[deuter]

With Schiit's introduction of the Yggdrasil, the DAC vendors are most probably gearing up for their new killer for a price that matches Yggdrasil. Remember Yggdrasil runs up against dacs 2-3x pricelevels. Yggy still have improvements to be done, like better USB signal path (galvanized isolator) and a better analogue signal path, but all at a cost. For the other vendors to survive they need to come up with something that is musical, high-res and has all the new gadgets like re-clocker, galvanization, noise cancelling etc built in! 

I did review HD30 and Yggdrasil is just way more musical. HD30 is more high res yes, but wasnt musical, so Yggi it is for me. CES 2017 will be interesting for sure on the DAC side.

Very naive comments but interesting nontheless .
Show me one hifi show displaying any Schiit.
Excluding headphone events.

 

[landroni]

Show me one hifi show displaying any Schiit.

Have you ever listened to Schiit MB DACs?

 

[manpowre]

Very naive comments but interesting nontheless .
Show me one hifi show displaying any Schiit.
Excluding headphone events.

 
I agree that the lower tier products from Schiit are suited for headphone enthusiasts, but Yggdrasil it taking the normal stereo builders with their need to upgrade from 5-8-10 year old DAC's without having to spend 2-3 times the price for an upgrade that they can say they are happy with.
 
I will say its naive to say that my comments are naive in the first place. This is exactly why I said its going to be an interesting DAC CES 2017! and there is nothing naive in that.

 

[murphythecat]

weird, ross compared hegel hd25 to yggdrasil and preffered hegel.
 
hegel, dangerous and metrum seems to be compared favorably to yggdrasil. 

 

[jsgraha]

weird, ross compared hegel hd25 to yggdrasil and preffered hegel.

hegel, dangerous and metrum seems to be compared favorably to yggdrasil. 

Maybe because he auditioned a cold demo unit?

I can't listened to my almost a year yggy from cold. Sound hard and metallic on its timbre. Usually need about 3-4 days after if my house had a power outage (which happened 4 weeks ago)

But maybe it's preferance as well. Metrum Pavane is a great dac.

 

[murphythecat]

cant wait to know more about exasound exa E22 and T+A dac8, 

 

[XVampireX]

I wonder what's the best DAC right now? I understand that Yggdrasil is somewhere up there but the thing with it being on all the time (Not that I'm against it, my Auralic Vega is up all  the time and it works fine) because if there's even a slight power outage it will take another few hours/days to get back to working with Yggdrasil, that also cancels any demo possibilities or a meet up situation other than in my own place...
 
Chord DAVE seems to be overpriced perhaps even though I like the futuristic styling and there are even some demo videos on YouTube I know that it's stupid judging by a YouTube video, but bare with me, Chord DAVE has them, while the others don't.
 
Metrum Pavane seems to be a balance between Yggdrasil and Chord DAVE, but still barely any information not to say that no videos at all other than the Chinese student that has sold everything to get one, lol.. still no audio samples and I'm quite certain that Metrum Octave won't sound like Pavane.
 
I'm looking for best details, best transparency, some emotion, best holographic sound (Yes, 3D audio at its best)
 
What is a current DAC that will make everyone in the room, in the forum shout "I hate you" ? XD
 
And yes, I sort of mean it....
 
As much as I would like an Yggdrasil because it might really  be good value, I just hate Schiit's "We don't care" marketing.

 

[astrostar59]

  I wonder what's the best DAC right now? 

Pretty impossible question to answer IMO. But as you go up in budget things get better and more choices. If it was me, I would stay on R-2R and be looking at TotalDAC. They get fantastic reviews and I know folk who have one are are very happy. Would be my choice if I could afford the Dual + Server. Between the TotalDAC and the Yggy there is the AMR DP-777, and various Lampizator models. Beyond the TotalDAC there was the MSB Platinum IV but that is not made now and the next MSB is 20K so getting a bit crazy.
 
Used you have dCS, Audio Note DAC 4 and DAC 5, Nagra for under 10K.
 
All IMO and what I would look at. 

 

[manpowre]

  I wonder what's the best DAC right now? I understand that Yggdrasil is somewhere up there but the thing with it being on all the time (Not that I'm against it, my Auralic Vega is up all  the time and it works fine) because if there's even a slight power outage it will take another few hours/days to get back to working with Yggdrasil, that also cancels any demo possibilities or a meet up situation other than in my own place...
 
