[Seminarian]

rsbrsvp's recent conversion to our religion is just the kind of thing that our recent converts (me included) may need to keep the flame lit brightly. For a skeptic to go from a decided "meh" to a strong WOW tells me that I ain't crazy. 
 
Anyhow, I have three pieces of anecdotal evidence. 1) Blind Boys of Alabama (don't recall the album title. I can dig it up if need be.) has a track that it turns out there are THREE different tenors taking turns singing the melody in each of three verses. Previously with all other DACs I thought it was just one dude singing that melody. Who knew? 
 
2) Bela Fleck's Flight of the Cosmic Hippo is one of the quintessential test tracks for bass as you probably know. I decided to give it a spin today. It was an awesome presentation of what heretofore was merely hinted at. Let's just say there was a hippo in my listening room.
 
3) I've never heard any DAC handle Barber's Adagio for Strings at its climactic point well at all. In fact in all cases the climax point has always sounded more like a Victrola than anything else. Not any more. It still has a fair amount of etchiness, but that may well be due to what I've always suspected about that passage. Which is this: it doesn't sound that great live either. Massed strings sawing away up in the upper registers is prone to lots of issues due to non-perfect intonation and differentiated vibrato in the violin sections. 
 
Those are three specific cases. The overall musical enjoyment I'm getting is off the charts. NOTE:  Once again, mine is a speaker system.

 

[funch]

It seems that the Yggy's transformer(s) may have a pretty strong magnetic field. Here's my story:
 
My Yggy is connected to an Eddie Current Balancing Act. Normally, when I start a session, I plug in my 'phones and turn up the volume quickly to my
preferred setting and start listening. This evening, I left the volume down, and noticed a slight but noticeable hum in the left channel. My ECBA is on
the shelf right above the Yggy. The shelf is a 1..5" thick piece of laminated MDF (diy stand). After a while, I got curious about the hum, so decided to 
track it down. 
 
I stopped the music and turned the amp off. Still hum. I tried the different inputs through the switch. Still hum. I removed the amps power umbilical.
Still hum. I disconnected the inputs to the amp. At this point the only thing connected to the amp is air. Still hum. I removed the tubes. Still hum.
Now, with everything disconnected from the amp, I'm starting to think that maybe I should make myself a foil hat to keep the Martians from sending
thought suggestions to my brain. 

 
I turned the Yggy off. Hum gone. OK, maybe not the Martians after all.

 
 
I turned the Yggy back on. Hum back. I moved the amp from the left side of the shelf farther right to get it as far away from the Yggys transformers
as possible. Hum was reduced. 
 
So it seems that the magnetic field from the Yggy is traveling through 1.5" of MDF and interacting with the left channel wiring in the amp, which is
wired point to point. Needless to say, tomorrow things get rearranged a bit. 

 

[Xcalibur255]

What's the total distance between the two pieces of gear?  If around 2" is all that is separating you then I'm not surprised you are picking up a magnetic field.  Now if you happen to say that a foot of air space is between the two in addition to the MDF panel then I'm going to have to start getting worried for my own setup when my Yggy arrives since that's about all the space that's going to be between it and my two tube amps sitting above.

 

[F14sharky]

Thank you very much for helping to spend my money!

This week I read through this entire thread and I also read "Schitt Happened" which I highly recommend to everyone on this thread. I really enjoyed it very much.

Anyway, I just ordered the Yggy and it should arrive in about a week.
So I figure I need a good headphone amp to go along with Yggy, so I ordered and just received the Pass Labs HPA-1.
So I figure I need a good headphone to go along with the Yggy and Pass Labs amp, so I ordered the HE1000.

I heard all three of these at the recent San Jose Head-Fi meet and although I never thought I would own a Schitt product, everyone at the meet really loved the Yggy, as well as the Pass HPA-1 and HE1000s.

The only downside was spending over $8,000 this week, so thanks to all the Head-Fi'ers at the meet and on this thread!!!

Cheers ,
Chris from Carmel

 

[m0nster]

Thank you very much for helping to spend my money!

This week I read through this entire thread and I also read "Schitt Happened" which I highly recommend to everyone on this thread. I really enjoyed it very much.

Anyway, I just ordered the Yggy and it should arrive in about a week.
So I figure I need a good headphone amp to go along with Yggy, so I ordered and just received the Pass Labs HPA-1.
So I figure I need a good headphone to go along with the Yggy and Pass Labs amp, so I ordered the HE1000.

