[OsminC]

 I had the opportunity to listen to the Yggy/Rag Combo and although I wont comment on the quality (Im too new to the hobby to offer useful feedback) I will say that the environment was not one that would allow us to really gauge the quality of the product. Schiit had a small area in what seemed to be the busiest and smallest room (at least when I was there). HifiMan, Schiit, Oppo, 1964 were all sharing the same crowded room. I personally wished I had more time in a a better environment for both Yggy and the HE1000.  I dont think we should judge based on the feedback from the show. Thats my two cents.

 

[Argo Duck]

Agreed. Home and show environments are completely different. Would be surprising if what works in one works the same in the other. I could even imagine some products being 'tuned' to impress in a show environment. But no! Surely not :eek:

Ironically, I bet the Schiit table gets a lot of attention and is one of the noisier and busier and therefore least ideal places to hear their gear.

Looking forward to responses, as I've wondered the same.

I always try to take reviews with a grain of salt. I would imagine that a product that initially sounds exciting and different ends up being fatiguing for one reason or another, especially if the different sound signature jumps out at a listener so much under less-than-ideal conditions like those at a meet.

 

[Clemmaster]

Been following the CanJam feed especially regarding the Yggy/Rag combo. Not sure what to make of the impressions. Some thought it was okay but nothing special, definitely not the end all and be all the "hype" has led us to believe, and yet others said the magic was definitely there and it appears to be the real deal. On the other hand, the Cavalli stuff got rave reviews from basically everyone.

Several recurring themes that I could glean were listener fatigue (too many systems over too many hours), poor music choices and difficulty finding familiar genres, interface difficulties connecting one's own sources to test rigs, and general elevated sound level of the environment (guy next to you blasting open HFs at 120 dB while you too are using open HFs), all of which can skew the results.

So rather than get depressed that Yggy isn't a whole lot better than than my Gungnir with my Rag and LCD-X, I have to hope that upon release to the public, the forthcoming reviews done under more ideal and typical home situations will prove that the hype wasn't just a bunch of BS. Anyone care to weigh in, especially if you were at the show?

DSN

 
The room Schiit was in was freaking loud all the time I spent there... Not that great to assess this type of gear.
 
Everything I heard in that room sounded pretty mediocre. That includes the HE-1000 and Auralic Vega / Taurus. The room was obviously haunted.
 
Note: I did not listen to the Yggy/Rag in this room.
 
The Yggy + Custom 2A3 + modded HD-800 at Purrin's table was the best at the show, hands down.

 

[purrin]

 
The Yggy + Custom 2A3 + modded HD-800 at Purrin's table was the best at the show, hands down.

 
Ah, ****. Now I gotta buy an HD800 again.

 

[drfindley]

   
The room Schiit was in was freaking loud all the time I spent there... Not that great to assess this type of gear.
 
Everything I heard in that room sounded pretty mediocre. That includes the HE-1000 and Auralic Vega / Taurus. The room was obviously haunted.
 
Note: I did not listen to the Yggy/Rag in this room.
 
The Yggy + Custom 2A3 + modded HD-800 at Purrin's table was the best at the show, hands down.

I think this is the #1 reason why everyone was listening so loudly, they were trying to counteract the noise in the room.
 
And I agree, Purrin's setup was my favorite.

 

[Clemmaster]

   
Ah, ****. Now I gotta buy an HD800 again.

Well, that's according to my own priorities. It definitely had the best sound-stage of any setup at the meet. The "I am there, with them in front of me" feeling was just great. It wasn't too bright for me, but it didn't sound warm either. Just neutral and well executed (so I tolerated the treble presence).
 
Edit: it shouldn't be a surprise anyway: it was already the best setup at last summer's head-fi meet. But I still thought the staging / imaging was better than the M7+OR5 or Bricasti you used last time.

 

[Xcalibur255]

  I'm fairly computer illiterate but just thought I would throw it out there for the windoze frustrations. My auralic dac uses a ASIO driver that was pretty easy to download from foobar and it sounds great. The instructions were inside the auralic manual and very easy to follow, only like 10 steps, 3 pages, 20 min. tops. I'm sure ASIO has its critics but this might be a good way to get around windoze issues and I can tell ya it sounds wonderful.
 
I remember the mac mini talk around the time I bought my tranquility dac. The maker (sorry I can't remember) pretty much told his buyers to buy a mac mini, that his dac would sound better from a mac mini than anything else, $400. I almost went for it but did not. Then I thought about the vortex box that I saw someone on here mention and purchasing a sonore server that was on sale locally in my area, $1k. I then saw why the person was selling it and it was because he got the tidal bug and did not have a need for it anymore, even included 10k songs. Then I tried tidal and yeah I'm a big fan and while I had to download google chrome that took like 2 minutes.
 
My point is to not to get so caught up in the windoze. If I did I would have 2 items at over $1400 that I would have no use for.

A dedicated driver for any DAC's USB input should be achieving the same thing as ASIO:  a hardware direct signal path that the Windows mixer cannot touch or perform resampling upon.

 

[estreeter]

   
Ah, ****. Now I gotta buy an HD800 again.

 
I think you gave up on your old pair too soon, but you have the Abyss so I just assumed you must have found your uber-phone and left it as that. If the 2A3 mentioned above is the answer to the issues that saw you sell your 800s, I look forward to those impressions - certainly no shortage of people who've spent thousands on tubes and mods to try to get the HD800 to be the headphone we all know it's capable of becoming. 

 

[deuter]

I think you gave up on your old pair too soon, but you have the Abyss so I just assumed you must have found your uber-phone and left it as that. If the 2A3 mentioned above is the answer to the issues that saw you sell your 800s, I look forward to those impressions - certainly no shortage of people who've spent thousands on tubes and mods to try to get the HD800 to be the headphone we all know it's capable of becoming. 

All I can say is you don't need to spend thousands on tubes for the hd800 . Try and find a Leben CS300X.

 

[estreeter]

All I can say is you don't need to spend thousands on tubes for the hd800 . Try and find a Leben CS300X.

 
Preferably not one of this batch:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/575746/lebens-owners-request-what-i-found-inside-my-leben-cs-300x-limited

 

[deuter]

Preferably not one of this batch:

http://www.head-fi.org/t/575746/lebens-owners-request-what-i-found-inside-my-leben-cs-300x-limited

Unlikely to get the cs300x as they are super rare. Your best bet would be to buy a 300xs. Nirvana awaits then.

Anyway, let's get back to the topic of ragnarok and yggdrasil.
I'am hoping to read more on the combo, maybe my local store might get a pair in so we can demo.

 

[Ableza]

I have a Leben RS28 preamp in my 2-channel system.  Nice stuff.

 

[agooh]

I listen to Schiit Yggdrasil DAC it didn't impress me, sound good but No X factor . Detail , good separation , good sound stage , lack musicality .

 

[Liu Junyuan]

I listen to Schiit Yggdrasil DAC it didn't impress me, sound good but No X factor . Detail , good separation , good sound stage , lack musicality .

I am sorry, but what does the noun phrase "X factory" translate as?

 

[nicolo]

X factor:
 
1) makes you say "Wow", never experienced that before
2) Whoa. never knew that details like those even existed in my music. Scares you/awes you suddenly by serving up new detail
3) Something outstanding which shows up things we considered excellent
 
Kind of chasing a rabbit and suddenly be hunted by a wolf. After evading the wolf, being crunched up by a Tyrannosaur!