Dedicated Schiit Yggdrasil thread

Awesome! You made the first production run.
I got the Geek LPS this week. But haven't gotten the pulse yet.

 

Congrats! I'm jealous.

I would like to compare one to my Theta Gen Va sometime, especially since it seems these would deal with incoming jitter better than my Theta, and I'll keep my eye out for online comparisons. None of you have any Theta DACs that you are planning on comparing to a Yggdrasil do you? I'm excited that more people might be exposed to the older way of doing things that I like for DAC architectures

 

Given that this Schiit R2R DAC delivers only 13bit worth of linearity (THD+N), I would think it might have more to do with it....

Seriously though, I have been aware that PCM DACs could never quite achieve 24bit resolution, but 13bit linearity in 2015? Oh boy... I don't think you'll find such poor performing Delta-sigma DAC today.

 

My comment was more of an analogy. The Yggy maintains all samples when reconstructing. No samples are lost. So if using the same standard to read the thread that would mean that no posts would be lost.

I have no idea who measured or reported that the Yggy only has 13 bits worth of linearity. I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere.

 

Technical measurements have been posted here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/764787/yggdrasil-technical-measurements (THD+N = 13bit)

BTW, the measurements also show pre and post ringing so not sure about "maintaining" anything.

 

I find myself in the unusual position of not caring about the measurements because it sounds so good.

 

Quoting out of context much? From that post: "Schiit has specifications for these measurements published on their website and in their operating instructions. In my measurements, my yggdrasil measured better than Schiit's conservative specifications in every single measurement. Every single one. Well done Schiit!"

 

What?!? Blasphemy!

 

I'm not quoting anything out of context, but expressing my view about the measured linearity of the DAC. If that person thinks that 13-bit performance in the THD+N department is "well done job" then we will simply have to agree to disagree.

 

And that's what we're all going for, right?

 

The measurements don't make me sad yet. IHD, S/N, and other aspects look great. I'm not sure if I've experienced small percentages of THD compared to other smaller percentages of THD making me feel something sounded bad yet.

 

Could someone expand upon the 13 bit performance related to THD+N?

 

Gear that measures "bad" sort of gets my attention to be honest. It means the designers probably don't care about the numbers game and are focusing on having it sound great.

 

I'd just be care with that. Sure, maybe we can say the bad measurements are because the designer "tuned" it to be euphonic and pleasant, but of course not always. Because who's to say the designer had good hearing to begin with or he/she was actually aiming for this as an engineering target; might just be a reflection of compromised components or questionable quality control from the factory.

As usual, we have to be "wise" as to what measured performance appears to be "bad". A DAC that has say -3dB roll-off at 20kHz might look anomalous in comparison to ruler-flat peers would likely be UNdetectable to most of us older folks (>30). Or maybe one with 15-bit noise floor might not reach even the full potential of 16-bit CD performance, but very few I suspect would notice... Certainly this is a fair amount of loss of resolution compared to the state-of-the-art 21-bit DACs though. (In the cases where the DAC is not capable of >16-bit resolution due to high noise floors, you can kiss any hope of benefit with 24-bit music goodbye of course!)

I haven't seen the measurements talked about here, but 13-bits of resolution is quite a bit of loss of potential resolution and this might be audibly "noisy" for folks with excellent equipment and nice, quiet sound rooms. My personal detectable noise floor in my sound room is down at around 13 to 14-bits so this would be some concern to me.

As a generalization, I think DACs that measure well with the usual tests sound good to me. But I certainly cannot say the same with poor measuring DACs.

And I can't say I have ever heard a wonderfully measuring DAC that sounded terrible!

 

Those measurements were with the DAC after only an hour. I'd wait for more measurements from more sources and with a warmed up DAC before passing judgement based solely on measurements. When is Stereophile going to review it?

 

I found some more measurements of the Yggdrasil, along with background, context and discussion about those measurements: Yggdrasil Measurements
The guy (same guy) who measured it noted the THD+N measurements and isn't concerned.

 

Wow, the guys on that thread are on point. I've never heard of that forum before. Thanks for the link.

 

Oops! It's supposed to be a secret forum.
An introduction to what the site is about is in their "New Members - Introduce Yourself" thread.
It's an informative place. A mix of measurements and subjective.

 

Interesting... especially the first undithered 1kHz sine waves for 16bit and 24bit data, and the crossover distortion, but I'm reading it's "normal" in ladder DAcs.

 

So you're not a fan of ladder DACs? Which means your sole purpose for posting in this thread is to trash them?

 

Fair enough, but over-the-top skepticism turned out to be right with respect to the DirectStream measurements. Two completely different designs, but the more people who make a stink then the better chance that a coherent, comprehensive explanation will come our way. I don't doubt that Schiit will come out swinging if need be.

Meantime, does it all matter so much? DACs couldn't sound that different from one another anyhow.

 

Gloomrider, it was one of the commenters in the thread Ham Sandwich linked who brought the issue up. Don't shoot the messenger.

 

Sure. I don't mean to imply I'm a fan of things that suck . But very pedestrian DACs can trot out 110db S/N rations these days, which leads people to question why all of them don't, and assume one DAC they've never heard with big numbers sounds better then a different DAC they've never heard with "bad" measurements.

DACS, in my opinion, are the king of the "different, not necessarily better" domain. Obviously there are some that most of us would consider objectively better then others, but every time I decide which of two DACs I prefer relative to my tastes and my system, I concede a different person might prefer the other one. The guy I sold my Wyred 4 Sound DAC to raved about it, he might very well have picked it over the Marantz I ended up keeping.

 

Are you willing to state your opinion of ladder DACs for the record?

 

Can you be more specific? Is this before or after Pikes Peak?