[sahmen]

Is there anyone who uses Yggdrasil Analog 2 with the HEK?
I am getting rid of ifi Pro iDSD and and thinking about getting the Yggdrasil..

I have the Yggdrasil Analog 2 paired with a Violectric V281. It was simply superlative with the He-K when I had it. Strangely enough, I have never used the HeKSe on that rig before since I got it, but this is simply because, with the constraints of work on my time, I have found it more convenient to use it (the HeKSE) on a near-field Metrum Onyx + Liquid Platinum combo rig. The onyx/LP combo is excellent for the Hekse, but I suspect the Yggy A2/v281 will be even superior (It was with the original HeK, before I sent it out to Hifiman for the HeKse upgrade, as I have already mentioned)... I was sort of waiting for the Summer months when my normal workload and professional obligations will be reduced in order to free me up time for some great critical listening on the Yggy A2/V281 rig, but I can test drive the HeKse on it one of these days and give you some feedback, if you want... I have no doubt, though, that the HeKSE and the Yggy A2 will be a match made in heaven... It seems like a no-brainer to me... It is something I feel confident about saying even before I do it... The Yggy A2 + V281 simply shine with every HP I throw at them, and these include the mentioned HeK, the He-500, the sennheisers (Hd-600, 6xx, 700, and 800), and the Audezes (Lcd-4, LCDi4, and LCD-X)...

PS. I just realized you are actually asking about the Yggy A2 and the original HeK, and not the HeKSE, as I thought when I began to type this response,... Well I guess you have your answer then : He-K with Yggy A2 is simply divine, assuming, of course, that you don't shortchange yourself on the amp side of things.

 

[franz12]

I have the Yggdrasil Analog 2 paired with a Violectric V281. It was simply superlative with the He-K when I had it. Strangely enough, I have never used the HeKSe on that rig before since I got it, but this is simply because, with the constraints of work on my time, I have found it more convenient to use it (the HeKSE) on a near-field Metrum Onyx + Liquid Platinum combo rig. The onyx/LP combo is excellent for the Hekse, but I suspect the Yggy A2/v281 will be even superior (It was with the original HeK, before I sent it out to Hifiman for the HeKse upgrade, as I have already mentioned)... I was sort of waiting for the Summer months when my normal workload and professional obligations will be reduced in order to free me up time for some great critical listening on the Yggy A2/V281 rig, but I can test drive the HeKse on it one of these days and give you some feedback, if you want... I have no doubt, though, that the HeKSE and the Yggy A2 will be a match made in heaven... It seems like a no-brainer to me... It is something I feel confident about saying even before I do it... The Yggy A2 + V281 simply shine with every HP I throw at them, and these include the mentioned HeK, the He-500, the sennheisers (Hd-600, 6xx, 700, and 800), and the Audezes (Lcd-4, LCDi4, and LCD-X)...

PS. I just realized you are actually asking about the Yggy A2 and the original HeK, and not the HeKSE, as I thought when I began to type this response,... Well I guess you have your answer then : He-K with Yggy A2 is simply divine, assuming, of course, that you don't shortchange yourself on the amp side of things.

Sorry for my unclear question. I was indeed asking about pairing with the HEKse!
Reading your impressions, I just bought the Yggy A2, and am expecting to get it in the next week. As this is my first R2R dac, I am very curious about how they sound. Pretty sure exciting time ahead!

Also, it is great to hear that you also own Metrum Onyx, because I was also interested in Metrum Onyx (or Jade), and it was a hard decision which one I have to buy.
When you have some time later, please let us know what you think about the HEKse paired with the Yggy A2 vs Metrum Onyx. But as always one at a time. No rush

 

[sahmen]

Sorry for my unclear question. I was indeed asking about pairing with the HEKse!
Reading your impressions, I just bought the Yggy A2, and am expecting to get it in the next week. As this is my first R2R dac, I am very curious about how they sound. Pretty sure exciting time ahead!

