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

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by drgumbybrain, Jan 16, 2018.

  1. Andre Y

    Andre Y Friend

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    My number for the Yggdrasil A2 upgrade (as well as the Gen 5 USB upgrade) finally came up! I signed up on January 26 and was #74 out of 119 then. I was 32 out of 268 for a while before I got the email today.
     
  2. gefski

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    Got the new Yggdrasil B, so have started the 10,000 hour burn-in. ;) Plan to use the same setup as the A, so am feeding it via Dante Ethernet > AES. Will check the other inputs for functionality in a few days, and I'll probably run into the Gen 5 USB for a week. So I'll have 500ish hours for our May meet at Bottlehead. I won't be posting early quickie impressions, but hope to give some thoughts after I can settle in for some extended listening.
     
  3. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's not burn it, it's a matter of leaving it on. If you want optimal performance at a meet, then hook the Yggdrasil A2 up to a UPS during transport.
     
  4. BillOhio

    BillOhio Friend

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    Yeah, I'm wondering if they had the DACS on UPSs leading up to the show or if they were auditioning headphones on cold dacs.
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    People used to and continue to haul in their Yggys on UPS life support systems at SBAF meets. Off for two minutes, and it takes another eight hours. Off for half an hour, just start over and wait a week. As mentioned before, older units take less time to warm up.
     
  6. BillOhio

    BillOhio Friend

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    I'm not confident that all of the DACs at CanJam were up to temp. @E_Schaaf would know better than me.

    Edit: Just realized this isn't the Cab Jam thread ... :/
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2018
  7. atomicbob

    atomicbob dScope Yoda

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    @gefski does hot transports, as do I, to our local PNW meets. True sine UPS + true sine inverter in automobile to avoid running down UPS batteries on longer commutes. Zero power off time during hot transport. Water resistant carry cases to keep rain out while powered up.
     
  8. johnjen

    johnjen Doesn’t want to be here but keeps posting anyways

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    As far as I know Atomic Bob and Gefski were the 1st to rig up 12vdc to 120vac converters in their cars for our local meets very soon after the Yggdrasil came onto the scene.

    Just say'n is all.

    JJ
     
  9. gefski

    gefski Facebook Friend

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    Yep, my Yggdrasil-A has spent its life "on".

    I am processing music files through the new Yggdrasil-B for a few hundred hours. Is it the consensus that is unnecessary? Thanks!
     
  10. gefski

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    Congrats Bob on being mentioned in Schiit's "SLIGHTLY LESS OBSOLETE" ad!
     
  11. johnjen

    johnjen Doesn’t want to be here but keeps posting anyways

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    Not being a magazine follower where might this AB ad be found?

    JJ
     
  12. gefski

    gefski Facebook Friend

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    May Stereophile. Also a good Holo Spring 3 review (& comparison to Yggdrasil) in it.
     
  13. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    No need for burn in. It's really more a matter of leaving it on for the unit to reach equilibrium. I have noticed that crunching bits makes helps the DAC reach equilibrium faster. My Yggdrasil A2 took three weeks of leaving it on and I have not turned if off since. I'm pretty sure I could have shaved off two weeks had I left my CDP on repeat.

    Just remember that once you turn it off, gotta start all over again, unless your DAC is several years old, in which the time it takes to reach equilibrium is faster. After 20 years, maybe all you need is a few minutes. This was the case for my Theta Gen V.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2018
  14. E_Schaaf

    E_Schaaf MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    I was boothing for Focal / TSAV this weekend. The TSAV team was one of the first to setup any electronics - and that was Saturday at 7am. I'd bet most of the gear wasn't running at the show til around 9, two hours before people started coming in.

    edit: oops, seems like @BillOhio 's and my comments would feel more at home in the CanJam thread.

    Just wanted to be clear about how long everything was turned on over the weekend for the sake of impressions (on the Yggdrasil or otherwise).
     
  15. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    This is just so counter-intuitive to me that shutting it off for even a few minutes to an hour would cause a newer-ish Yggdrasil to take weeks to return to optimal performance. What is it in the DAC that is so sensitive to thermal change? Why would it cool down so fast and warm up so slowly?
     
  16. TwoEars

    TwoEars Friend

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    Maybe the Yggdrasil needs some kind of filament heating circuit to heat up the parts in question, or maybe some start-up over-current kind of thing. I can't imagine most reviewers having the luxury of time to let the DAC heat up for several weeks while the printing press hungrily awaits their verdict.

    Then there's also the thing that I for one like turning off all my electrical equipment when I leave the house, peace of mind in terms of fire safety and electrical bills and all that. Thankfully I agree with Marv and my Theta Gen Va is up to speed after only 5-10 minutes or so.
     
  17. JustAnotherRando

    JustAnotherRando My other bike is a Ferrari

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    There are some comments covering this in the Lyr thread. Doesn't seem to be a matter of temperature, but I don't pretend to understand electronics concepts (if anyone can explain in layman's terms that would be excellent).

    http://superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/lyr-3-discussion-thread.5946/page-18

    I don't like leaving gear on 24x7, it generates heat, and passively running a Gungnir Multibit would cost $36 a year. Not much, but it'd just be sitting pushing heat into an already warm room most the time :/
     
  18. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    Thanks for that, it seems like I was taking "warm-up time" too literally.

    It appears the restarting process is largely independent of temperature (within reason) and more-so dependent on digital calculations that have to be redone upon start-up? If so, why would the calculation time decrease upon more use? Is the information stored?
     
  19. Andre Y

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    It's not calculations: it's the values of the resistors and other things that have to reach an equilibrium. Many resistors change their resistance with temperature: there's a spec for resistors called temperature coefficient which specifies how much a resistor changes its resistance per degree of temperature change. With a 20- or 21-bit DAC, small changes in the lowest bit resistors can have a big effect on the INL and other things that are measured at the lowest bit values (and therefore require the highest precision). And it's not necessarily 1 resistor or even many resistors reaching some value: it's about the whole system coming to equilibrium: you could have a resistor cooler on one side of the chip than the other, and you want both to be at the same temperature.

    I'm not saying that this is what's actually happening with Yggdrasil warmup, but it's one valid physical way for this to happen.
     
  20. Don Quichotte

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    This whole talk about temperature and electronic stabilization reminds me of a pro dac of multibit architecture called Lavry Gold DA924, no longer produced. Interestingly, it had an "oven" inside used to rapidly increase the temperature of and around of the critical circuits requiring it as part of its 2 steps self-calibration. This calibration procedure would initialize every time it was turned on from cold, but would be skipped if it was already warm. Maybe employing such a technology could have reduced the sometimes annoyingly long stabilization time required by the Schiit MB dacs? Overkill of Modi Multibit, I agree, but maybe for the top-of-the-line Yggdrasil...
     

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