Just got a Yggdrasil!

[gmgraves]

I just received a Schiit Yggdrasil DAC. Simply incredible sound!  Yes, $2300 is fairly expensive, but a comparably priced competitor is most assuredly a Delta-Sigma design while the YGGY is a single-bit ladder DAC.  The only other High-end ladder DAC is from MSB (Diamond V) and is more than 10X the price and from what I hear from others whose opinions I value, sounds "comparable". This makes the YGGY an incredible bargain. This example is still stabilizing WRT operating temperature, and sounds better every day*. I was really surprised at the size and weight of the YGGY. I was expecting the thing to be the same size and weight as most other Schiit products, I.E., component half-width (9") by about 2" high. This thing weighs 25 pounds and is 16"wide by about 4" high and probably 12" deep. So far, I have but one "complaint". It needs a remote control to switch between digital sources, and to change absolute phase from one's listening position (right now, you have to get-up to accomplish either). A minor niggle would be that the legends above each light on the front panel are tiny and difficult  (make that nigh impossible) to read. No matter, any DAC that sounds this good for this price is entitled to a few minor shortcomings!

 

 

 

*This not the same as the notion of "burning-in" because if I turn the thing off for any reason, it would take another 5 or so days to get it back to the same point it was before cutting the power, 

[Speed Racer]

Multibit....not single-bit.

 

Once you get your Yggdrasil burned-in, it only take about 48 hours to get it to a thermally stable state from cold.

[gmgraves]

3 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

Multibit....not single-bit.

 

Once you get your Yggdrasil burned-in, it only take about 48 hours to get it to a thermally stable state from cold.

 

Yeah, my bad WRT the multi-bit/single bit business. Thanks for the correction. I don't know what I was thinking

 

Electronics of that type don't "burn-in" as in improving performance. Burn-in is only to weed out units that fail due to "infant mortality", The DAC does need to thermally stabilize, however. Even Mike Moffat says that. 

[Speed Racer]

1 minute ago, gmgraves said:

Electronics of that type don't "burn-in" as in improving performance. Burn-in is only to weed out units that fail due to "infant mortality", The DAC does need to thermally stabilize, however. Even Mike Moffat says that. 

 

Well, there are plenty of people out there, including me from personal experience with my Yggdrasil, that would disagree with you!

[GUTB]

It's widely reported that the Yggdrasil requires 7 days of burn-in, and then it should be left on at all times to avoid it having to re-gain optimal thermal equilibrium.

 

The Yggdrasil's AD5791BRUZ is low resolution but very accurate DAC chip. In conjunction with Schiit's closed-form filters and advanced clocking I could definitely see how it could be compelling.

 

 

[gmgraves]

37 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

 

Well, there are plenty of people out there, including me from personal experience with my Yggdrasil, that would disagree with you!

 

Can you describe the mechanism, at the component level, for this "burn-in? What changes over the burn-in interval? I can understand thermal stabilization on a multi-bit Ladder (R2R) DAC. The values of the resistors in the ladder need to stabilize at their optimum resistance to minimize quantization error. Delta-Sigma DACs don't need this because they are single-bit over-sampled DACs. That's why most DAC units contain Delta-Sigma ICs. They are easier and cheaper to produce than are multi-bit R2R Dacs due to the precision required for the latter. 

Simplified block diagram of a Delta-Sigma DAC

[mourip]

Congrats! I ended up buying two of these. One for my HP rig and the other for my speaker system.

 

It has a wonderfully detailed and non-fatiguing sound. As others do I leave mine on all of the time.

I do not want to debate "burn-in" but mine sounded increasingly better for over a month before settling in at just plain great.

 

Let's just call it magic :-)

[Samuel T Cogley]

I have a Yggy from the first production run.  I'm kind of surprised about the low number I'm seeing WRT the "stabilization time".  In my experience (and many others), the magic number is around 200 hours.

 

I purchased an APC UPS just for the Yggy so it stays on 24/7/365.

[Jud]

16 hours ago, GUTB said:

It's widely reported that the Yggdrasil requires 7 days of burn-in, and then it should be left on at all times to avoid it having to re-gain optimal thermal equilibrium.

