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. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Those are ear speakers really.
     
  2. Buddha1979

    Buddha1979 New

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    Strange the soundstage with my Yggdrasil is impressive. Instruments are well positioned between the speakers. The soundstage is not what I could call wide but it is kind of 3D. I use 2 VST plugins to further improve the soundstage, make it wider and at the same time to improve the center image. Magical things can be done with some of these plugins.
     
  3. Firegon

    Firegon New

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    I can agree, to some extent. Obviously reaching the level of speakers is impossible, unless we're talking about aformentioned K1000 or SR1a ( although one may call them speakers mounted to the head, especially the SR1a ).

    On the other hand, the inherent limitations of headphones are THE reason why I'm looking for the best possible soundstage, imaging and depth. To at least get something decent. And that isn't easy.

    I'm not judging the soundstage capabilities of the Yggdrasil based on comparisons with speakers or real life, I'm simply comparing it to other DACs I've tested with my headphone setup.
     
  4. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    A little anecdote about Yggdrasil, soundstage, and instrument separation. Early after I set up my Yggdrasil with the speaker system (Hegel H360, KEF Reference 1, REL T7i) I had in my old house, I was listening to Talking Timbuktu, which was recorded at Ali Farka Touré's home in 1993. Listening to one of the earlier tracks, I came up with an image of where Ali Farka Touré and Ry Cooder might have been sitting, pretty close to each other on the left. Searching the Web for info on the recording, and found an item (which I can't find now) where the seating arrangement was described, exactly as I had guessed from listening. I had similar experiences with quite a few other recordings, like the Llibre Vermell I mentioned before, or the outstanding 1950s orchestral recordings of the Chicago Symphony conducted by Fritz Reiner. One observation about this system, BTW, is that we took careful consideration of speaker/sub positioning relative to listening position to minimize room mode/phase issues.

    Another anecdote. In my current house, I have a much fancier Linn speaker system with aggressive room correction because of the difficult geometry/materials of out main living space. A friend who is very familiar with top-notch classical piano (has his own grand at home) was visiting on Tuesday for the first time. We listened to a specific solo piano recording he had in mind. He was very impressed with how it sounded, but we also walked around the space and he observed -- as I did -- that it sounded quite different in different places in the room away from the ideal listening position.

    Reason for these two anecdotes. Components like the Yggdrasil are tuned by their designers for a limited range of use cases that they have available in their labs. They can sound very different in a use case that does not match the design. In particular, everything can get muddled if inter-frequency arrival times and room modes are very different from the ideal setup.
     
  5. Buddha1979

    Buddha1979 New

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    The next card I am going to get (Digigram VX222HR) also has such a black rectangular part near the AES outs and written "PULSE" on it. So I guess that must be a isolation transformer then.
    What is your theory ?
     
  6. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    1. You gotta remember that most modern classical benefits from euphonic gear because it is mostly tame performances recorded in a lame way mostly with crappy to mediocre gear. Some big orchestras and projects will have tons of killer pres into a sick converter (think Merging, Metric Halo, etc) but mostly it’s shitty remote controlled pres (think RME level at best. They’re mostly worse) into shitty thin converters (RME, Digidesign, etc). They need a shit ton of channels so what they can afford is often much worse than a small studio that needs 24 max. So the real deal shit only gets used on smaller string pieces . most of the memed vintage stuff is crappy in a somewhat cool sounding way, not a crappy crap dysentery way like RME.

    the pres and converters used in popular music has gotten much worse in the past 10-15 years too. RME, UAD Apollo, idiots who think Presonus and Behringer sound okay. Blah blah blah. They just use newer chips so have better specs but something from 2000 that sounded great then will still destroy it like Lavry or some of the old UA channel strips with a digital section designed by the Burl guy before the crappy Apollos.
     
  7. allegro

    allegro Friend

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    IMO calling a Yggdrasil "straight up garbage" is pretty extreme. This thread seems to have taken a disturbing turn towards hating on Yggdrasil.
     
  8. Aklegal

    Aklegal Friend

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    When I think of "soundstage" on headphones I am thinking of easily discernible spatial cues and lack of dynamic compression. Honestly I hate referring to that as soundstage but its shorthand for me now. Maybe those old Meier headphone amps with crossfeed circuits have actual headphone soundstage. Both ears have to hear both channels to recreate that sense of space I think.
     