Chord DAVE seems to be overpriced perhaps even though I like the futuristic styling and there are even some demo videos on YouTube I know that it's stupid judging by a YouTube video, but bare with me, Chord DAVE has them, while the others don't.
 
Metrum Pavane seems to be a balance between Yggdrasil and Chord DAVE, but still barely any information not to say that no videos at all other than the Chinese student that has sold everything to get one, lol.. still no audio samples and I'm quite certain that Metrum Octave won't sound like Pavane.
 
I'm looking for best details, best transparency, some emotion, best holographic sound (Yes, 3D audio at its best)
 
What is a current DAC that will make everyone in the room, in the forum shout "I hate you" ? XD
 
And yes, I sort of mean it....
 
As much as I would like an Yggdrasil because it might really  be good value, I just hate Schiit's "We don't care" marketing.

 
Bricasti M1 upgraded DAC ? It got USB input now.. quiet 3 times the price as Yggdrasil though. But its supposed to be very musical and high detailed.
 
Hegel HD30 was reviewed by me, too crisp and hard and too attacked on the edges. I got tired of music after 30 minutes listening to it. With Yggy I can listen continously for several hours.

 

[deuter]

I have read really good things about the Nagra and Total DAC seemed to be everyone's favourite at Munich.

 

[prot]

I have read really good things about the Nagra and Total DAC seemed to be everyone's favourite at Munich.

Indeed everyone seems to like those. But they are in the $10000+ category. I have more than that in my audio chain but I will never buy such a device, no matter how good it is .. simply cause it is not the kind of trend I want to support.
I also have a lot more respect for an engineer who brings that kind of SQ in the $1-2000 range. Like those Soekris guys who give you the components to build a totaldac-like device for about $1500

 

[deuter]

Indeed everyone seems to like those. But they are in the $10000+ category. I have more than that in my audio chain but I will never buy such a device, no matter how good it is .. simply cause it is not the kind of trend I want to support.
I also have a lot more respect for an engineer who brings that kind of SQ in the $1-2000 range. Like those Soekris guys who give you the components to build a totaldac-like device for about $1500

I know right, I have their R2R in my DAC, so far I haven't heard my system perform at such level that Iam not changing anything in the chain as I might disrupt the balance.

 

[deuter]

Indeed everyone seems to like those. But they are in the $10000+ category. I have more than that in my audio chain but I will never buy such a device, no matter how good it is .. simply cause it is not the kind of trend I want to support.
I also have a lot more respect for an engineer who brings that kind of SQ in the $1-2000 range. Like those Soekris guys who give you the components to build a totaldac-like device for about $1500

 

[Torq]

Back from my travels in Europe.
 
I've updated the post on the first page with those DACs I had an opportunity to listen to while I was travelling (England, France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy).  Some interesting discoveries along the way.  A couple of disappointments too.
 
The disappointments were in two areas.  First in the realm of excellent sounding DACs that could not be made to operate correctly in the environment they'd be living in (when other DACs worked fine in the same scenario), and second in the areas of units not sounding nearly up to par for their price despite lots of hype about them.
 
Only about half of my comparisons while travelling where back-to-back with an Yggdrasil, so some of the units I've now heard have really just been qualified as being worth the extra hoop-jumping for such a back-to-back comparison, while some I won't bother taking further.  Details on which are which will wait for my writing things up properly.
 
Also, while I've had a chance to listen to all of them now, and will post my impressions along with the others, I'm removing the Chord DACs from my possible purchase list until such time as either the 2x and 4x DSD playback issues on current builds of OS X are resolved (one way or another) or I decide I'm never going to use DSD and can ignore the feature.  However, getting any kind support on that issue has been such a farce, especially for gear priced at the level it is, that it's putting me off those products anyway (still love the Mojo, and would heartily recommend it, but I expect a bit more in terms of responsiveness when we're talking about a $13K product and a supposedly supported use case - spending weeks on such issues is nonsense and not something I can support).

 

[johnjen]

Ok so some of us are, oh so patiently waiting, for a scrap, a hint, a culling of the herd so to speak.
 
And, might I suggest the sooner the better?
Why?
 
Because when that RedNet hits your system, well it will suck up a whole bunch of time, and for multiple reasons… 

 
Like SuperGlue will have arrived, and she's a temptress.
 
JJ