Schiit yggdrasil Analog 2 anyone?

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I've been reading a lot on the latest piece of, ahem, from, Schiit. The updated Yggdrasil Analog 2 seems a sweetheart of a DAC. I love the way Schiit has taken such a different tack with this guy. A 25 lb DAC, that doesn't even use audio DA chips.

Obviously, it's not something I'll hear in a store close by. The reviews I've read, have certainly been complimentary to say the least. And Schiit is the kind of company I like to support .

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you have heard. Anyone?
 
I've been reading a lot on the latest piece of, ahem, from, Schiit. The updated Yggdrasil Analog 2 seems a sweetheart of a DAC. I love the way Schiit has taken such a different tack with this guy. A 25 lb DAC, that doesn't even use audio DA chips.

Obviously, it's not something I'll hear in a store close by. The reviews I've read, have certainly been complimentary to say the least. And Schiit is the kind of company I like to support .

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what you have heard. Anyone?

Have not heard this particular piece.

Schiit has a 30 day return policy so you are able to try it out and not be stuck.

I am very, very pleased with the Schiit Saga and Modi Uber, if that helps. :)
 
It reads quite impressively, almost like a passive pre if that makes sense (a get out of the way more pure approach, yet with a state of the art approach). Read the first couple chapters on how Schiit began and definitely my kind of company!

Update; there’s a nice rare black one on *Bay that might go for under 2k! (Don’t ask why I’m looking now....)
 
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It is a ladder resistor DAC. They seem to be all the rage right now even though they are actually old technology. Apparently, getting one in the $2k price range is quite a deal. Some other folks using the same type of tech have more uber prices on theirs. Holo Audio uses the same type of design and they are very well reviewed. It is made in China however, not the USA like Schitt. I would like to get a nice DAC to go between my Mac and preamp and when the time comes, these will be on the top of my list.
 
It is a ladder resistor DAC. They seem to be all the rage right now even though they are actually old technology. Apparently, getting one in the $2k price range is quite a deal. Some other folks using the same type of tech have more uber prices on theirs. Holo Audio uses the same type of design and they are very well reviewed. It is made in China however, not the USA like Schitt. I would like to get a nice DAC to go between my Mac and preamp and when the time comes, these will be on the top of my list.

Yeah. Lots of good reading about why ladder DACs are the bees knees, and Mike Moffat of Schiit is a true believer.
 
Mike's thoughts:

On “designer” DACs and why I do not build them:

I have been on record saying that the Yggy is the best DAC I know how to build. By and large, that statement stands given my current design worldview. Note that I did not say design philosophy. The philosophy concept implies that I am building a DAC to my own best thinking on how to do them. Some of those ideas were good, some so-so, and some were wet dreams. So much for “design philosophy”. I have built, and continue to build designs based upon new ideas, most not in an effort to make something to justify an Yggy 3 (III – more nose in the air, no?) I have been building DACs since 1984. I have designed a fuck ton of them with a fuck ton of approaches. What this means is that I have traveled the DAC world, which is needed to have a worldview.

Let me put that in the context of an Yggy. Well, an Yggy is very similar to my first “Frankenstein” which was the first DAC with a megaburrito filter. The DSP processors in those days have been replaced with faster ones with more bits, the DACs have gone from 16 to doubled 20 bit silicon. The only thing better was the BWD hookup which still is the best way by far I have found to connect a digital source (in those days, nothing but a CD player) to a DAC. Back in the 1980’s the digital audio tech was quickly changing so the Original 16 bit Theta Dspro went from 16 to single 20bit technology within a 5-6 year period. Now this was back in the day when I was still trying to build the best. I was using fancy pants resistors and caps from a variety of vendors such as relcaps, caddock, vishay, and mills (among many others). I was even using teflon circuit boards which were a major pain in the ass – they would coldflow, sag into, and short out from the chassis below and were unsuitable for reliable surface mount and would collapse into the solder bath when the boards were flowed.

