7ryder said:

  Whoa! Nice pivot!

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Unexpected places? Pivot point preamp in the dac!

Jason Stoddard

Hi Jason: from all of the reading I've done here, there seems to be the consensus that Yiggy sounds best from its balanced XLR outputs versus its single ended RCA outputs.

What solution would you recommend to a NAIM owner like me? My SuperNait2 only has RCA and DIN inputs. Can you recommend a device that would convert balanced XLR to RCA or DIN? Thanks.

schneller said:

@Jason Stoddard

Hi Jason: from all of the reading I've done here, there seems to be the consensus that Yiggy sounds best from its balanced XLR outputs versus its single ended RCA outputs.

What solution would you recommend to a NAIM owner like me? My SuperNait2 only has RCA and DIN inputs. Can you recommend a device that would convert balanced XLR to RCA or DIN? Thanks.

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I'm not Jason, but I think he would say that the Yggy already does this - internal hardware summers -> SE RCA outputs.
 
Edit: From the Yggdrasil spec page: "Analog Stages: Fully discrete JFET buffers for balanced output and discrete JFET summing stages for single-ended output, direct coupled throughout"

cishida said:

I'm not Jason, but I think he would say that the Yggy already does this - internal hardware summers -> SE RCA outputs.

Edit: From the Yggdrasil spec page: "Analog Stages: Fully discrete JFET buffers for balanced output and discrete JFET summing stages for single-ended output, direct coupled throughout"

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I know that but it's pretty much universally agreed upon here that Yiggy XLR is a better beast than Yiggy RCA.

schneller said:

I know that but it's pretty much universally agreed upon here that Yiggy XLR is a better beast than Yiggy RCA.

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Correct but anything you add to the chain is just going to be doing the same thing yggy is already doing to give you the rca outs, so why add something. Even though balanced out is better, for some applications, the unbalanced rca is no slouch. Taking a balanced and converting it to unbalanced out will lose the benefits of balanced whether yggy does it or another device.

schneller said:

I know that but it's pretty much universally agreed upon here that Yiggy XLR is a better beast than Yiggy RCA.

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Which is 100% BS. Use the single-ended outputs if you only have single-ended inputs. It's that simple.
 
Remember, every opinion on here is only an opinion, colored by one's own preferences and experience, or lack thereof. If we were less transparent about how the single-ended output was derived (like many, many, many other manufacturers), I bet that a whole lot less people would believe the SE output was inferior.
 
Listen for yourself, decide for yourself...bottom line.

I'm sure it's been said before here, but what sort of badness befalls if someone gets the bright idea to use an XLR-to-RCA adapter on the Yggy outputs? (that grounds pin3)
 
I imagine on a circlotron output that bad whammajamma will happen?
 
 
 
p.s. I prefer to use a transformer based DI box instead when I need to do such conversion

schneller said:

I know that but it's pretty much universally agreed upon here that Yiggy XLR is a better beast than Yiggy RCA.

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I doubt that's the case from anyone that's actually used Yggdrasil for any length of time and has the ability to run both options.
 
I can't reliably discern any difference between the balanced and SE outputs on Yggdrasil.  And when I've been in a position where I thought I could, it was the amplifier not the DAC that was yielding the difference.  I've got four amplifiers (WA5-LE, Ragnarok, iCAN Pro, Jotunheim) that can take both XLR and SE inputs and that offer both balanced and SE outputs.  Yggdrasil sounds identical with three out of the four regardless of which output I use.  And the one where I can tell the difference is down to the specific topology of that amplifier (the same effect is apparent feeding it with other DACs).
 
If you can discern a difference you've either got way better hearing, a better chain or a worse case of expectation bias than I have ...

armaegis said:

  I'm sure it's been said before here, but what sort of badness befalls if someone gets the bright idea to use an XLR-to-RCA adapter on the Yggy outputs? (that grounds pin3)
 

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Boom. 

FWIW, and for all the CDO (Like OCD, but in alphabetical order... completists out there, Massdrop just announced a Yggdrasil fountain pen:
 
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/grifos-yggdrasil-fountain-pen?referer=E553WN
 
I can only afford one obsession at a time, so I'm sticking with the Parker I already have.
.

Way to go Jason.
Good thinking.
For the marketing story: I'm neither marketing minded nor American so it doesn't hit me that hard.

schneller said:

@Jason Stoddard

Hi Jason: from all of the reading I've done here, there seems to be the consensus that Yiggy sounds best from its balanced XLR outputs versus its single ended RCA outputs.

What solution would you recommend to a NAIM owner like me? My SuperNait2 only has RCA and DIN inputs. Can you recommend a device that would convert balanced XLR to RCA or DIN? Thanks.

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Have a look at the user manual. The DIN connections on the Supernait are not balanced, they are stereo connections for input and also for bi-amping and for additional power supply. The Yggdrasil specs says the XLR connector is balanced only (an unbalanced XLR connection also exists), but in any case the easiest and cheapest connection is the old RCA. 

schneller said:

@Jason Stoddard

Hi Jason: from all of the reading I've done here, there seems to be the consensus that Yiggy sounds best from its balanced XLR outputs versus its single ended RCA outputs.

What solution would you recommend to a NAIM owner like me? My SuperNait2 only has RCA and DIN inputs. Can you recommend a device that would convert balanced XLR to RCA or DIN? Thanks.

Click to expand...

 
Jason is, of course, right: you can and should audition to determine for yourself. What follows are my own impressions.
 
I run my Yggdrasil into a Ragnarok, which affords the ability to simultaneously connect and quickly switch between SE and balanced outputs. Further, I'm able to audition both speakers and balanced headphones playing off the same amp. 
 
TL;DR: There is a difference between the two, though that difference is only reliably noticeable with cans. Via speakers the two are effectively equivalent.
 
What are the differences? A subtle amount of perceived channel separation. With balanced, the channels are very isolated to each side of your head – sometimes too much so for my taste. When using SE the channels converge toward the center a bit. I find that with some recordings I actually prefer the SE output, in a similar way that introducing crossfeed can make headphone listening more pleasant.
 
As for the magnificent tone and stunning openness the Yggy is notorious for? You will gain that from either output. Again, when listening on speakers both SE and balanced sound equally fine to me.
 
Hope this feedback is helpful.

leo- said:

  Yggdrasil specs says the XLR connector is balanced only (an unbalanced XLR connection also exists), but in any case the easiest and cheapest connection is the old RCA. 

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An "unbalanced XLR?"  No, only balanced XLR outputs on Yggdrasil.  It uses an XLR connector for the AES/EBU INPUT, as it should, but that is digital.

jason stoddard said:

Which is 100% BS. Use the single-ended outputs if you only have single-ended inputs. It's that simple.

Remember, every opinion on here is only an opinion, colored by one's own preferences and experience, or lack thereof. If we were less transparent about how the single-ended output was derived (like many, many, many other manufacturers), I bet that a whole lot less people would believe the SE output was inferior.

Listen for yourself, decide for yourself...bottom line.

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I couldn't agree more! Everything I've read of the Yggy magic - and things I haven't read - have appeared with my system using only SE output both to my headphone (Decware CSP2+ preamp/headamp) and speaker (Plinius SA250) amps. So much so, I haven't yet got round to trying the XLR output.

Of course it might be I'll eat my words when/if I get round to trying XLR

But I kinda doubt it