As alluded to above, I have just come back from the hi fi store with a Metrum Pavane. I went to listen to the Yggdrasil and the Pavane, and also took my Hegel HD25 as a reference.
I was expecting the differences to be subtle, the Yggdrasil to be better than the Hegel, and the Pavane to be marginally better than the Yggdrasil. With that expectation, I fully expected to come home with the Yggdrasil. As it turned out, the differences were substantial, and the Pavane was clearly better than either. However, the Hegel was also clearly better than the Yggdrasil. That is, unless you like a screechingly bright, bleached and hyper-detailed sound.
I listened on a familiar system at the hi fi store: all dacs playing from the optical output of an Astell & Kern player (their Auralic Aries was not working properly) into an Auralic Taurus, and then HD800S headphones. As I happen to own a pair of HD800s and an Auralic Taurus, I felt right at home.
First, a few words about the Hegel HD25. This has received some stellar reviews, but generally flies under the radar. It does not have the profile of something like the Chord Hugo or the Yggdrasil. Possibly because it is a plain looking unit, with no fancy FGPA or R2R technology. Just an off-the-rack AKM dac chip, well implemented output stage and well-designed power supply. But it should be better known, because it is outstanding. In the last couple of years I have owned the Chord Hugo, Meitner MA1, Chord QBD76HD, Auralic Vega, Bel Canto DAC 3.5 and a number of others. I prefer the Hegel HD25 to all of these DACs, many of them much more expensive. The other DACs may have been more detailed (in some cases), had blacker backgrounds, or been better in some specific "hi fi" criteria. But the Hegel just gets out of the way and plays music in a very self-effacing way. It is colourful, dynamic and rich sounding, with excellent levels of details. But it does not sound dry, bright, etched, lacking dynamics or have any of the other faults which ultimately led me to sell the other dacs. It just does everything right, and nothing wrong.
The Yggdrasil has of course received fantastic reviews. From the couple of hours I spent listening to a well run-in demo unit today, the reviews are not (IMO) justified. It was certainly very detailed. But it sounded bright, tonally bleached, with voices in particular sounding recessed. It lacked musical engagement. I did not enjoy listening to it.
By contrast, the Metrum Pavane was darker sounding, a shade or two warmer than neutral. But it has rich tonal colours, deep bass, and all the detail without sounding etched or analytical. The thing I find most impressive is the richness and naturalness of the music. Voices and instruments have real presence, notes are full bodied, with density and texture. It may be the most natural sounding DAC I have heard.
And the Hegel HD25? It comes surprisingly close. It was clearly better than the Yggdrasil, to my ears. It sounded richer and more colourful, with as much detail, but was also more engaging. But even the HD25 lacked that last bit of tonal depth and fullness of sound that the Pavane has. These differences are not subtle at all. To my ears, the Pavane was substantially better than the Yggdrasil, and enough of an improvement on the HD25 that I felt compelled to take out my wallet and bring it home.