Now back then I was selling into the high-end market. It was becoming less and less fun. Finally, Crystal Semiconductor came out with digital audio parts based on sigma delta and delta sigma technology. I was excited! Something new! I built my first proto and it sounded like ass. Really like diseased ass. I some other bright ideas to improve the ds tech but it really, really sucked. As a bit of time went by and more and more vendors came out with delta sigma parts I realized just how bad it was. As the supply of multibit DACs began to get more and more expensive, I saw the writing on the wall and got out of the DAC biz. I began to do a lot of surround digital processors, where it didn’t matter so much for sound since it was all about the video. I kept doing that for quite a while.

Twenty years went by and Schiit started. I caught up to current tech and realized that ds tech was all that was left. So I built some ds dacs to buy some time to get new multibit designs going again with the Analog Devices AD5791 DACs. They were industrial and had a bunch of funny setups, glitch to get rid of, and odd formatting of the audio. In the meantime, resistor and capacitor technology had improved for less expensive parts, in fact orders of magnitude better for a lot less money – I applied it all to Yggy, and we used our scale it up know-how to make it cheaper.

Today at my age I am so fuckin’ happy to be out of the high-end business. All that matters there is that yours is the biggest, hardest, and longest. Period. I talked with a certain high-end vendor that I shared my very first high-end room at the Chicago CES show in 1977 for the original Theta Electronics. He shared the difficulties of out-performing and out-maneuvering all of his competitors to get the best possible reviews. I asked him how often that happened and he said not often enough. What I didn’t tell him is that Yggy gets great reviews as well (although he probably knows).

Well, the Yggy with the best commonly available high grade parts is typically within 10 ppm worst (absolute and rare) case compared to the most expensive designer parts. There is no guarantee fancy parts will be better, and many times they are worse, manufacturer to manufacturer and package to package. Typically they are also constrained from a standpoint of distributed capacitances and inductances, which can add odd resonances and slow them down.

Here is how it works in the real world. If the resistors are used as feedback elements, brand x may sound better. If they are filters or loads, brand y series better from 1 to 10000 ohms and brand z from 20000 ohms up, etc, etc. Now some are loyal to some brands, others to other brands. The brands have different sounds in different locations. If I followed this down as an obsession, I would be dead or crazy. Further, some combo of parts is better for classical and others for techno, and so on. It would be like trying to open Mike’s Mexican-Chinese-Italian-Indian-Coprophagic-Mediterranean-Japanese-Indonesian-Vegan-Vegetarian-French-Booger restaurant. When you try to please everyone, you please no one. No matter how much I bitch and shout that warranties vaporize as soon as the product is opened, there are those that will do so. I understand why some of you do so, but you still don’t get your warranty back. If you want a DAC that has the fanciest parts, there are many used to new car priced ones out there. I know there are those out there who would modify those as well. This is due to the Dunning-Kruger effect which explains why competent modifiers have their parades pissed upon by cretins.
 
Cont.



From more experience comes a new worldview. The Yggy comes from a 34 year long history. After 1990, there have been two technical innovations worthy of new product, and one of them is based on a 1980’s innovation. I leave the USB out of this for the moment because it is a relatively new input in the context of 34 years. One real revision in 28 years sometimes makes me wonder why it is upgradable. Ah but except the USB is the least reliable part of any DAC, particularly in the winter when it is dry and we jump sparks as we plug in our USB cable. Saves throwing out the Yggy just because the USB blew out. What was I thinking, after all.
 
Sounds like Moffat. :)

Schiit does hi-rez redbook really well. Moffat's thoughts regarding things like MQA and DSD are well documented.

In it's current form, the Yggy will play MQA just like any other source - it will not "unpack" MQA.

In his discussion of MQA, Moffat does state that the Yggy is "upgradeable".

The little Modi Uber I have hits, IMHO, well above it's weight. Never missed not unpacking MQA.

I know how much you enjoy MQA. Just want to make sure you were aware. :)
 
I think I'm on record here as being pro-MQA. That said, I'm currently not unpacking it in my main digital setup, even though my player can unpack it. The reason being, my outboard DAC is better than the BlueSound's onboard DAC. So MQA, while an improvement, to my ears, over redbook when played on the BlueSound, still doesn't beat the overall improvement of a better DAC. If that makes any sense. An improvement across the board with my Berkeley Alpha DAC, that swamps the improvement of full MQA on the BlueSound.

Which suggests to me that, however much I like MQA, I could live without it in favor of a DAC that is just, across the board, better...because I'm currently doing it with the Berkeley. The Yggdrasil has me very intrigued.
 