Also, it is great to hear that you also own Metrum Onyx, because I was also interested in Metrum Onyx (or Jade), and it was a hard decision which one I have to buy.
When you have some time later, please let us know what you think about the HEKse paired with the Yggy A2 vs Metrum Onyx. But as always one at a time. No rush

I feel certain that you will enjoy your Yggy A2. Still, as i am sure you have already heard several times, you will have to give it some time for it to show you its real magic. Fresh out of the box, the Yggy A2 does not necessarily sound remotely bad. However, impressions that are formed too early of its performance are always premature, because the sound does evolve with "burn in" in very noticeable ways, and you start noticing that process of evolution quite early in the game... All you need to do is leave it on 24/7, if you want to get to the magic fast, and after a couple of weeks, give or take, it will hit you with all its force, like a ton a bricks

As for the Onyx, I have been dying to pair it with the v281 in order to see what the combo sounds like... I mean it plays very nicely with the LP, but the LP is not the V281. For headphones that scale well with bigger and better amps, such as the LCD-4, the Yggy A2/V281 have the tendency of bringing out noticeably superior technical properties that i do not seem to hear on the Onyx/LP combo, in spite of how great the latter already sounds...I am eager to learn what difference pairing the Onyx and the V281 will make, and I shall post my findings when I get around to it.

 

[Sound Eq]

seriously i can not figure how hifiman will top the 1000se, its perfect , i have never enjoyed a planar or dynamic as 1000se, its been bout 100 hours on it and to me this is the best upgrade i did from 1000v2.

i love it with ifi ican pro and hugo2, there is nothing left to be desired or to change from what i am hearing

seriously how will hifiman top this one

amazing sound and perfect fit and not heavy which enables one to just kick back and enjoy music

i have upgraded my cable to neotech 16 core and its amazing

 

[Sound Eq]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I've been curious about the Empyrean mostly because it's the shiny new toy around here. Based on what i've read from impressions I'm sure it sounds great but I don't think I would like it more than my HEKse as an all-arounder. If i'm gonna add another headphone to my collection just for fun to mix things up it probably needs to be sub $2k. I would be interested in comparing the Verite and Empyrean, they sound like they may be a bit similar. I've been on the lookout for a used Verite, but it might be a while before people are ready to move on, it's still in the honeymoon period with most people I think.

with all respect to empyrean but it needs eq, while 1000se is perfect

 

[ufospls2]

seriously i can not figure how hifiman will top the 1000se, its perfect , i have never enjoyed a planar or dynamic as 1000se, its been bout 100 hours on it and to me this is the best upgrade i did from 1000v2.

i love it with ifi ican pro and hugo2, there is nothing left to be desired or to change from what i am hearing

seriously how will hifiman top this one

amazing sound and perfect fit and not heavy which enables one to just kick back and enjoy music

i have upgraded my cable to neotech 16 core and its amazing

That must be an awesome combo. Do you feel the 1000SE can be driven satisfactorily from the H2 directly? Which mode are you using the Pro iCAN in?

I'd really love to hear the 1000SE. I love my Susvara, but an easier to drive similar sound would be awesome.

 

[Sound Eq]

That must be an awesome combo. Do you feel the 1000SE can be driven satisfactorily from the H2 directly? Which mode are you using the Pro iCAN in?

I'd really love to hear the 1000SE. I love my Susvara, but an easier to drive similar sound would be awesome.

listening to hugo 2 is nice as well, but i like it from ifi + hugo combo more, i like that combo both in solid state and tube mode

 

[TheAttorney]

A while back I posted about the significant improvements made to my HEK V2 by my upgraded cable (Toxic Silver Widow 22 V2 (no longer trading)) and the Felian port mod. And at the time I wondered if these two tweaks combined could make the HEK V2 sound as good as a stock HEK SE. Well, the short answer is “no”, the stock SE is still ahead (with the proviso that I was comparing my new SE with the 1+ week memory of my traded in V2).

So the next step was to add the Toxic SW cable to my SE. To get this going quickly I ordered a pair of el cheapo 2.5->3.5mm converter plugs via ebay UK dealer at less than £3 inc. postage (you can get them for even less if you’re prepared to wait a couple of weeks for shipping from China). As you can see from the photo below, these plugs look rather smart, and they are also very light. But how do they sound? I was hoping the Toxic SW’s qualities would still mostly shine through whatever compromises introduced by el cheapo plugs.