  9. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    All the keyboard warriors hate on Schiit now anyway. It is fashionable and hilarious.
     
  10. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

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    How dare they be successful!
     
  11. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Don't like a piece of gear? You must be a hater of the company. I believe on HF they just delete your posts, so were still slightly better here on SBAF :)
     
  12. joeexp

    joeexp Don't ship this man FD-X1 ever

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    Last edited: Jan 23, 2020
  13. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

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    From observation, some Yggdrasil owners are not immune to new toy syndrome, ie: Gen 3 is incredible, Gen 5 is now more incredible, Unison is incredibly incredible! The same will defend their Yggdrasil religiously while pointing fingers at idiots on Head-Fi -- Queues the chuckling.
     
  14. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Gen 3 was pretty poop.

    Gen 5 was a "good enough" implementation. Better than the majority of butt USB implementations on multi kilobuck gear I've tried. Never tempted me from my Lynx and I wouldn't have accepted it as my only solution.

    Unison is solid but I'm still using my Theta via AES most of the time. I think it's good to the point where I could live with it as my only solution if I was starting fresh.

    Edit: unison starts making a crapload of sense in the context of BF2. I've found Unison BF2 > ZDS to be a potent system for synergistic headphones.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2020
  15. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Everything is relative and a matter of perspective.

    Moving from one USB implementation to another when you’ve been listening to something for 6 or 12 months or more can sound like a major improvement. But someone coming to that from a good SPDIF transport or a better USB inplementation might go “meh”. This is why context and keeping hyperbolic language in check is important. We’re talking about f'ing DACs here, the differences between them are actually small compared to most downstream parts of the chain. And the USB implementation is then yet again even smaller.

    But that’s what we do here in audiophileland, we focus on the minutiae.

    The hyperbole of trashing something is also a problem though as much as hyping. The point of SBAF I thought is to try to stay critical and objective while describing the aspects and differences between various gear, because ultimately people have different f'ing tastes and priorities.

    And that’s ok. Some people prefer Yggdrasil, some prefer Onyx, some prefer Convert, some prefer PS Audio or something else. It’s a subjective hobby and we’re not all preprogrammed f'ing cyborgs. But it doesn’t mean the one you don’t like is “garbage” either - that’s inflammatory bullshit. But of course being objective is not as fun as trashing something or hyping something and doesn’t give you that endorphin rush.

    Also people’s minds and tastes can change. That’s fine. Just tell us as objectively as possible where you hear the diffs. Sure, there is real dog shit out there, but there’s been enough ears on Yggdrasil that have heard many, many other DACs (including Convert) that substantiate it’s a damn good DAC.

    What I don’t get is, if Yggdrasil is garbage, but it’s better than Gungnir A1, what is up with all this (this is less than 4 weeks go):

    Personally I don’t care that Rob changed his mind and prefers Convert now, but calling Yggdrasil garbage definitely seems like way over the top rhetoric.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2020
  16. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    I think the difference between his opinion then and now is in the transducers. He clearly liked schiit DACs with headphones, disliked them with speakers, and the opposite with the Convert-2.
     
  17. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Because his speakers were shit, even he said that and sold them. And no I don’t think that a $300 pair of little plastic JBL nearfields are a good way of definitively evaluating a $2500 DAC. Synergy is a real thing too - Convert’s dialed up to 11 contrast probably sounds fantastic on some speakers and like a brutal cartoon jackhammer on others.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2020
  18. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Maybe, maybe not. At the end of the day we're talking about DACs, so what's down the chain will matter more. I doubt he would find the Yggdrasil much better even on a system where it synergizes well with all components, based on his description. Synergy is all nice and good but if you really don't like the sound signature of a DAC that's not going to magically change when you get new speakers.
     
  19. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Exactly what I said like 3 pages ago and what I said in my previous post in bold.

    You can synergize the shit out of a previous Gen Sabre DAC to get it to sound way better and I’m probably still going to hate it.
     
  20. elmoe

    elmoe Friend

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    Yep, it's just his personal preference is all. To him the Yggdrasil sounds like garbage, that's as valid an opinion as any in my book. At the end of the day he's just one guy on the internet with his own opinion. No need to get all up in arms is what I'm saying.
     

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