Yggdrasil Refined - New Schiit Yggdrasil Analog 2 (Yggdrasil A2) Sound Impressions

@RobS



Raw track of Geoffrey Keezer on piano played through this chain:
DAW -> Rednet -> Yggdrasil A2 -> Coleman M3 -> JBL LSR-305


Raw track of Geoffrey Keezer on piano played through this chain:
DAW -> Rednet -> Yggdrasil A2 -> Coleman M3 -> ADAM S3-A

 

Sure.

PC desktop USB -> Yggdrasil -> Goldpoint SA1X -> monoblock Vidars -> Emotiva T2s/JBL 530s/Elac Debut B6.
PC desktop USB -> Yggdrasil -> Goldpoint SA1X -> JBL 305s

I said before I think my speakers suck, for a variety of reasons. Those Emotiva T2s with its AMT tweeter sound way too soft, dull, boring and need a DAC to kick it in the pants to wake it up. 530s remind me of some junk Martin Logan speakers at Best Buy and the Elac Debut B6, while sounds normalish is just veiled to hell. I even said I preferred music thru my HD650s over the speakers I have, that's how much they suck. I would love to take a chainsaw or stick some dynamite in these speakers. I made the mistake buying this crap without hearing them first.

I've had the B6s for a few years, T2s for almost a year (same with Vidars), and 530s half of that. I'd say I'm familiar with their own sound characteristics to separate those out of the equation when evaluating a new component in the chain. As I said, I'm under no illusion my setups are even remotely high fidelity or even barely out of lo-fi, so my impressions with the Yggdrasil can be thrown in the garbage. I just think there are particular traits of the Yggdrasil that I do not like which I think would carry over to any other system I would slot it in, get to those in a minute.

I agree on the upfront staging, that I don't have a problem with. It's the width and depth of the soundstage I take issue with. No matter how I tried to adjust my speakers, including the 305s which as I'm sure you know ain't really an imaging/soundstage champ anyway, I could not fix that closed in boxy stage. Too much of that lower background information is brought up to the point I think hurts its depth. The width of the stage has clear boundaries but it was more narrow to me than the Gungnir A1 was. Even on the HD650, which already has a fairly intimate headstage (but opens up in width with Valhalla 2) I don't get that width like the Gungnir.

On the semantics thing. I'm trying to use similar vocabulary as used on other reviews by senior members to keep a consistency. If I try to come up with my own vocab it would turn out as a jumbled incoherent mess, which I already admitted is the case in a few of my posts earlier in this thread. I'm not a musician, producer, or any of that so again my impressions are probably worthless anyway and I should stick to lurking.

Yes lack of body. But I wouldn't say lack of weight either.

Yep. But I also used single ended to Valhalla 2 and HD650.

I agree, I was writing as I was hearing it without considering how my impressions look scatterbrained and contradictory.

Yeah it's a fool errand's to even think about evaluating bass with those 5" woofers. I said in a previous post here that all my speakers don't go down far enough in the sub-bass region anyway.

The biggest problem I had with the bass though, which is what Psalm a few posts back, is it has this "one note bass". It wasn't as defined or nuanced as the Convert-2 was in this area. And there was this hardness to it as well, it became quite difficult to discern what notes were being played too. BTW I don't consider the Convert-2 warm at all, that upper bass doesn't bloom or bleed into the lower mids. It just has a superb rendering of mid-bass to upper bass I have ever heard, in terms of how articulate, refined, punch and boom. It's neither overpresent or underwhelming, it just sits right. It's funny how every other DAC in comparison to the Convert-2, you can immediately determine their weaknesses in this bass region (as I said can't evaluate sub-bass as mine don't go that low).

To sum up I found the Yggdrasil's A2 bass to be bloomier, fatter in the upper bass, looser and flabbier, lack of overall definition when directly comparing to the Convert-2. I don't mind a little warmth, but it's just a notch more in the warmth area than I would like.

I found this consistent with the other speakers, not just the 305s.

What I meant is context in so far as my speaker setups. That's why I said feel free to dismiss my impressions since I may have bottlenecked the DAC somewhere in my chain.

I think context does matter a fuckton when one is reading impressions from various members. We have to keep in mind those impressions are formed by other components, rooms, as well as personal biases, preferences, and so forth. For example I think I read somewhere in that Convert-2 thread someone couldn't hear much of a difference in their setup, that could be because maybe DACs don't really matter a whole lot with the amps and headphones they had paired with it. That's where YMMV comes in.

I hear you and will take you up on not coming back with a week with mixed feelings.

Bottom line for me though, and the reason I truly did not like the Yggdrasil, is how universalized it made every recording I threw at it. It made every recording sound dull, muddy, boring, staged exactly the same, and as if I was hearing recordings submerged under a greyish goop. It was very difficult to distinguish poor recordings from good ones. I forgot to try Robert Johnson cause his recordings all sound like he was hollering through a screen door, maybe it would have softened those up. Yes each DAC has its own "signature", including the Convert-2, but the Convert-2 is masterful in that it mostly vanishes behind the music without drawing attention to itself like the Yggdrasil does. Convert-2 also has a total lack of compression which allows instruments and vocals the room to breathe, but also letting them stand on their own and shine forth. Yggdrasil is much more congested here and gets muddy especially in busy pop/rock songs. Maybe too much detail is thrown at you and they are all trying to vie for your attention? I dunno.