Unfortunately, they didn’t sound that good: the Toxic SW cable with converters was more detailed than stock cable, but with a thin bright presentation which made me actually prefer the stock cable.So my next step was to get the soldering iron out and completely replace the Toxic 2.5mm plugs with ViaBlue 3.5mm plugs (mid-level audiophile, probably on par with Toxic’s own branded plugs, but still half the price of Furutech’s plugs). Despite my amateur soldering skills, this did the trick, resulting in a full bodied sound that was both clear and smooth (actually overwarm on the first day, but this seemed to open up with time).

The moral of this story is that every detail matters, and you take short cuts at your own risk.

The final step will be to try the Felian port mod on the HEK SE. I’m in no rush for this, as I’m too busy just enjoying listening to music. And I don’t know if this mod is even still appropriate for the SE as it was for V2. But there is a chance it will still work because the SE does share one peculiar characteristic with V2: in both cases, SQ is slightly improved when I’m wearing glasses (as I had described in the Felian port thread).

Edit: With the new cable. It is even more the case that I no longer feel compelled to use Roon's PEQ. The SE sounds really well balanced as is, and seemingly without having the V1/V2 treble peak in the 8-9khz region.And switching off Roon's PEQ has further improved transparency, so it's win/win..

There's the further complication that DAVE's cross-feed function adds between 1db (CF=1) to 1.5db (CF=2) to 1.9db (CF=3) bass boost as a by-product of getting the phase correct. I now find that CF=3 gives a touch too much bass now, so moved to CF=2 where the bass boost is barely noticeable (and in all cases this bass boost is preferable to the transparency loss when invoking Roon's PEQ).

 

[Articnoise]

A while back I posted about the significant improvements made to my HEK V2 by my upgraded cable (Toxic Silver Widow 22 V2 (no longer trading)) and the Felian port mod. And at the time I wondered if these two tweaks combined could make the HEK V2 sound as good as a stock HEK SE. Well, the short answer is “no”, the stock SE is still ahead (with the proviso that I was comparing my new SE with the 1+ week memory of my traded in V2).

So the next step was to add the Toxic SW cable to my SE. To get this going quickly I ordered a pair of el cheapo 2.5->3.5mm converter plugs via ebay UK dealer at less than £3 inc. postage (you can get them for even less if you’re prepared to wait a couple of weeks for shipping from China). As you can see from the photo below, these plugs look rather smart, and they are also very light. But how do they sound? I was hoping the Toxic SW’s qualities would still mostly shine through whatever compromises introduced by el cheapo plugs.



Unfortunately, they didn’t sound that good: the Toxic SW cable with converters was more detailed than stock cable, but with a thin bright presentation which made me actually prefer the stock cable.So my next step was to get the soldering iron out and completely replace the Toxic 2.5mm plugs with ViaBlue 3.5mm plugs (mid-level audiophile, probably on par with Toxic’s own branded plugs, but still half the price of Furutech’s plugs). Despite my amateur soldering skills, this did the trick, resulting in a full bodied sound that was both clear and smooth (actually overwarm on the first day, but this seemed to open up with time).

The moral of this story is that every detail matters, and you take short cuts at your own risk.

.

Yeah I can’t say am surprised by your finding, as simple as an adapter or connector may seems to be, if not properly made they can have a fairly negative effect on SQ. To use lousy connectors made of brass and thin wires on a good audio cable kind of contravene the use of good cable, made with quality wires and connectors, in the first place IMO

 

[moemoney]

Well boys and girls you can add me to the SE club I received mine today and I’m letting them break in. Out of the box I will say there is a noticeable difference from the V2. I’ll give them a week of 24/7 run in, and get back to you on my impressions.

 

[Sound Eq]

Well boys and girls you can add me to the SE club I received mine today and I’m letting them break in. Out of the box I will say there is a noticeable difference from the V2. I’ll give them a week of 24/7 run in, and get back to you on my impressions.

welcome, and report back

 

[Gibson59]

Well boys and girls you can add me to the SE club I received mine today and I’m letting them break in. Out of the box I will say there is a noticeable difference from the V2. I’ll give them a week of 24/7 run in, and get back to you on my impressions.

Congrats, welcome to the party!

 

[Pocketpocky]

Bought these off a member in the selling section. Do you guys see this solder joint in this general area?

 

[llcook51]

welcome, and report back

You must have more will-power than I do. I could not wait for a week before gushing about the sound.

 

[GU1DO]

Bought these off a member in the selling section. Do you guys see this solder joint in this general area?

Yes ,, its normal