I heard all three of these at the recent San Jose Head-Fi meet and although I never thought I would own a Schitt product, everyone at the meet really loved the Yggy, as well as the Pass HPA-1 and HE1000s.

The only downside was spending over $8,000 this week, so thanks to all the Head-Fi'ers at the meet and on this thread!!!

Cheers ,
Chris from Carmel

Just never imagine what an awesome trip you could have made with that money and you will be fine!

Enjoy the awesome music, dude!

 

[RoundRound]

  Mike's few nearly relevant statements can be interpreted as an indication he doesn't use dither - hard to reconcile dither with "bit perfect, dammit"
 
where I'm suggesting dither is better than rounding is inside the Yggy and Schiit's other R2R DAC boxes, applied after the upsamping, megaburrito filter - when the >32 bit DSP FIR output is cut down to the R2R DAC chip native bit depth
 
 
but at the Yggy's 20+ bit resolution the Audible difference is expected to be swamped by amplifier electronic noise, "quiet" home listening room background noise, microphonics of headphones converting your pulse, muscle tremors into sound

It would be good to get an official confirmation (or otherwise) from Schiit - should we turn off Dither in the medial player before it enters the Yggy? Otherwise it'll dither twice...
 
I'm using JRMC with volume levelling and EQ, I though Dither was necessary. 
 
Incidentally I turned dither off in JRMC and listened to some music last night - I felt there were a bit more detail... but maybe It's my imagination. Would be good to hear results you guys get wit the Yggy and without external dither. 

 

[sheldaze]

 
3) I've never heard any DAC handle Barber's Adagio for Strings at its climactic point well at all. In fact in all cases the climax point has always sounded more like a Victrola than anything else. Not any more. It still has a fair amount of etchiness, but that may well be due to what I've always suspected about that passage. Which is this: it doesn't sound that great live either. Massed strings sawing away up in the upper registers is prone to lots of issues due to non-perfect intonation and differentiated vibrato in the violin sections. 

Mine is a speaker system too, and that's the one! When listening to it, you feel the pain of the whole world screaming up to the heavens and simultaneously asking the question, why? The suffering of World War II is summarized in a single, impactful moment - have your box of tissues ready. And DACs are not supposed to have this kind of power. I can still feel it as I write this today.

 

[Jamiee]

Thank you very much for helping to spend my money!

This week I read through this entire thread and I also read "Schitt Happened" which I highly recommend to everyone on this thread. I really enjoyed it very much.

Anyway, I just ordered the Yggy and it should arrive in about a week.
So I figure I need a good headphone amp to go along with Yggy, so I ordered and just received the Pass Labs HPA-1.
So I figure I need a good headphone to go along with the Yggy and Pass Labs amp, so I ordered the HE1000.

I heard all three of these at the recent San Jose Head-Fi meet and although I never thought I would own a Schitt product, everyone at the meet really loved the Yggy, as well as the Pass HPA-1 and HE1000s.

The only downside was spending over $8,000 this week, so thanks to all the Head-Fi'ers at the meet and on this thread!!!

Cheers ,
Chris from Carmel

 
Spending other peoples money is what we do best around here

 
Congrats on the new Kit! - I'm sure you can't wait to get it all up and running.

 

[artur9]

Just never imagine what an awesome trip you could have made with that money and you will be fine!

Enjoy the awesome music, dude!

Just get one of those "Sounds of the Rain forest" recordings.  Then you can be there whenever you like

 

[tubeguygt4]

First time posting here:
 
I have a Yggdrasil; removed the chassis, put in a SR fuse -- chassis is the biggest sound improvement, however it makes the back connections extremely fragile, so I put it back on.
 
I DO NOT recommend removing the chassis. Not because of its difficulty (it's not), but because of how delicate it makes the rear connections.
 
It is NOT worth it.
 
Now it will not connect to a source. Hoping someone here has some idea of what I may have touched, said or . . . who knows. 
 
Technically I'm a pretty proficient person, but on this I'm stumped.
 
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
(Yes I know my warranty is voided. Yes I know if I send it to them, I'll be paying for it.)

 

[Jamiee]

  First time posting here:
 
I have a Yggdrasil; removed the chassis, put in a SR fuse -- chassis is the biggest sound improvement, however it makes the back connections extremely fragile, so I put it back on.
 
I DO NOT recommend removing the chassis. Not because of its difficulty (it's not), but because of how delicate it makes the rear connections.
 
It is NOT worth it.
 
