[kugino]

Or go to the real concert in Hawaii, come back home to the Yggy, and relive the experience with a $100 bottle of scotch.

Must suck to be poor. Who's laughing now.

can't. she's not having a concert in hawaii...but i get the idea.

 

[Sapientiam]

Wow this thread grew a lot overnight. So let me chuck a spanner in. Y'all have been talking so much about multibit DAC's static performance that you forgot the elephant in the room. I'm not here to say static performance (like DNL, INL) doesn't matter for a MB DAC but I know that dynamic performance matters too and perhaps more when subjective SQ is the goal.
 
Incidentally what's the chip Yggy is using which is the not so well kept secret?

 

[ciphercomplete]

I don't think I have ever heard an argument that multibit DACs are less dynamic than others and certainly hasn't been my experience in listening to many different dacs. I'm not well versed on the technical-design side of this argument though.

 

[Sapientiam]

Perhaps I didn't explain clearly enough - when I spoke of 'dynamic performance' I was talking in the 'objective' realm, not in terms of subjective dynamics.
 
By dynamic performance (using EE-speak, not audiophile) I mean how a DAC chip performs in the time domain as its run faster and faster. Terms like INL and DNL date back to when DACs were used in control systems which are close to DC. Dynamic performance includes aspects such as glitch, settling time and the nature of the settling transient (any overshoot for example).

 

[RiddleyWalker]

I have a question for the DAC-aficionados who frequent this thread - have you heard any implementations of the old Phillips NOS chips (TDA1541, TDA1543, etc) that can compete with the upper-tier DACs discussed in this thread?  I guess it would only be fair to compare with other NOS DACs, but would still to be interested to hear any sort of impressions.  I know the chips don't measure well in frequency, so I'm talking mostly from a subjective standpoint.
 
Lately I've been looking at things like dB Audio Labs Tranquility DAC, Audio Zone DAC-1, and DIY-style designs like this one: http://audio.starting-point-systems.com/

 

[Sapientiam]

TDA1543 shouldn't really be mentioned in the same breath as the mighty TDA1541A. I think Purrin got them confused though because he mentioned Valab and TeraDak which I've only seen use TDA1543 not TDA1541. The link you've shown is to a TDA1543-based design - that's unlikely to be in the same league as top-end DACs as the low-level performance of the chip sucks fairly badly, on one channel more than the other.

 

[Currawong]

  bull testicles.  

 
Unsuitable for a custom title, unfortunately. 

 
 
Iggy vs. Vivaldi stack would be interesting. 

 

[EraserXIV]

Apples and oranges.. $2000 for a real vacation, but resort-grade live music is still resort-grade music. Don't worry about the music, just enjoy the sights, food, and culture.

 

[purrin]

Not all live shows are bad sounding. It depends upon the artist and venue. The worse thing that happens is when the guy behind the console is deaf and doesn't think the sound is loud enough, and he ends up cranking it up making it sound like **** because of the distortion.
 
One of the best sounding shows I saw was Billy Joel concert in the Oakland Coliseum I went to over 20 years ago. Another Sugarcubes/PIL/New Order Concert at Shoreline in Mountain View totally sucked. One of the sequencers died and New Order didn't know what to do. All the small classical concerts in a certain Palo Alto church have been stunning fantastic.
 
This one below was pretty darn good in terms of sound. She's wasn't the main act, so the audio engineers didn't feel a need to crank it up. But then again, she's such an awesome crooner and she can certainly belt it out.
 

 

 
TBH, I don't understand why some people think being an audiophile and concert goer are mutually exclusive things.

 

[drez]

Yggy with 24 bit recordings? Not as important as redbook, but still, important enough to ask...

 

[purrin]

Yggy with 24 bit recordings? Not as important as redbook, but still, important enough to ask...

At this point I have spent too much on audio equipment, and ideally dont want to buy in at a point in time where there are limitations which might not be here in 2 years time, or a years time with Yggy Uber, or Yggy 2.

 
LOL, I have quite a decent amount of few hires, but I didn't bother because I considered the 16-bit masters I have of the same of superior quality. Oh wait, I did try Fleetwood Mac Rumours 24/96. Sounded great.

 

[Baldr]

More later but for now..................
 
AD5791BRUZ - Headline specs:  1 ppm 20-Bit, ±1 LSB INL.  We use 2 per channel (1 per phase) to get an honest 20 bit level of performance.  That is four per Yggy.  The BRUZ version is the higher specced model.
 
I know only 20 bits you say?  You can get a 24 delta sigma bit (advertised) DAC  chips for 3% of the cost of one 5791.  Check it out.  Go to Mouser or Digi-Key and see how much AD5791s cost.  Yup, you get just about $400 worth of DAC chips in every Yggy.  I have seen $10,000 dollar D/A converters with $22 bucks worth of dac chips inside.  The Yggy is by far away the best fu***ng parts cost deal going in the arena of high end DACs
 
Biggest problem was figuring out how to get it running without glitching - sample and hold amps sound like ass.
 
Also you have to drive it with DSP because every sample requires a fixed preamble.
 
For the above reasons, I don't expect a lot of competitors to be using it.  After all, even analog devices told me it was not designed for audio.  The best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't or shouldn't do it.

 

[Clemmaster]

LOL, I have quite a decent amount of few hires, but I didn't bother because I considered the 16-bit masters I have of the same of superior quality. Oh wait, I did try Fleetwood Mac Rumours 24/96. Sounded great.

The one from HDCrack? I think it's too loud. But yeah, aside from that it's pretty good.

 

[SoupRKnowva]

Perhaps I didn't explain clearly enough - when I spoke of 'dynamic performance' I was talking in the 'objective' realm, not in terms of subjective dynamics.

By dynamic performance (using EE-speak, not audiophile) I mean how a DAC chip performs in the time domain as its run faster and faster. Terms like INL and DNL date back to when DACs were used in control systems which are close to DC. Dynamic performance includes aspects such as glitch, settling time and the nature of the settling transient (any overshoot for example).

More later but for now..................

AD5791BRUZ - Headline specs:  1 ppm 20-Bit, ±1 LSB INL.  We use 2 per channel (1 per phase) to get an honest 20 bit level of performance.  That is four per Yggy.  The BRUZ version is the higher specced model.

I know only 20 bits you say?  You can get a 24 delta sigma bit (advertised) DAC  chips for 3% of the cost of one 5791.  Check it out.  Go to Mouser or Digi-Key and see how much AD5791s cost.  Yup, you get just about $400 worth of DAC chips in every Yggy.  I have seen $10,000 dollar D/A converters with $22 bucks worth of dac chips inside.  The Yggy is by far away the best fu***ng parts cost deal going in the arena of high end DACs

Biggest problem was figuring out how to get it running without glitching - sample and hold amps sound like ass.

Also you have to drive it with DSP because every sample requires a fixed preamble.

For the above reasons, I don't expect a lot of competitors to be using it.  After all, even analog devices told me it was not designed for audio.  The best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't or shouldn't do it.

Mr Moffat, I'd be interested in what you thought about the dynamic performance of the DAC chip you're using, as brought up by sapientiam.

 

[purrin]

  The best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't or shouldn't do it.

 
No way you can you stick all this Yggy **** into Gungnir. No way. Too much crap to stick into that small footprint. You shouldn't even try.