met him.

    And having met him, I'm reminded that at Microsoft I was getting paid for my pain ... no such incentive these days.
     
  18. supertransformingdhruv

    supertransformingdhruv Almost "Made"

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    Some or all of this story doesn't check out...

    "I will post later but for now, I made two trips to measure the Yggdrasil DAC. Each incurred 150 mile round trips to measure the units since I could not borrow them for extended testing. I had a few hours to test these DACs and a number of others members of our audiophile society had for me to measure."

    Some rough numbers based on the emphasized parts of the quote.
    • Travelling 75 miles takes a rough minimum of one hour (if you were driving at full tilt on a highway) and a rough maximum of two hours (assuming most is on residential roads @ 35), so we'll call it 1.5 hours per travel per direction for a total of 3 hours of driving in possession of the DAC.
    • He had a number of other DACs-- so I'll be as generous with time per DAC as possible (you'll see why in a minute) and take it to mean two other dacs-- for a few hours. Few usually means more than two but less than several, so 3 to 4 hours.
    • This estimate gives us a neat boundary how long it takes to measure one dac at 80 minutes. That seems low to me, but I don't measure DACs so what do I know.
    • Assuming it takes about as long to perform a full set of measurements on the Yggdrasil balanced as it did single-ended, this means he'd be measuring the DACs for 5.3 hours instead of 4.
    • So... his society told him he could have the DACs for 7 hours but not 8.3? Did they hand him a stack of DACs in the morning and tell him "these better be here when I'm back from work" or something?
    Again, I don't measure DACs and I don't know what I'm missing here, but this seems strange.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
  19. dmckean44

    dmckean44 In a Sherwood S6040CP relationship

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    This also implies that the DACs were measured without any warmup period, which isn't ideal for ladder dacs.
     
  20. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    That's the one. Was trying to remember: you found it easily by looking in the right place!
     
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