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Unfortunately the Yggy is too rich for my blood. However, I enthusiastically ponied up the neccesary scratch for a Gungnir Multibit. I hope to receive it by the weekend.
I received my Yggdrasil in the beginning of August (ordered towards the end of May) and absolutely love it. I've owned a few DACs in the past (Monarchy, Scott Nixon, Audiosector, Eastern Electric) but nothing high end. Price-wise the Yggdrasil is certainly not high-end either, but it transformed my system the first minute I played it, and it improved as it burned in. It provides a multi-layered soundstage, beautiful tonality, body, weight, incredible detail and the deepest bass I've ever heard. If you search for reviews, you can find a few, especially on Head-Fi http://www.changstar.com/index.php?board=5.0 where the Yggrasil is compared to other DACs.I'm sure there are DACs out there that will better it, but for $2,200.00 it ain't gonna happen. Highly recommended.
What other components are you using in your system/front end? - Thanks- Martin
Martin - I'm currently using a Sony Bluray player as my front end (the weak link in my system, I know - but it sounds GREAT!) am looking at upgrading to a an Auraliti PK90 or PK100 as a transport. My Yggdrasil feeds a Dodd preamp to a pair of Sophia Electric 91-01 monoblock amps and Abby speakers w/fostex 900A supertweeters and a pair of SVS Subs. My wife and I just returned a couple of days ago to Seattle from a two week vacation in Paris and the Italian island of Capri and as much as I loved every minute of our trip, coming home to an ice cold martini by the fireplace with the newly upgraded sound system makes me appreciate what I have right here!Matt
Matt - you do have a nice system. Its good to know the Yggi was a significant upgrade considering how resolving your system already was. I noticed on the Schiit website they mention the Yggi's circuit cards and internal components are fully upgradable which makes me think they may have left the door open for a future DSD circuit card/upgrade. Glad the Dac is working out for you so well, Im probably going to wait another year or so to pruchase. Im using a marantz five disc changer going through a monarchy audio dip upsampler into a channel island audio dac, so Im ready to upgrade. Probably going to eventually get a HAL server from here on Audiocircle, seems to be a good bang for the buck. BTW I've visited the island of Capri on a cruise but have not stayed there....happy listening- Martin
As I understand it, reproductiopn of DSD requires a delta-sigma chip. I don't think Schiit would have gone to the trouble of developing a multi-bit ladder dac if they were planning to "upgrade" to DSD. The older versions of the Gungnir and the Bifrost used DSD capable delta-digma chips but they chose instead to offer the Loki which is a DSD only dac. Mike Moffat made the following comments on Head-fi regharding DSD:"So for the record, and not to branded as an anti-DSD bigot, below are some brief technological comments re DSD vs. PCM.DSD Advantages: jitter less relevant, anti-imaging, anti-aliasing filter artifact shifts to noise shaping filter artifacts. Far cheaper.Disadvantages: Non closed form math solution noise shaping makes no missing code encode/decode theoretical at best, read nearly impossible. Also makes time domain optimization difficult/impossible. Couldn't reliably guide a missile with this technology, for example, without killing non-targets or innocents. It would seem this would not bode well for accurately encoding/decoding music. Recordings converted to DSD lose claimed DSD advantages when decoded on DSD machines. Believe it or not, I hope that I am wrong. I would love to build a DSD converter and promise to do so when a significant amount of DSD natively encoded mainstream recordings are available. We shall see if I am still waiting when the next super whiz-bang notion hits the press.................................. ....................MM"So, given his comments o0n the disadvantages of DSD that he lists above, I don't see Schiit offereing a "DSD upgrade" to the Yggy. Jason Stoddard and Mike Moffat (his handle is Baldr) are sponors on Head-fi and post there regularly. If you're intreresed in the Yggy or the Gumby, it may be worth your while read some of their comments.
I took the time to read the description of the Yggi more closely on Head-fi yesterday, I agree Starchild, because of the type of multibit ladder DAC they use in the Yggi, it doesnt seem likely they will upgrade to DSD....different design with a different goal in mind. Thanks for the clarification- Martin
Hi Martin,I've been studying this stuff for quite a few months now trying get an inkling of an idea of what's going on. The whole argument of delta-sigma vs ladder dacs and pcm vs dsd is very interesting and there are lots of low tech explanations on the web to help people like me get a clue. After much research, I finally decided to buy a Gungnir Multibit (besides I couldn't pronounce Yggdrasil until recently- my friends call it the wtf dac). Anyhow, I'm sitting here now with my mouth pushed out because my Gumby didn't arrive yesterday. The Yggy is outside my budget range but I think the Gungnir will answer the mail. Happy listening,Mike
Let me know what you think of the Gungir...it will be interesting to hear your impressions....from reading on head-fi it sounds like the Yggi does most for redbook playback....I'm probably a year out from the upgrade....but drooling over the reviews.- Martin
DSD does not require any Dac chip at all.Check out Lampizator DSD and Direct Stream from PS Audio...
Heres a quote on DSD from Mike Moffatt designer of Theta and Schiit dacs:Even worse is DSD, which I have previously addressed. These are offered by all of the “audio” chip makers, complete with reference designs and “Howto” data sheets that make it possible for fourth graders to build them as class projects. They are cheap, and have resulted in digital audio technology that is nearly as universal as it is insipid. That's not to say that a builder can't add “designer” capacitors, over-designed analog sections or power supplies, fancy over-machined front panels, water-cooling, palletized delivery, jewels, etc., etc, ad nauseum. This sort of extravagance is perfect for the user who wants to invite people over to have his guests admire the piece first. Unfortunately, even though you have wrapped plastic around the vile-smelling “audio” parts, they still have the same performance stench.
He obviously doesn't think too much of DSD. If you go over to the hi-rez circle and make those comments, you may have a fight break out. I don't thiink DSD is the panacea that so many folks are making it out to be. Moffat is on to something here. We may be seeing a paradigm shift happening before our very eyes.