Dedicated Schiit Yggdrasil thread

My experience is that 170 hours is right around where it begins to show the level of awesome sound that it's capable of. But it keeps getting a little better for the next 200 hours or so. Leave it on. Always.

 

Returning to the issue of needing to keep the Yggy powered up 24/7 for it to sound its best, just HOW bad does it sound if you don't do this? What I'm trying to determine is if I will still hear an improvement by upgrading from my Bifrost Uber to the Yggy if I don't keep the Yggy on 24/7. (I'd be treating it the same way as I treat my Bifrost, switching it on in the morning and off before bed).

 

Anyone?

 

The time to reach optimal state seems to decrease with "total power on" hours. Mine was powered off (due to scheduled power outage) when it was fairly new and it took ~3 days to fully recover. Now that it's been on continuously for several months I suspect it would probably be back to normal within 12 hours. As an experiment, I'll intentionally leave it off overnight next time I come back from one of the local headphone meets. It doesn't sound awful or anything like that during the "warmup" phase; the major difference is that the treble is a bit rough.

Honestly though it draws something like 10-20W at idle which is maybe a few bucks a month rate dependent? Your power bill can probably take the hit?

Also, Schiit will be announcing some DAC related stuff mid August (which will probably include a multibit/R2R upgrade for Bifrost) so you might want to wait for that.

 

Curious if anyone has done more testing to confirm if the previous 13 bit THD+N was an accurate measurement or not?

 

My heart rate just jumped from 70 bpm to 79.
Kidding aside that would be terrific news for my 9 month old Bifrost.

 

This thread makes me sick. Ha! I've read just about everything I can on the Yggy and I want to hear one badly.

The thing is, I keep holding out for the iFi iDSD Pro model, because iDSD micro is the bee's knees. The only problem is that iFi has seemed to have gone with a completely new design, even after the Pro model was to offer 2 DAC chips per channel, switchable from tube to SS, discrete outputs and a slew of other features. I don't think it's any coincidence that iFi went back to the drawing board right after the Yggy came out. I mean, the only thing they could do to stay afloat is offer the above features in an R2R w/ DSD of course.

So, I guess the course is simple for me. Since the demand for the Yggy has not stabilized, I can afford the wait for the iDSD Pro. Whichever stabalizes first will get my bread. Or the darkhorse is always the Ayre QB-9 DSD...but I'm wondering if I even need DSD. It's always nice to have something, though, that I can throw anything at and it will take it.

 

Yggy arrived today. Having the Gungnir in my set up for the last two years, I was used to a good sound stage and enjoyed its overall performance. With only a couple of hours of warm up time, it was immediately evident that Yggy is in an entire different league. Out of the box (literally) the midrange is the best I have experience, analog or digital. You can hear through the mid frequencies with a level of clarity and musicality that is quite stunning. Upper and lower frequencies are equally impressive. Not a shred of unpleasentness anywhere. Front to back, and side to side portrayal of the soundstage is realistically dimensional, and beyond what I thought was even possible from my system (Audio Research Ref 2 and VT200, driving 3.6r Magneplanars). There has been much discussion on break in time to reach optimal performance levels. However, if your experience is similar to mine, you won't have to wait long for a truly enjoyable listening experience. Congratulations to the smart people at Schiit Audio for making such an awesome product at a very fair price!

 

When Yggy inventory is higher (and my recent round of upgrades is paid off) I can't wait to pit it against my La Voce S2. It sure seems like it's in a league of its own at its price range...

 

I've not heard the La Voce S2 but would be interested in your observations. I've been cycling through older red book cd's with Yggy, and I find the same conclusions that others have stated previously... Many of the standard and older CD's sound great going throught Yggy, and in several cases, even better than some of the hi Rez down loads I've purchased from HD Track and others. This DAC is really something special.

 

R-2R thread link

^Some of those checking up on this Yggy thread may be interested in the linked R-2R thread.

 

http://headmania.org/2015/08/18/schiit-yggdrasil-dac-review/

 

Does anyone know who write that review? The author was to modest to sign a name (well, none that I could see).