 

You can hear everything wrong with these DACs through the 305 mk2. You just have to be aware of the boxiness and low mid cab resonances that accentuate recorded instrument resonances. It’s just small and boxy and runs out of power at higher volumes and you have to know what it does and what that means on bigger speakers just like an NS10. If you don’t have bigger, better speakers, you’re not to be able to do this. I have a Dynaudio system in my car that kicks ass for this.

The mk1 JBL tweeter and cabinet were far more offensive and less revealing. I hated them. This held back the monitor far more than the AD -> DA conversion in it. Now, the mkii is one of the more reactive cheap speakers due to the real soft dome that has ferrofluid now to not cook their stereo image right away when you play Van Halen with the guitar hard panned to one side and the reverb to the other. More so than Yamaha, KRK, and Adam tweeters. Those are all less reactivity but sound good. For better reactivity while keeping the soft dome detail is have to drop 2k+ for the non gimped Dynaudio, Quested, ATC, etc which are light years ahead of any JBL.

Stuff like Amphions, Adams, Barefoots and won’t curl up and die with super unclean, I’ll-defined recordings like the JBL 305 mk2 will. They’re closer to euphonic, big sounding hifi speakers. They mostly all sound good. That is not always a good thing. Granted the JBLs won’t pimp slap you in the face like the British monitors will but they do get incredibly nasty and small recordings and gear sound MINISCULE on them.

 

All that being said. I agree with @purr1n . I don’t use the Dangerous products anymore because they lack treble detail and strip the mud out a bit on both da and ad conversion. I like my mud and nasty guitar amps intact. If I don’t have to pay the utmost attention to hear the notes on Immortal’s Battles in the North, then something is sterilizing the sound a bit, making it a bit more palatable for consumers. Dangerous is just hi-fi sounding compared to what I use now and endgame detail brands like Prism (phat and dry. Rob would hate it) or the Apogee Symphony II SE module (warm and soft. Rob would hate it). It sounds great but that’s not how the sound really was before. Something is gone. Current Schiit adds some upper bass mud and sorta blends everything together into a presentation the Schiit dudes think is cool but that’s what it does. it doesn’t try to hide it or sterilize the sound.

 

Yeah I think what you said how the Convert-2 sterilizes the sound a bit and cleans everything up is more of my preference. The lack of compression and clarity that DAC has just makes all the others I've listened to muddy in comparison. I just don't hear the dialed in euphony of the Yggdrasil as others do. I didn't hear that on the Bifrost Multibit A2 either, I felt they were too cold and I just could not get emotionally involved. Modi 3 was more euphonious to me, a bit of tube like engagement. Now that you call what I like "hi-fi sounding", I should probably look at speakers that are tuned that way.

 

Today I received the Digigram VX222HR which is the latest PCI version of the soundcard with AES out. This model has now been discontinued and I got a used one relatively cheap for 80 Eur. 24bits/96khz is supported. Most people nowdays would go for the VX222e PCIe I guess. This is my favourite setup for the Yggdrasil so far. Quite a difference to the VX222V2 which does 16bit 48khz only with standard Windows sound driver.
It sounds very transparent and clear. Lots of details in the highs and very precise bass. Never heard the Yggdrasil sound so clear before, I would almost call the sound analytical. No muddiness left in my system now the sound is quite dynamic and fast. Significant difference to SPDIF coax and USB Gen 5. Everyone complaining about the Yggdrasil sounding muddy should try this although it is not a cheap option. The Digigram VX222e sells for around 600 Eur new and around 300 Eur used.

 

Interesting you're hearing clarity now after I pointed out the muddiness. VINDICATION!!!!!!!!1

Should have bought the Pi2AES, it's the new hotness.

 

Good stuff! They make great cards which beat the Lynx stuff ime. Also out of the box linux support if you install alsa-firmware and your pulseaudio is up to date for general stuff.

 

I love mine. I have never heard the Lynx or RME cards but I compared the Digigram to the Rednet AES16r, or whatever it was called 4 years ago, and the Digigram was better. You can sometimes find them for cheap. I got mine off ebay for a little under $300 usd used. Your description is spot on by the way.

I am building a Pi2AES so I'll be comparing the two soon.

 

It's not the new hotness, this is not Head-Fi. AES has always been the recommended connection for the Yggdrasil a2. Pi2AES just makes it cheaper/easier to output clean AES/i2s signal.

 

Right it was Unison before that for a blip.

I'm happy to hear the Buddha has reached enlightenment with his new PCIe card and my impressions were useful to someone.

 

Among all USB connection, Yes it is good.
But I guess no one suggested to use Unison if you have good AES or Coax source

 

I'd buy another Modi Mulitbit or Modi 3 if it came with Unison. If the impressions are right, would be a great input for how those DACs sound.

I vastly prefer the voicing of the Modi Mulitbit over the Yggdrasil/Bifrost Multibit A2. More engaging and doesn't leave me feeling cold. Details aren't pushed forward and thrown at you, it's more organic. The only area where I think the higher up Multibit DACs are better is the bass, although each of the DACs I've heard have their own unique weaknesses in bass.

 

Same here. My sources have either been USB into Gen 5, if the Schiit DAC has it, or Eitr if not. CDP, when it wants to work. Now I'm all into this autistic tweaker shit with a RedNet box.

 

I believe you cause it stayed congested the entire time for me. I never gave it more than 3 weeks though. It just wouldn't open up. And the unit I had supposedly only had 10-15 hours of use on it, so probably needed more time to stabilize than a well worn unit.

I still think part of the problem is the USB. I know folks say Gen 5 is OK, but I didn't like it on the Bifrost Multibit A2 either. Someone here posted about hearing the hardness in bass that I did over USB Gen 5 but I can't find that post.