 

The Yggdrasil's AD5791BRUZ is low resolution but very accurate DAC chip. In conjunction with Schiit's closed-form filters and advanced clocking I could definitely see how it could be compelling.

 

 

 

Advanced clocking depends; they don't do anything different with USB, and I haven't seen measurements for SPDIF.

[TubeLover]

Congrats on the Yggy. Wonderful DAC, and a "best buy" for the money. 

 

JC

[Speed Racer]

On 3/26/2017 at 6:42 PM, GUTB said:

The Yggdrasil's AD5791BRUZ is low resolution but very accurate DAC chip.

 

I am pretty sure that the AD5791 is considered a high resolution DAC chip.

[crenca]

10 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

 

I am pretty sure that the AD5791 is considered a high resolution DAC chip.

 

In what way (I assume you don't mean mathematically - perhaps you do) is this a debate about "resolution"?  Do you mean the resolution of the analogue output (in that "sounds like" Hi-Fi review sort of way)?

[Speed Racer]

http://www.analog.com/en/analog-dialogue/articles/20-bit-dac-and-accurate-precision-voltage-source.html

[Speed Racer]

What DACs have higher resolution than 21 bits? All the math is done at 32 bits and rounded down to 21 bits just before it is sent to the DAC chip.

[GUTB]

It's a 20-bit DAC in a 32-bit world. But more to the point, it doesn't support DSD or DXD.

 

Native DSD is very very good and DXD sounds amazing. A Yggdrasil owner will never get to enjoy those.

 

Also, high end DACs can resolve 24 bits of high definition audio...the Yggdrasil can't.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Good to read you got a Yggy George! It's a wonderful piece of equipment.  

[Speed Racer]

How many DACs out there have 32 bits of resolution (ENOB)? I am not talking 32 bit math here....

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, GUTB said:

It's a 20-bit DAC in a 32-bit world. But more to the point, it doesn't support DSD or DXD.

 

Native DSD is very very good and DXD sounds amazing. A Yggdrasil owner will never get to enjoy those.

 

Also, high end DACs can resolve 24 bits of high definition audio...the Yggdrasil can't.

 

The DAC designers I talk to all say they can get 20 bits and possibly 21 on a good day with the wind at their backs. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Speed Racer said:

How many DACs out there have 32 bits of resolution (ENOB)? I am not talking 32 bit math here....

 

Zero. 

[Jud]

33 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

What DACs have higher resolution than 21 bits? All the math is done at 32 bits and rounded down to 21 bits just before it is sent to the DAC chip.

 

It's rounded to 24 bits if at all.  21 bits has to do with dynamic range above the noise floor, not internal math.  21 bits is starting to get down into the thermal noise of the equipment.

[GUTB]

39 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

The DAC designers I talk to all say they can get 20 bits and possibly 21 on a good day with the wind at their backs. 

 

The MSB V Diamond can do 26-bit for example.

[Jud]

Just now, GUTB said:

 

The MSB V Diamond can do 26-bit for example.

 

They must have a hurricane at their backs, have a very abnormally high top output, or liquid nitrogen cooling.  Otherwise normal thermal noise would tend to swamp the lower bits of that claimed dynamic range.

[GUTB]

Sorry, I meant resolution in terms of processing resolution. The AD5791 does 20 bits, and other high-end ladder DACs can do 24-bits and above.

 

Some of you guys may not know, but recently Schiit got into an internet battle with John Atkinson (senior editor at Stereophile) who tweeted that the Yggdrasil was obsolete. Jason Stoddard blew a gasket and demanded that Atkinson amend the tweet, who stood by his statement. So Stoddard called up their Stereophile ad manager to make a last minute change to a certain ad placement:

 

[gmgraves]

13 hours ago, TubeLover said:

Congrats on the Yggy. Wonderful DAC, and a "best buy" for the money. 

 

JC

Since it and a $35,000 MSB Diamond V DAC sound pretty much identical, I'd say that it was more than just a "good buy" (I borrowed one over last weekend).

[GUTB]

13 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Since it and a $35,000 MSB Diamond V DAC sound pretty much identical, I'd say that it was more than just a "good buy" (I borrowed one over last weekend).

 

Considering the 7K MSB Analog is clearly superior to the Yggdrasil, it's surprising to hear that the Diamond V performs so poorly.