[EDIT] I know from the style that it's most definitely NOT Mike Mercer!

 

I think they are all written by the same guy:
http://headmania.org/about/

 

Thanks. Now, why didn't I think to click on that?

 

Interesting, thanks. My current DAC is an old Theta, so I liked seeing his comparison to a Theta Basic. Based on "I would have enjoyed more energy/prat like Theta has", I wonder if I would find the Yggy to be an upgrade or not since I have bought and returned two other DACs due to lack of energy and dynamics. I'll have to do the comparison myself. Anyone in San Francisco with a Yggy want to help compare someday?

 

Just an update for those that may be interested... I have had the Yggy DAC powered up and playing music through it for a couple of weeks now. This DAC continues to evolve with ever increasing sound quality improvements across the entire audio spectrum. Low frequency dynamics are beyond my expectations. Mid frequencies also continue to improve, most notably with vocals as they sound more life like and dimensional. The top end seems to extend with a smoothness that makes my Audio Research 100.2 sound more like my VT200 ( I've had both amps for many years and am very familiar with their sonic characteristics). The guys at Schiit Audio talk about a period during break in which the DAC itself tends to disappear, leaving even more musical content for your listening pleasure. I can say that on the best recordings I'm beginning to understand the "disappearing act", especially in the mid band.

 

I should also mention that my source feeding Yggy is a Lenovo laptop utilizing a Kimber USB copper cable. Nothing too fancy or expensive...

 

The early reviews coming in on the Multibit Gungnir (said to be 80-90% of what Yggy delivers) are stellar. Evidently a big jump up from the standard Gungnir. Still no USB Rev3 support though.

 

I'm currently in a holding pattern trying to decide between the Yggy and the Multibit Gungnir as my next DAC. I'm going to get one or the other. I just don't know which. This would be a much easier decision if I could hear both, or even just one or the other. I haven't been able to hear either yet. Very difficult to make a decision based on that. I could order both and return the one that I find less worthy. But that seems wasteful, and given the burn-in period for the Yggy the return window gets very short.

Have there been any good reviews or observations of the Yggy vs. Gungnir Multibit? Especially helpful if the reviews or observations discuss soundstage depth or shape differences between the two. I'm wanting a DAC that helps get the soundstage (or more accurately the headstage) to be more out of my head along with a style of sound that John Atkinson described as "transcendent" when doing his PonoPlayer review. I've heard that transcendent sound with some other DACs (Berkeley Alpha 1 along with a Cavalli Liquid Fire and Audeze headphones) and with the PonoPlayer. I need that transcendent sound experience. I need it. I really really need it. My Geek Pulse Xfi doesn't do it. I need a DAC that does. If the Gungnir Multibit is able to do that then I'll be good and I can save a thousand bucks. If I need to step up to the Yggy to get that, or to get that experience even better, then I can do that. If neither the Yggy or Gungnir Multibit end up doing that for me then I'll be looking at Ayre. Ayre has shown they can do that with the Pono. I'm expecting the Ayre Codex or QB-9 DSD would do the trick for me.

 

I purchased the Gungnir DAC (the $850 version) two years before taking delivery of Yggy, and still enjoy using it very much. Gungnir is now in my home office system (Audio Research SP-6B, Odyssey Khartago w/max upgrades from Klaus, and Jade 3 speakers). Originally, I was planning to sell Gungnir after purchasing Yggy, but after I swapped out my Parasound ZDAC (in home office set up) for Gungnir, I could not go back to the Parasound. Compared to Yggy, Gungnir still sounds fantastic. That said, Yggy is far more refined and noticeably more transparent. The truth is I could live with either of these two DAC's, but would probably upgrade to Gungnir multi-bit if I didn't have Yggy. Given the track record from Schitt Audio, I have to believe the multi-bit Gungnir is a significant step up as well. Hope this helps..

 

And yes, the Parasound ZDAC is for sale!

 

I've been looking for reviews but haven't found any. CAn you point me in the right direction?

 

I was going to go back and edit my post as I have actually seen only one review but by the time I realized it, I couldn't edit and instead went to bed

It's in a thread on computeraudiophile, I'll hunt it down.