I would personally love to own a Yggy, however that isn't in the cards right now. I do have experience with their Bifrost Multibit and I can tell you with 100% assurance that the Bimby is every bit as good as any of the DACs I've heard except for my latest which I think is more of a different flavor vs better. If the Yggy is better than the Bimby I think you're in for one hell of a treat if you decide to buy one and I'll be green with envy.
 
I think I'm on record here as being pro-MQA. That said, I'm currently not unpacking it in my main digital setup, even though my player can unpack it. The reason being, my outboard DAC is better than the BlueSound's onboard DAC. So MQA, while an improvement, to my ears, over redbook when played on the BlueSound, still doesn't beat the overall improvement of a better DAC. If that makes any sense. An improvement across the board with my Berkeley Alpha DAC, that swamps the improvement of full MQA on the BlueSound.

Which suggests to me that, however much I like MQA, I could live without it in favor of a DAC that is just, across the board, better...because I'm currently doing it with the Berkeley. The Yggdrasil has me very intrigued.

MQA is just a good thing. Period. Having Tidal do half the unfolding already makes for a great audio experience. Feeding that better signal in to a great dac makes everything better. Ideally, I'd love an MQA DAC, but I won't buy one just for that.
 
I would personally love to own a Yggy, however that isn't in the cards right now. I do have experience with their Bifrost Multibit and I can tell you with 100% assurance that the Bimby is every bit as good as any of the DACs I've heard except for my latest which I think is more of a different flavor vs better. If the Yggy is better than the Bimby I think you're in for one hell of a treat if you decide to buy one and I'll be green with envy.

It's definitely not an insubstantial purchase. But I've taken to buying things that are on the bleeding edge of what I can afford, to ensure that I eliminate upgraditis. The Schiit seems to be getting to the point where going substantially upward takes a ton of money, for a limited benefit.
 
Hmmm...was just looking at the spec for the full Yggdrasil w/ Analog 2 (not the upgrade board) and it implies it is still using DACs (specifically four AD5791 DACs). These aren't delta-sigma DACs, but they are DACs, nonetheless.
 
For the same cost of Yggdrasil, you are very close to a Mytek Brooklyn+. While it is not a ladder resistor DAC like the Yggy is, it does do full MQA.
 
For the same cost of Yggdrasil, you are very close to a Mytek Brooklyn+. While it is not a ladder resistor DAC like the Yggy is, it does do full MQA.

That is my number two option. MQA would be a definite bonus there. From what I've been able to sort out, the flavour of the Yggy is closer to what I would prefer.
 
The Brooklyn is the DAC I looked at most recently, as I often us my DACs as preamps..and its a full function preamp w/phono input and headphone amp. I really want to love the Schiit mantra but I'm also always wary, as a marketing professional, when somebody's ethos is more or less that everybody else is doing it wrong and I'm doing it right. It's not that i think he's wrong about the audiophile industry, I'm totally with him on that and have seen it first hand in what little I've been behind the scenes. But moreso when it comes to, say, the currently trendy DAC chips being bunk...which suggests all those other engineers either don't know what they're doing or, as is insinuated, that they're knowing selling an inferior product to maximize profit. Maybe they are? But all of them? Or maybe they just have a different idea of how to do something that has multiple solutions.

Or maybe I just absolutely hate the name and dumb puns in general and it influences everything thought I have about the company :) I still want to hear it! .
 
Funny you guys are posting about this. I’ve been thinking about how to improve the next weak link in my setup, and I think it’s the digital side. I’m running a Sony DVD player as a transport and a Schiit MODI Multibit DAC. I’ve been thinking about upgrading the DAC first. There’s a Yggdrasil for sale locally, but I don’t believe it’s an Anolog 2. It’s $1,700. Upgrade is $550 not including tax and shipping, which makes it more than retail. Tempted by the idea though.

I should have listened to both the Yggdrasil and the Bifrost at the SF Audio Show earlier this summer, but I passed. The rep didn’t seem to think I’d get any improvement beyond my MODI, which seemed weird. I couldn’t get a clear answer, or a feel if he was with Schiit, or a rep. So, I continued on. I love the MODI, but I’m ready to step up.
 
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