Now it will not connect to a source. Hoping someone here has some idea of what I may have touched, said or . . . who knows. 
 
Technically I'm a pretty proficient person, but on this I'm stumped.
 
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
(Yes I know my warranty is voided. Yes I know if I send it to them, I'll be paying for it.)

 
Were you electrically grounded while opening and working on the Yggy?
 
My first Yggy suffered from not being able to connect to a source after about two weeks of operation, however I never tried to open that one up.
 
For some, unplugging the Yggy for a few hours seemed to reset it.  This did work for me once - so it's worth a try.
I believe it's a method Mike M. said to try using if the unit becomes confused.
 
Hopefully that's all it is for you....   Good luck!

 

[jcx]

 
It would be good to get an official confirmation (or otherwise) from Schiit - should we turn off Dither in the medial player before it enters the Yggy? Otherwise it'll dither twice...
 
I'm using JRMC with volume levelling and EQ, I though Dither was necessary. 
 
Incidentally I turned dither off in JRMC and listened to some music last night - I felt there were a bit more detail... but maybe It's my imagination. Would be good to hear results you guys get wit the Yggy and without external dither. 

 
dither isn't "once and done" it is the recommended practice any time bit depth has to be reduced, which is after any processing that uses general multiplies which are followed by decimation to fit a lower word length in the digital representation

 

[RoundRound]

   
dither isn't "once and done" it is the recommended practice any time bit depth has to be reduced, which is after any processing that uses general multiplies which are followed by decimation to fit a lower word length in the digital representation

Thanks mate but looking at the signal path of my JRMC it's connected to the Yggy in a (direct connection 32bit) - doesn't that mean the dither should take place in the Yggy?
 
I've been playing with dither on and off in JRMC and it does change the sound, not sure if it's an improvement or not - that's why I'd love to hear other user's opinions. 

 

[Baldr]

  Mike's few nearly relevant statements can be interpreted as an indication he doesn't use dither - hard to reconcile dither with "bit perfect, dammit"
 
where I'm suggesting dither is better than rounding is inside the Yggy and Schiit's other R2R DAC boxes, applied after the upsamping, megaburrito filter - when the >32 bit DSP FIR output is cut down to the R2R DAC chip native bit depth
 
 
but at the Yggy's 20+ bit resolution the Audible difference is expected to be swamped by amplifier electronic noise, "quiet" home listening room background noise, microphonics of headphones converting your pulse, muscle tremors into sound

I promise from this point forward to refrain from any further postings on steam engine design, yak butter recepies, and rodeo roping techniques so that my lack of relevance may not cause @jcx any further confusion. I also read with interest (also on later posts) his lecture on dither and proper application thereof. I am not positive if @jcx is an Schiit MB DAC owner, a free-lance design debater/designer, or a dither activist.
 
If he is a dither activist, crusading for proper and fair dither for all, he is better advised to target manufacturers other than Schiit. Our software based Yggy makes the addition (or taking away) of dither, as well as many, many other dsp/filter variants trivial (read very cheap). Much of our far more expensive competition has no remedy at all without massive hardware changes. If he is a freelance debater/designer, I would implore him to pitch in and save the environment from the massive greenhouse gas volumes emitted by such wannabe designers as they verbally explain all the wrongs created by evil or naïve audio manufacturers.  In addition, he may find he has far more energy to actually build his own Device once he stops telling everyone else how wrong they are.
 
If he is an Schiit MB DAC owner, than I not just for him as well as all other owners I have barely relevant information herewith:
 
The Schiit MB DAC filters has no dither. Dither is normally added to improve low level measurements. The low-level measurements of the Schiit MB DACs are already amazing. If you have a player that offers dither options, I encourage you to try it out and come to your own conclusions. Experimenting with dither options is harmless.
 
This is not to say that I am opposed to dither. If I decide that dither (or any other megaburrito filter parameter) for the Yggy is needed in the future, it will be very easy for this to be offered.

 

[bearFNF]

So me being an ME and not real friends with magic smoke. I had to go look up the definition of dither.
dith·er
verb
1.be indecisive.
"he was dithering about the election date"
synonyms:hesitate, falter, waver, vacillate, change one's mind, be of two minds, be indecisive, be undecided
2.add white noise to (a digital recording) to reduce distortion of low-amplitude signals.
noun
1.indecisive behavior
"after months of dither they had still not agreed"
2.a state of agitation.
"buses are jammed and dirty and everyone is in a dither over taxis"

Seems like we have a few kinds of "dither" we could be talking about...